142. Qu. Be the restraining our trade well or ill advised in our neighbours, with respect to their own interest, yet whether it be not plainly ours to accommodate ourselves to it?
143. Qu. Whether it be not vain to think of persuading other people to see their interest, while we continue blind to our own?
144. Qu. Whether there be any other nation possess'd of so much good land, and so many able hands to work it, which yet is beholden for bread to foreign countries?
145. Qu. Whether it be true that we import corn to the value of two hundred thousand pounds in some years?
146. Qu. Whether we are not undone by fashions made for other people? And whether it be not madness in a poor nation to imitate a rich one?
147. Qu. Whether a woman of fashion ought not to be declared a public enemy?
148. Qu. Whether it be not certain that from the single town of Cork were exported, in one year, no less than one hundred and seven thousand one hundred and sixty-one barrels of beef; seven thousand three hundred and seventy-nine barrels of pork; thirteen thousand four hundred and sixty-one casks, and eighty-five thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven firkins of butter? And what hands were employed in this manufacture?
149. Qu. Whether a foreigner could imagine that one half of the people were starving, in a country which sent out such plenty of provisions?
150. Qu. Whether an Irish lady, set out with French silks and Flanders lace, may not be said to consume more beef and butter than a hundred of our labouring peasants?
151. Qu. Whether nine-tenths of our foreign trade be not carried on singly to support the article of vanity?