"Previous to the 19th Geo. II., Ireland imported glass from other countries, and at length began to make some slow progress in the lower branches of the manufacture itself. By the Act alluded to, however, the Irish were prohibited from importing any kind of glass other than the manufacture of Great Britain, and in section 24 of that Act a most extraordinary clause was inserted. It not only ordained that no glass, the manufacture of that kingdom, should be exported, but it was penned so curiously, and with so much severe precision, that no glass of the manufacture of Ireland was to be exported, or so much as to be laden on any horse or carriage with intent to be so exported. This was, in his opinion, a very extraordinary stretch of the legislative power of Great Britain, considering the smallness of the object. The Act was much, very much complained of in Ireland, and apparently with very great justice both as to principle and effect. It was an article of general use in Ireland. The manufacturers of glass there, when thus restrained both as to export and import, could not pretend to vie with the British; the consequence of which was that the latter, having the whole trade to themselves, fixed the price of the commodity as they liked."[56] By the 9 Anne, c. 12, and 5 Geo. II., c. 2, and 7 Geo. II., c. 19, no hops but of British growth could be imported into Ireland. By the 6 Geo. I., it was enacted that the duty on hops exported from England should not be drawn back in favour of Irish consumers.[57]
Irish cotton manufactures imported to England were subject to an import duty of twenty-five per cent., while a statute of Geo. I. enacted penalties on the wearing of such manufactures in Great Britain unless they were made there.
The raw material for silk came to Ireland through England. The original import duty in England was 12d. in the pound, of which 3d. in the pound was retained there.[58]
Irish beer and malt, too, were excluded from England, whereas English beer and malt were imported into Ireland at a nominal duty. "Hats, gunpowder, coals, bar-iron, iron-ware, and several other matters, some of which Ireland had not to export, and others of which she had very little, were at different times the objects of English restrictions, whenever it was fancied that English interests were at all threatened by them."[59]
It was this legislation that caused Edmund Burke to ask, "Is Ireland united to the Crown of Great Britain for no other purpose than that we should counteract the bounty of Providence in her favour, and in proportion as that bounty has been liberal that we are to regard it as an evil which is to be met with in every sort of corrective?"[60]
"England," says Mr. Froude, "governed Ireland for what she deemed her own interest, making her calculation on the gross balance of her trade ledgers, and leaving her moral obligations to accumulate, as if right and wrong had been blotted out of the statute book of the universe."[61]
"One by one of each of our nascent industries," observes Lord Dufferin, "was either strangled in its birth, or handed over gagged and bound to the jealous custody of the rival interest of England, until at last every fountain of wealth was hermetically sealed, and even the traditions of commercial enterprise have perished through desuetude."
This sketch of English legislation for Irish trade would leave the impression that the Parliaments of Great Britain were as lavish in their efforts to suppress industrial enterprise in that country as any British trader could reasonably desire. It will surprise us to find that this atrocious code was not regarded as sufficiently thorough.