The Commercial Restraints of Ireland

by John Hely-Hutchinson

Before these laws the Irish were under great disadvantages in the woollen trade, by not being allowed to export their woollen manufactures to the English colonies,[276] or to import dye stuffs directly from thence; and the English in this respect, and in having those exclusive markets, possessed considerable advantages.

Let it now be considered what are the usual means taken to promote the prosperity of any country in respect of trade and manufactures? She is encouraged to work up her own materials, to export her manufactures to other nations, to import from them the material for manufacture, and to export none of her own that she is able to work up; not to buy what she is capable of selling to others, and to promote the carrying trade and ship-building. If these are the most obvious means by which a nation may advance in strength and riches, institutions counteracting those means must necessarily tend to reduce it to weakness and poverty; and, therefore, the advocates for the continuance of those institutions will find it difficult to satisfy the world that such a system of policy is either reasonable or just.

The cheapness of labour, the excellence of materials, and the success of the manufacture in the excluded country,[277] may appear to an unprejudiced man to be rather reasons for the encouragement than for the prohibition. But the preamble of the English Act of the 10th and 11th of William III. affirms, that the exportation from Ireland and the English plantations in America to foreign markets, heretofore supplied from England, would inevitably sink the value of lands, and tend to the ruin of the trade and manufactures of that realm. I shall only consider this assertion as relative to Ireland. A fact upon which the happiness of a great and ancient kingdom, and of millions of people depends, ought to have been supported by the most incontestable evidence, and should never be suffered to rest in speculation, or to be taken from the mere suggestion or distant apprehension of commercial jealousy. Those fears for the future were not founded on any experience of the past. From what market had the woollen manufactures of Ireland ever excluded England? What part of her trade, and which of her manufactures had been ruined; and where did any of her lands fall by the woollen exports of Ireland? Were any of those facts attempted to be proved at the time of the prohibition? The amount of the Irish export proves it to have been impossible that those facts could have then existed. The consequences mentioned as likely to arise to England from the supposed increase of those manufactures in Ireland, had no other foundation but the apprehensions of rivalship among trading people, who, in excluding their fellow-citizens, have opened the gates for the admission of the enemy.

Whether those apprehensions are now well-founded, should be carefully considered. Justice, sound policy, and the general good of the British Empire require it. The arguments in support of those restraints are principally these:—That labour is cheaper, and taxes lower, in Ireland than in England, and that the former would be able to undersell the latter in all foreign markets.

Spinning is now certainly cheaper in Ireland, because the persons employed in it live on food[278] with which the English would not be content; but the wages of spinners would soon rise if the trade was opened. At the loom, I am informed, that the same quantity of work is done cheaper in England than in Ireland; and we have the misfortune of daily experience to convince us that the English, notwithstanding the supposed advantages of the Irish in this trade, undersell them at their own markets in every branch of the woollen manufacture. A decisive proof that they cannot undersell the English in foreign markets.

With the increase of manufactures, agriculture, and commerce in Ireland, the demand for labour, and consequently its price, would increase.[279] That price would be soon higher in Ireland than in England. It is not in the richest countries, but in those that are growing rich the fastest, that the wages of labour are highest,[280] though the price of provisions is much lower in the latter; this, before the present rebellion, was in both respects the case of England and North America. Any difference in the price of labour is more than balanced by the difference in the price of material, which has been for many years past higher in Ireland than in England, and would become more valuable if the export of the manufacture was allowed. The English have also great advantages in this trade from their habits of diligence, superior skill, and large capital. From these circumstances, though the Scotch have full liberty to export their woollen manufactures, the English work up their wool,[281] and the Scotch make only some kind of coarse cloths for the lower classes of their people; and this is said to be for want of a capital to manufacture it at home.[282] If the woollen trade was now open to Ireland, it would be for the most part carried on by English capitals, and by merchants resident there. Nearly one-half of the stock which carried on the foreign trade of Ireland in 1672, inconsiderable as it then was, belonged to those who lived out of Ireland.[283] The greater part of the exportation and coasting trade of British America was carried on by the capitals of merchants who resided in Great Britain; even many of the stores and warehouses from which goods were retailed in some of their principal provinces, particularly in Virginia and Maryland, belonged to merchants who resided in Great Britain, and the retail trade was carried on by those who were not resident in the country.[284] It is said that in ancient Egypt, China, and Indostan, the greater part of their exportation trade was carried on by foreigners.[285] The same thing happened formerly in Ireland, where the whole commerce of the country was carried on by the Dutch;[286] and at present, in the victualling trade of Ireland, the Irish are but factors to the English. This is not without example in Great Britain, where there are many little manufacturing towns, the inhabitants of which have not capitals sufficient to transport the produce of their own industry to those distant markets where there is demand and consumption for it, and their merchants are properly only the agents of wealthier merchants, who reside in some of the great commercial cities.[287] The Irish are deficient in all kinds of stock, they have not sufficient for the cultivation of their lands, and are deficient in the stocks of master manufacturers, wholesale merchants, and even of retailers.

Of what Ireland gains, it is computed that one-third centres in Great Britain.[288] Of our woollen manufacture the greatest part of the profit would go directly there. But the manufacturers of Ireland would be employed, would be enabled to buy from the farmers the superfluous produce of their labour, the people would become industrious, their numbers would greatly increase, the British State would be strengthened, though probably, this country would not for many years find any great influx of wealth; it would be, however, more equally distributed, from which the people and the Government would derive many important advantages.

Whatever wealth might be gained by Ireland would be, in every respect, an accession to Great Britain. Not only a considerable part of it would flow to the seat of government, and of final judicature, and to the centre of commerce; but when Ireland should be able she would be found willing, as in justice she ought to be, to bear her part of those expenses which Great Britain may hereafter incur, in her efforts for the protection of the whole British empire. If Ireland cheerfully and spontaneously, but when she was ill able, contributed, particularly in the years 1759, 1761, 1769, and continued to do so in the midst of distress and poverty, without murmur, to the end of the year 1778, when Great Britain thought proper to relieve her from a burden which she was no longer able to bear, no doubt can be entertained of her contributing, in a much greater proportion, when the means of acquiring shall be open to her.

I form this opinion, not only from the proofs which the experience of many years, and in many signal instances has given, but the nature of the Irish Constitution, which requires that the laws of Ireland should be certified under the Great Seal of England, and the superintending protection of Great Britain, necessary to the existence of Ireland, would make it her interest to cultivate, at all times, a good understanding with her sister kingdom.

The lowness of taxes in Ireland seems to fall within the objection arising from the cheapness of labour. But the disproportion between the taxes of the two kingdoms is much overrated in Great Britain. Hearth-money in Ireland amounts to about £59,000 yearly, the sums raised by Grand Juries are said to exceed the annual sum of £140,000, and the duties on beef, butter, pork, and tallow exported, at a medium from 1772 to 1778, amount to £26,577 11s. yearly. These are payable out of lands, or their immediate produce, and may well be considered as a land-tax. These, with the many other taxes payable in Ireland, compared either with the annual amount of the sums which the inhabitants can earn or expend, with the rental of the lands, the amount of the circulating specie, of personal property, or of the trade of Ireland, it is apprehended would appear not to be inferior in proportion to the taxes of England compared with any of those objects in that country.[289] The sums remitted to absentees[290] are worse than so much paid in taxes, because a large proportion of these is usually expended in the country. If this reasoning is admitted, it will require no calculation to show that Ireland pays more taxes in proportion to its small income than England does in proportion to its great one.