J. G. Swift MacNeill

THE IRISH VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT AND FREE TRADE.

The nature and effects of the Irish Volunteer Movement have often been stated and explained. I can only touch upon this movement in a very cursory manner, confining myself strictly to its bearings on the commercial arrangements between Great Britain and Ireland. A very superficial study of Irish history will show that national movements have a tendency to grow out of controversies on trade and mercantile questions. Thus the destruction of the woollen trade by the English Parliament led Irish politicians to question the right of that Parliament to legislate for Ireland at all. William Molyneux, in his celebrated "Case of Ireland stated," published in 1698, asks, "Shall we of this kingdom be denied the birthright of every free-born English subject by having laws imposed on us when we are neither personally nor representatively present?"[121] "That book," says Chief Justice Whiteside, "met with a fate which it did not deserve. The English Parliament ordered that it should be burned, and thereby much increased the estimation in which it was held in Ireland."[122] Thus, too, the agitation against Wood's half-pence, a purely commercial topic, assumed insensibly a national complexion. In his fourth Drapier's letter, Swift changes the controversy into an examination of Ireland's political condition. "The remedy," he says, "is wholly in your own hands, and therefore I have digressed a little in order to refresh and continue that spirit so seasonably raised among you, and to let you see that by the laws of God, of nature, and of nations, and of your country, you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England."[123] Swift's prosecution by the Government of the day and its failure are well known. Lord Chief Justice Whiteside thus comments on his public conduct. "Had there been a few in the Irish Parliament possessed of the originality, energy, honesty, and capacity of Swift, the management of political affairs and the true interests of the country would have been speedily improved instead of being shamefully neglected. Swift created a public opinion; Swift inspired hope, courage, and a spirit of justifiable resistance in the people; Swift taught Irishmen they had a country to love, to raise, and to cherish. No man who recalls the affectionate respect paid by his countrymen to Swift while he lived, to his memory when dead, can impute political ingratitude to be amongst the vices of the Irish people."[124]

Then, again, besides actively disputing England's right to destroy the trade and manufactures of the country, there was another remedy which lay in the people's own hands. They could, by the exercise of self-control, use Irish manufactures alone.

"England," says Mr. Froude, "might lay a veto on every healthy effort of parliamentary legislation; but England could not touch the self-made laws which the conscience and spirit of the nation might impose upon themselves." Hely Hutchinson has pointed out, that "the not importing goods from England is one of the remedies recommended by the Council of Trade in 1676 for alleviating some distress that was felt at the time; and Sir William Temple, a zealous friend to the trade and manufactures of England, recommends to Lord Essex, then Lord Lieutenant, to introduce, as far as can be, a vein of parsimony throughout the country in all things that are not perfectly the native growths and manufactures. The people of England cannot reasonably object to a conduct of which they have given a memorable example. In 1697 the English House of Lords presented an Address to King William to discourage the use and wearing of all sorts of furniture and cloths not of the growth and manufacture of that kingdom, and beseech him, by his royal example, effectually to encourage the use and wearing of all sorts of furniture and wearing cloths that are the growth of that kingdom or manufactured there; and King William assures them that he would give the example to his subjects, and would endeavour to make it effectually followed. The reason assigned by the Lords for this Address was that the trade of the nation had suffered by the late long and expensive war. But it does not appear that there was any pressing necessity at the time, or that their manufacturers were starving for want of employment.

"Common sense must discover to every man that when foreign trade is restrained, discouraged, or prevented in any country, and where that country has the materials for manufactures, a fruitful soil, and numerous inhabitants, the home trade is its best resource. If this is thought by men of great knowledge to be the most valuable of all trades, because it makes the speediest and surest returns, and because it increases at the same time two capitals in the same country, there is no nation on the globe whose wealth, population, strength, and happiness would be promoted by such a trade in a greater degree than ours."[125]

