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]
