THE COMMERCIAL ARRANGEMENTS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND IRELAND, 1782-1800.
The commercial relations between England and Ireland in the interval
between 1782 and 1800 should be clearly understood.
Ireland had, by the Acts of 1779 and 1780, obtained the freedom of
foreign and colonial trade, both of export and of import.
By an Act of 1793, she had obtained liberty to re-export foreign and
colonial goods from her own shores to England.[142]
She had, by an English Act of the same year, got the illusory privilege
of having an eight-hundred-ton East Indiaman to make up a cargo for
the East in her ports. But she had not free trade to the East, nor had
she the admission to English ports for her goods.[143] "The practical
boon," says Mr. Butt, "that was won for the Irish nation (by the
Volunteers), was the right of the Parliament of Ireland to control our
own harbours, and to regulate our own trade. Of course the trade of
Ireland was subject to the interference which England could exercise by
her dominion over the colonies and dependencies of the Imperial Crown.
A law which would have prohibited the exportation of Irish goods either
to England or France or Canada, would have been beyond the power of
the English Parliament to pass, but it was perfectly competent to that
Parliament to prohibit the importation of these goods into England or
Canada, just in the same manner as the French Government might have
prohibited their importation into France. The English Parliament was
the supreme legislature for England and the colonies, and had just the
same power of legislating against the importation of Irish products, as
they would have had against those of Holland or of France."
Thus stood the Irish Parliament in constitutional position from 1782
until its dissolution.[144]
England, as we have seen, had laid prohibitory duties on Irish
manufactures, whereas Ireland, bound by the chain of Poynings' Law,
was unable to protect her own industries. "It was very natural," in
the words of Mr. Pitt, "that Ireland, with an independent legislature,
should now look for perfect equality."
In 1783 Mr. Griffiths, advocating in the Irish House of Commons the
protection of Irish manufacturers, said: "Lord North knew very well
when he granted you a free trade that he gave you nothing, or, at most,
a useless bauble, and when petitions were delivered against our free
trade by several manufacturing towns in England, he assured them in
circular letters that nothing effectual had or should be granted to
Ireland."[145]
The Irish Parliament, however, on obtaining legislative independence,
refrained from measures of retaliation in the hope that the commercial
relations of both countries would be settled on a satisfactory basis.
Mr. Pitt, in introducing in the English House of Commons his celebrated
Commercial Propositions for the regulation of trade between England
and Ireland, thus speaks: "To this moment (February, 1785) no change
had taken place in the intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland
themselves. Some trivial points, indeed, had been changed, but no
considerable changes had taken place in our manufactures exported to
Ireland, or in theirs imported to England. That, therefore, which
had been done was still believed by the people of Ireland to be
insufficient, and clamours were excited and suggestions published in
Dublin and elsewhere of putting duties on our products and manufactures
under the name of protecting duties."[146]
Chief Justice Whiteside thus states summarily the scope of Mr. Pitt's
propositions:--
"It was proposed to allow the importation of the produce of all other
countries through Great Britain into Ireland, or through Ireland into
Great Britain, without any increase of duty on that account. It was
proposed, as to any article produced or manufactured in Ireland or
in England, where the duties were then different on importation into
either country, to reduce those duties in the kingdom where they were
highest down to the lower scale. And it was asked from Ireland that
when the gross hereditary revenue should rise above a fixed sum, the
surplus should be appropriated towards the support of the naval force
of the Empire. These propositions passed through both branches of the
Irish Legislature, were remitted to England, and by Pitt laid before
the British House of Commons. He was immediately attacked by Fox and
the Whigs, aided by Lord North, who one and all declared themselves
the uncompromising enemies of free trade. And these factious men
declared that in the interests of the British manufacturers they could
not allow Irish fustians to be brought into England to ruin English
manufacturers. The fustian they affected to fear was nothing to be
compared with the fustian of their speeches. The enlightened views
of the great Conservative minister were in a measure baffled by the
shameful opposition of Fox, and of his friends in Parliament, and of
thick-headed cotton manufacturers out of the House. The result was
that Pitt was coerced to introduce exceptions and limitations. The
eleven propositions grew up to twenty, the additional propositions
relating to various subjects, patents, copyrights, fisheries, colonial
produce, navigation laws, the enactment as to which was that whatever
navigation laws were then, or should thereafter be enacted by the
Legislature of Great Britain, should also be enacted by the Legislature
of Ireland; and in favour of the old East India Company monopoly,
Ireland was debarred from all trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope to
the Straits of Magellan." "There seemed to be nothing hurtful to the
pride of Ireland in the affair. But when Fox found that his great rival
defeated him on the commercial part of the question, he artfully, as
Lord Stanhope shows, changed his ground of attack, and availing himself
of the limitations which Pitt had been compelled to introduce into his
original scheme, Fox cried out that this was a breach of Ireland's
newly-granted independence. 'I will not,' said Fox, with incredible
hypocrisy, or with incredible folly, 'I will not barter English
commerce for Irish slavery, this is not the price I would pay, nor is
this the thing I would purchase.'" "When the twenty propositions of Mr.
