"Mr. Jebb, member for Callan in the Irish Parliament, thus speaks of the advance of the country in prosperity, in a pamphlet published in 1798:
"'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 would not have dared to prognosticate.'
"The bankers of Dublin, tolerably competent witnesses, held a meeting on the 18th of December, 1798, at which they resolved, 'that, since the renunciation of Great Britain, in 1782, to legislate for Ireland, the commerce and prosperity of this kingdom have eminently increased.'
"The Dublin Guild of Merchants did the same on the 14th of
January, 1797."
But this testimony and that of others whom we could quote was the testimony of men opposed to the "Union." Let us look at a few admissions made by the supporters of that measure:
"First comes its author, Mr. Pitt, who, in his speech in the English House of Commons, January 31, 1799, having alluded to the prosperous condition of Irish commerce in 1785, goes on to say: 'But how stands the case now? The trade is at this time infinitely more advantageous to Ireland.'
"Lord Clare, one of Mr. Pitt's chief instruments in effecting the Union, published, in 1798, a pamphlet containing, as quoted by Grattan, the following account of Irish progress subsequently to 1782: 'There is not a nation on the habitable globe which has advanced in cultivation and commerce, in agriculture and manufactures, with the same rapidity in the same period.'
"Finally, Mr. Secretary Coke, in a Unionist pamphlet, said at that time: 'We have had the experience of these twenty years; for it is universally admitted that no country in the world ever made such rapid advances as Ireland has done in these respects.'"
All this was undoubtedly true; and it is not our intention to admire what was called the Union, nor to advocate it. Those of the various writers cited, who spoke so dogmatically in the above passages, had in their minds only material and external prosperity, and that even of only one class of citizens. Those who wish well to Ireland cannot be satisfied with this.
Not a single name of the favorers or opposers of the Union, here quoted as witnesses, is Celtic. It would be interesting to know what the Celts of the island, that is, the greater part of its inhabitants, thought at the time, not of the Union, but of their own Parliament, and how much of this great material prosperity fell to their portion.