The author of the "Commercial Restraints" was a barrister of great eminence, who had been Prime Serjeant, was a member of the Irish Privy Council, Principal Secretary of State, and Provost of Trinity College, and a distinguished member of the Irish Parliament. This book, however, obtained a reception similar to that accorded to the "Case of Ireland," and the fourth Drapier's letter. In the fly-leaf of the copy in the Library of the Honourable Society of the King's Inns, which I have utilised in arranging this treatise, there are the following observations:—"Of this remarkable book see the Times of February 14, 1846. Extract of a letter of Sir Valentine Blake, M.P. for Galway, in which he says, 'that immediately after its publication it was suppressed, and burned by the common hangman, and that Mr. Flood, in his place in the House of Commons, said he would give one thousand pounds for a copy, and that the libraries of all the three branches of the Legislature could not procure one copy of this valuable work.'" The editor of a new edition tells us that there are two copies of the work in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, both of which have been recently obtained, and from one of them the reprint is taken.[126] When Hely Hutchinson, in 1779, advocated "the necessity of using our own manufactures," he stated with accuracy that such arguments, though never so universal as at that time, were no new idea in Ireland. It had been recommended half a century before by Swift, and the celebrated Bishop Berkeley. "I heard," said Swift, writing in 1720, "the late Archbishop of Tuam (Dr. John Vesey) make a pleasant observation that Ireland would never be happy till a law was made for burning everything that came from England, except their people and their coals."[127] Again, in 1727, he says, "The directions to Ireland are very short and simple, to encourage agriculture and home consumption, and utterly discard all importations that are not absolutely necessary for health or life."[128] Bishop Berkeley, in the "Querist," published in 1731, asks these questions, which show clearly his views:—"Whether there be upon the earth any Christian or civilised people so beggarly wretched or destitute as the common Irish? Whether, nevertheless, there is any other people whose wants may be more easily supplied from home?"[129] This advice was acted on by the Irish people "after fifty years of expectation." "A great figure," says Chief Justice Whiteside, "now appears upon the stage of public life—Henry Grattan, who took his seat for Charlemont in December, 1775, and began his splendid, though chequered career. The condition of Ireland at this epoch was deplorable. Her industry was shackled, her trade was paralysed, her landed interest was depressed, her exchequer empty, her pension list enormous, her shores undefended, her army withdrawn. The policy and maxims of Swift were revived, a spirit of discontent and a spirit of independence pervaded the nation; the colonies had revolted, republican ideas were afloat in the world, and Ireland was menaced with invasion. The Government, on being applied to for troops, declared they had none to spare, and that Ireland must protect herself. The Volunteer Movement then commenced, and, to the amazement of ministers, they soon stood face to face with an armed nation."[130]

Mr. Froude draws this picture of the condition of Ireland in 1779. "The grand juries represented that the fields and highways were filled with crowds of wretched beings half naked and starving. Foreign markets were closed to them. The home market was destroyed by internal distress, and the poor artisans who had supported themselves by weaving were without work and without food. They had bought English goods as long as they had the means to buy them. Now in their time of dire distress they had hoped the English Parliament would be their friend. They learnt with pain and surprise that the only boon which could give them relief was still withheld. They besought the king to interpose in their favour, and procure them leave to export and sell at least the coarse frieze blankets and flannels, which the peasants' wives and children produced in their cabins. Eloquence and entreaty were alike in vain. The English Parliament, though compelled at least to listen to the truth, could not yet bend itself to act upon it. The House of Commons still refused to open the woollen trade in whole or in part, and Ireland, now desperate and determined, and treading ominously in the steps of America, adopted the measures which long before had been recommended by Swift, and resolved to exclude from the Irish market every article of British manufacture which could be produced at home."[131]

The Earl of Shelburne, speaking in the British House of Lords on the 1st of December, 1779, thus described the attitude of Ireland:—

"Ireland disclaimed any connection with Great Britain, she instantly put herself in a condition of defence against her foreign enemies; oppressed at one time by England, and at length reduced to a state of calamity and distress experienced by no other country that ever existed, unless visited by war or famine, and perceiving that all prospect of justice or relief was in a manner finally closed, and that she must perish or work out her own salvation, she united as one man to rescue herself from that approaching destruction which seemed to await her. The people instantly armed themselves and the numbers armed soon increased to upwards of 40,000 men, and were daily augmenting. This most formidable body was not composed of mercenaries, who had little or no interest in the issue, but of the nobility, gentry, merchants, citizens, and respectable yeomanry, men able and willing to devote their time and part of their property to the defence of the whole and the protection and security of their country. The Government had been abdicated and the people resumed the powers vested in it, and in doing so were fully authorised by every principle of the Constitution, and every motive of self-preservation, and whenever they should again delegate their inherent power they firmly and wisely determined to have it so regulated and placed upon so large and liberal a basis that they should not be liable to suffer from the same oppression in time to come, nor feel the fatal effects and complicated evils of maladministration, of calamity without hope of redress, or of iron-handed power without protection.