Pitt were returned to the Irish Parliament, they encountered a fierce
and protracted opposition. Mr. Grattan's speech has been extolled as
one of his ablest--it is not intemperate. His chief objection was to
the fourth resolution, by which he said, 'We are to agree to subscribe
whatever laws the Parliament (of England) shall subscribe respecting
navigation; we are to have no legislative power--then there is an end
of your free trade and of your free Constitution.' He also curiously
objected that the measure was 'an union--an incipient and a creeping
union--a virtual union establishing one will in the general concerns
of commerce and navigation, and reposing that will in the Parliament
of Great Britain.'" "Dublin was illuminated, the people exulted in the
abandonment of the scheme."[147]
"It was not," says Mr. John O'Connell, "till after a fair experiment
and delay that the Irish Parliament, despairing of getting England
to terms by fair means, commenced retaliation. To this we have the
incontestable testimony of the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry in
1822, an authority by no means disposed to be over-favourable to Irish
interests or over-anxious for the credit of the Irish Parliament. In
their fourth report, speaking of the system of restrictions on English
goods and bounties on their own, to which that Parliament had recourse,
they say:
"Ireland was undoubtedly instigated to the adoption of this course by
the exclusive spirit of the commercial policy of England. It will be
found that few exceptions in favour of the sister kingdom were inserted
in the list of goods absolutely prohibited to be imported into this
country (England), in which list all goods made of cotton-wool, every
description of manufactured woollen, silk, and leather, together with
cattle, sheep, malt, stuffs, and other less important articles were
at one time comprehended. In this embarrassing situation of exclusion
from the markets of Great Britain, and deriving little assistance from
foreign trade, Ireland had no other course to pursue for the protection
of her own industry except that of maintaining, by restrictive duties
on the importations from Great Britain, the manufacturing means she
possessed for the supply of her own markets."[148]
That Ireland made a great advance in prosperity in the interval
between 1782 and 1800 is in my judgment incontrovertible.
Mr. O'Connell, when conducting his own defence in the State Trials of
1844, thus spoke with reference to this subject:
"I may be asked whether I have proved that the prophecy of Fox was
realised--that the prosperity that was promised to Ireland was actually
gained by reason of her legislative independence. Now, pray, listen to
me; I shall tell you the evidence by which I shall demonstrate this
fact. It is curious that the first of them is from Mr. Pitt, again in
the speech he made in 1799 in favour of the resolutions for carrying
the Union. If he could have shown that Ireland was in distress and
destitution, that her commerce was lessened, that her manufactures
were diminished, that she was in a state of suffering and want by
reason of, or during the legislative independence of the country,
of course he would have made it his topic in support of his case,
to show that a separate Legislature had worked badly, and produced
calamities and not blessings; but the fact was too powerful for him.