"To prove that these were the declared and real sentiments of the whole Irish nation, he should not dwell upon this or that particular circumstance, upon the resolutions of country or town meetings, upon the language of the associations, upon the general prevalent spirit of all descriptions of men of all religions; matters of this kind, however true or manifest, were subject to and might admit of controversy. He would solely confine himself to a passage contained in a State paper, he meant the Address of both Houses of the Irish Parliament, declaring that nothing but the granting the kingdom a 'free trade' could save it from certain ruin. Here was the united voice of the country conveyed through its proper constitutional organs, both Houses of Parliament, to his Majesty, against which there was but one dissentient voice in the Houses, not a second, he believed, in the whole kingdom. Church of England men and Roman Catholics, Dissenters, and sections of all denominations, Whigs and Tories, if any such were to be found in Ireland, placemen, pensioners, and county gentlemen, Englishmen by birth, in short, every man in and out of the House, except the single instance mentioned, had all united in a single opinion that nothing would relieve the country short of a free trade."[132]

His lordship proceeds to explain the meaning of the expression "free trade," which was used in a sense different from the modern acceptation of that term:—

"A free trade, he was well persuaded, by no means imported an equal trade. He had many public and private reasons to think so. A free trade imported, in his opinion, an unrestrained trade to every part of the world, independent of the control, regulation, or interference of the British Legislature. It was not a speculative proposition, confined to theory or mere matter of argument; the people of Ireland had explained the context, if any ambiguity called for such an explanation; he received accounts from Ireland that a trade was opened between the northern part of Ireland and North America with the privity of Congress, and indemnification from capture by our enemies; that provision ships had sailed to the same place—nay, more, that Doctor Franklyn, the American Minister at Paris, had been furnished with full power to treat with Ireland upon regulations of commerce and mutual interest and support, and that whether or not any such treaty should take place, the mutual interests of both countries, their very near affinity in blood, and their established intercourse, cemented farther by the general advantages arising from an open and unrestrained trade between them, would necessarily perfect what had already actually begun."[133]

Mr. Lecky thus accurately and distinctly describes the nature of the commercial arrangements under which Ireland obtained the limited free trade which she enjoyed, with some modifications, till the Union:—

"The fear of bankruptcy in Ireland; the non-importation agreements, which were beginning to tell upon English industries; the threatening aspect of an armed body, which already counted more than 40,000 men; the determined and unanimous attitude of the Irish Parliament; the prediction of the Lord-Lieutenant that all future military grants in Ireland depended upon his (Lord North's) course; the danger that England, in the midst of a great and disastrous war, should be left absolutely without a friend, all weighed upon his mind; and at the close of 1779, and in the beginning of 1780, a series of measures was carried in England which exceeded the utmost that a few years before the most sanguine Irishman could have either expected or demanded. The Acts which prohibited the Irish from exporting their woollen manufactures and their glass were wholly repealed, and the great trade of the colonies was freely thrown open to them. It was enacted that all goods that might be legally imported from the British settlements in America and Africa to Great Britain, may be in like manner imported directly from those settlements into Ireland, and that all goods which may be legally exported from Great Britain into those settlements may in like manner be exported from Ireland, on the sole condition that duties equal to those in British ports be imposed by the Irish Parliament on the goods and exports of Ireland. The Acts which prohibited carrying gold and silver into Ireland were repealed. The Irish were allowed to import foreign hops. They were allowed to become members of the Turkey Company, and to carry on a direct trade between Ireland and the Levant Sea.[134]

"Thus fell to the ground that great system of commercial restriction which began under Charles II., which under William III. acquired a crushing severity, and which had received several additional clauses in the succeeding reigns. The measures of Lord North, though obviously due in a great measure to intimidation and extreme necessity, were at least largely, wisely, and generously conceived, and they were the main sources of whatever material prosperity Ireland enjoyed during the next twenty years. The English Parliament had been accustomed to grant a small bounty—rising in the best years to £13,000—on the importation into England of the plainer kinds of Irish linen. After the immense concessions made to Irish trade, no one could have complained if this bounty had been withdrawn, but North determined to continue it. He showed that it had been of real use to the Irish linen manufacture, and he strongly maintained that the prosperity of Ireland must ultimately prove a blessing to England."[135]

Speaking at the Guildhall in Bristol in 1780, Edmund Burke thus described the concessions to Ireland and the series of circumstances to which these measures owed their origin:—