He had ingenuity to avail himself of the fact, which fact he admitted;
and let us see how he admitted it. He admitted the prosperity of
Ireland, and here was his reasoning. Now, mark it. 'As Ireland,' he
said, 'was so prosperous under her own Parliament, we can calculate
that the amount of her prosperity will be trebled under a British
Legislature.' He first quoted a speech of Mr. Foster's in 1785, in
these words:--'The exportation of Irish produce to England amounts
to two millions and a half annually, and the exportation of British
produce to Ireland amounts to one million.' Instead of saying, 'You
are in want and destitution; unite with England, and you will be
prosperous,' he was driven to admit this: 'Ireland is prosperous now
with her own Parliament, but it will be trebly prosperous when you
give up that Parliament, or have it joined with the Parliament of
England.' So absurd a proposition was never yet uttered; but it shows
how completely forced he was to admit Irish prosperity, when no other
argument was left in his power; but the absurd observation I have read
to you. He gives another quotation from Foster, in which it is said
Britain imports annually £2,500,000 of our products, all, or nearly
all, duty free, and we import a million of hers, and raise a revenue
on almost every article of it. This relates to the year 1785. Pitt
goes on to say: 'But how stands the case now (1799)? The trade at this
time is infinitely more advantageous to Ireland. It will be proved
from the documents I hold in my hand--as far as relates to the mere
interchange of manufactures--that the manufactures exported to Ireland
from Great Britain in 1797 very little exceeded one million sterling
(the articles of produce amount to nearly the same sum); whilst Great
Britain, on the other hand, imported from Ireland to the amount of
more than three millions in the manufacture of linen and linen-yarn,
and between two and three millions in provisions and cattle, besides
corn and other articles of produce.' 'That,' said Mr. Pitt, 'was in
1785, three years after her legislative independence; that was the
state of Ireland.' You have seen, gentlemen, that picture. You have
heard that description. You have heard that proof of the prosperity
of Ireland. She then imported little more than one million's worth of
English manufacture; she exported two and a half millions of linen and
linen-yarn, adding to that the million of other exports. There is a
picture given of her internal prosperity. Recollect that we now (1844)
import largely English manufactures, and that the greatest part of the
price of these manufactures consists of wages which the manufacturer
gives to the persons who manufacture them. £2,500,000 worth of linen
and linen-yarn were exported, and one million of other goods. Compare
that with the present state of things. Does not every one of you know
there is scarcely anything now manufactured in Ireland, that nearly all
the manufactures used in Ireland are imported from England? I am now
showing the state of Irish prosperity at the time I am talking of. I
gave you the authority of Foster (no small one) and of Pitt for Irish
prosperity during that time. I will give you the authority of another
man that was not very friendly to the people of this country--that of
Lord Clare. Lord Clare made a speech in 1798, which he subsequently
published, and in which I find this remarkable passage, to which I
beg leave to direct your particular attention. 'There is not,' said
his lordship, 'a nation on the face of the habitable globe which has
advanced in cultivation, in manufactures, with the same rapidity in
the same period as Ireland' (namely, from 1782 to 1798). That was
the way in which Irish legislative independence worked, and I have
in support of it the evidence of Pitt, Foster, and Lord Clare; and
Lord Grey, in 1799, talking of Scotland in the same years, says: 'In
truth, for a period of more than forty years after the [Scottish]
Union, Scotland exhibited no proofs of increased industry and rising
wealth.' Lord Grey, in continuation, stated that 'till after 1748 there
was no sensible advance of the commerce of Scotland. Several of her
manufactures were not established till sixty years after the Union, and
her principal branch of manufacture was not set up, I believe, till
1781. The abolition of the heritable jurisdictions was the first great
measure that gave an impulse to the spirit of improvement in Scotland.
Since that time the prosperity of Scotland has been considerable, but
certainly not so great as that of Ireland has been within the same
period.' Lord Plunket, in his speech in 1799, in one of his happiest
efforts of oratory, speaks of her as of 'a little island, with a
population of four or five millions of people, hardy, gallant, and
enthusiastic, possessed of all the means of civilisation, agriculture,
and commerce well pursued and understood, a Constitution fully
recognised and established, her revenues, her trade, her manufactures
thriving beyond her hope, or the example of any other country of her
extent, within these few years advancing with a rapidity astonishing
even to herself, not complaining of deficiency in these respects, but
enjoying and acknowledging her prosperity.'
"Gentlemen of the Jury, I will now direct your attention to such
documents as will tend to corroborate the facts contained in those I
have already adverted to. You have heard that in 1810 a meeting was
held in Dublin to petition the Legislature for a Repeal of the Union. I
will read an unconnected passage from a speech delivered by a gentleman
belonging to a most respectable house in this city.[149] It is as
follows:--'Some of us remember this country before we recovered and
brought back our Constitution in the year 1782. We are reminded of it
by the present period. Then as now our merchants were without trade,
our shopkeepers without customers, our workmen without employment;
then as now it became the universal feeling that nothing but the
recovery of our rights could save us. Our rights were recovered, and
how soon afterwards, as if by magic, plenty smiled on us, and we
soon became prosperous and happy.' Let me next adduce the testimony
of a class of citizens who, from their position and the nature of
their avocations, were well calculated to supply important evidence
on the state of Ireland subsequent to the glorious achievements of
1782. The bankers of Dublin held a meeting on the 18th of December,
1798, at which they passed the following resolutions:--'Resolved,
that since the renunciation of the power of Great Britain in 1782 to
legislate for Ireland, the commerce and prosperity of this kingdom
have eminently increased,' 'Resolved, that we attribute these
blessings, under Providence, to the wisdom of the Irish Parliament.'
The Guild of Merchants met on the 14th January, 1799, and passed a
resolution declaring 'That the commerce of Ireland has increased,
and her manufactures improved beyond example, since the independence
of this kingdom was restored by the exertions of our countrymen in
1782. Resolved, that we look with abhorrence on any attempt to deprive
the people of Ireland of their Parliament, and thereby of their
constitutional right and immediate power to legislate for themselves.'
I have given abundance of proofs, from extracts I have read, of the
prosperity of Ireland under the fostering care of her own Parliament.
A Parliamentary document shows that, from 1785 to the period of the
Union, the increase in the consumption of teas in Ireland was 84
per cent., while it was only 45 per cent. in England. The increase
of tobacco in Ireland was 100 per cent., in England 64; in wine, in
Ireland 74 per cent., in England 52; in sugar, 57 per cent. in Ireland,
and in England 53; in coffee, in Ireland 600 per cent., in England 75.
You have this proof of the growing prosperity of Ireland from the most
incontestable evidence. No country ever so rapidly improved as Ireland
did in that period."[150]
FOOTNOTES:
[142] 33 Geo. III. (Eng.), c. 63.
[143] "An Argument for Ireland," p. 210.
[144] "Irish Federalism," pp. 38, 39.
[145] "Irish Debates," iii. 133.
[146] "Parliamentary Register," xvii., p. 250.
[147] "Life and Death of the Irish Parliament," pp. 142-145. Mr.
Morley's account of the part taken by Fox in this transaction is
substantially in accord with that given by Chief Justice Whiteside. See
"English Men of Letters"--"Edmund Burke," by John Morley, p. 125.
[148] "An Argument for Ireland," p. 211.
[149] A Mr. Hutton, the head of a great carriage manufactory in Dublin.
[150] "R. _v._ O'Connell," pp. 623-626. This part of Mr. O'Connell's
speech is simply an echo of the speech he delivered in 1843 during
the discussion in the Dublin Corporation on Repeal of the Union, in
which he relied on the same documentary evidence of Ireland's material
prosperity between 1782 and 1800. These proofs could easily be
multiplied. Thus Mr. Jebb, afterwards a Justice of the Court of King's
Bench in Ireland, published a pamphlet in 1798, in which he says: "In
the course of fifteen years our commerce, our agriculture, and our
manufactures have swelled to an amount that the most sanguine friends
of Ireland could not have dared to prognosticate."