"The whole kingdom of Ireland was instantly in a flame. Threatened by foreigners, and, as they thought, insulted by England, they resolved at once to resist the power of France and to cast off yours. As for us, we were able neither to protect nor to restrain them. Forty thousand men were raised and disciplined without commission from the Crown; two illegal armies were seen with banners displayed at the same time and in the same country. No executive magistrate, no judicature in Ireland, would acknowledge the legality of the army which bore the King's commission, and no law or appearance of law authorised the army commissioned by itself. In this unexampled state of things, which the least error, the least trespass on our part would have hurried down the precipice into an abyss of blood and confusion, the people of Ireland demanded a freedom of trade with arms in their hands. They interdict all commerce between the two nations; they deny all new Supply in the House of Commons, although in time of war; they stint the trust of the old revenue given for two years to all the King's predecessors to six months. The British Parliament, in a former session frightened into a limited concession by the menaces of Ireland, frightened out of it by the menaces of England, were now frightened back again, and made an universal surrender of all that had been thought the peculiar, reserved, uncommunicable rights of England—the exclusive commerce of America, of Africa, of the West Indies, all the enumerations of the Acts of Navigation, all the manufactures—iron, glass, even the sacred fleece itself—all went together. No reserve, no exception, no debate, no discussion. A sudden light broke in upon us all. It broke in, not through well-contrived and well-disposed windows, but through flaws and breaches, through the yawning chasms of our ruin. We were taught wisdom by humiliation. No town in England presumed to have a prejudice or dared to mutter a petition. What was worse, the whole Parliament of England, which retained authority for nothing but surrenders, was despoiled of every shadow of its superintendence. It was, without any qualification, denied in theory as it had been trampled upon in practice."[136]

"The chain," says Mr. Froude, "was allowed to remain till it was broken by the revolt of the American colonies, and Ireland was to learn the deadly lesson that her real wrongs would receive attention only when England was compelled to remember them through fear."[137]

The commercial privileges thus obtained would have been practically valueless unless accompanied with legislative independence. I have explained the system by which measures proposed by the Irish Parliament were robbed of their efficiency by the action of the English and Irish Privy Councils. "To prevent," says Mr. Froude, "the Irish Parliament from being troublesome, it was chained by Poynings' Act; and when the Parliament was recalcitrant, laws were passed by England over its head." At this time the English Privy Council actively exercised its influence on the commercial legislation of the Irish Parliament. "The business of sugar-refining had recently taken great head in Ireland, and the Irish Parliament sought to defend it against the English monopoly by an import duty on refined sugar; while they sought to give it a fair stimulus by admitting raw sugar at a low rate. This the Privy Council reversed, reducing the duty on refined sugar 20 per cent. under the drawback allowed in England to the English refiner on export, and thereby giving the latter a virtual premium to that amount, and also increasing the duty on the raw sugar. The time was ill-chosen for further invasions on Irish rights."[138] "Several minor circumstances concurred to exasperate the Irish people still further, and to render irrevocable and, soon after, irresistible, their determination to have a free Parliament, without which they said they never could obtain the extension of their trade amongst other benefits sought, nor even be sure of preserving what had been conceded to them."[139] Chief Justice Whiteside has given, in a few words, this spirited and accurate description of the attainment of Irish legislative independence—"Down went Poynings' Law, useful in its day; down went the Act of Philip and Mary; down went the obnoxious statute of George I.; the Mutiny Bill was limited; restrictions on Irish trade vanished; the ports were opened; the Judges were made irremovable and independent. I cannot join in the usual exultation at the proceedings of the volunteers; on the contrary, I regret their occurrence. Not that I think the resolutions carried at Dungannon were in themselves unjust; not that I would hesitate to claim for Ireland all the rights possessed by our English fellow-subjects; but because all these inestimable advantages were not granted by the wisdom of the Government, through the recognised channel of Parliament, and were carried at the point of the bayonet. The precedent was dangerous. Had Walpole been alive he would have repented his blunder in listening to Primate Boulter, and refusing to be advised by the counsels of Swift. But the deed was done."[140] On the 16th of April, 1782, in the Irish House of Commons, Grattan thus expressed his high-wrought enthusiasm:—

"I found Ireland on her knees. I watched over her with an eternal solicitude. I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your genius has prevailed. Ireland is now a nation. In that new character I hail her, and bowing in her august presence, I say, Esto Perpetua."[141]