This idea of an equivalent has led several persons, and, among the rest, two very able writers[313] into mistakes from the want of information in some facts which are necessary to be known, that this transaction may be fully understood, and, therefore, ought to be particularly stated.
The Irish had before this period applied themselves to the linen trade. This appears by two of their statutes, in the reign of Elizabeth, one laying a duty on the export of flax and linen yarn,[314] and the other making it felony to ship them without paying such duty.[315] In the reign of Charles I. great pains were taken by Lord Strafford to encourage this manufacture, and in the succeeding reign[316] the great and munificent efforts of the first duke of Ormond were crowned with merited success. The blasts of civil dissensions nipped those opening buds of industry; and, when the season was more favourable, it is probable that, like England, they found the woollen manufacture a more useful object of national pursuit, which may be collected from the address of the English House of Commons, “that they so unwillingly promote the linen trade,”[317] and it was natural for a poor and exhausted country to work up the materials of which it was possessed.
In 1696 the English had given encouragement to the manufactures of hemp and flax in Ireland, but without stipulating any restraint of the export of woollen goods. The English Act made in that year recites that great sums of money were yearly exported out of England for the purchasing of hemp, flax, and linen, and the productions thereof, which might be prevented by being supplied from Ireland, and allows natives of England and Ireland to import into England, free of all duties,[318] hemp and flax, and all the productions thereof. In the same session[319] a law passed in England for the more effectually preventing the exportation of wool, and for encouraging the importation thereof from Ireland. Both those manufactures were under the consideration of Parliament this session, and it was thought, from enlarged views of the welfare of both kingdoms, that England should encourage the linen without discouraging the woollen manufacture of Ireland. There was no further encouragement given by England to our linen manufacture for some years after the year 1696.[320] In 1696 there was no equivalent whatever given for the prohibition of the export of our woollen manufactures.
It is true the assurances given by both Houses of Parliament in England for the encouragement of our linen trade were as strong as words could express; but was this intended encouragement, if immediately carried into execution, an equivalent to Ireland for what she had lost? Let it first be considered whether it was an equivalent at the time of the prohibition.
The woollen was then the principal manufacture and trade of Ireland. That it was then considered as her staple, appears from the several Acts of Parliament before mentioned, and from the attempt made in 1695 by the Irish House of Commons to lay a duty on all old and new drapery imported. The amount of the export proves[321] the value of the trade to so poor a country as Ireland, and makes it probable that she then clothed her own people. The address of the English House of Lords shows that this manufacture was “growing” amongst us, and the goodness of our own materials “for making all manner of cloth.”[322] And the English Act of 1698 is a voucher that this manufacture was then in so flourishing a state as to give apprehensions, however ill founded, of its rivalling England in foreign markets. The immediate consequences to Ireland showed the value of what she lost; many thousands of manufacturers were obliged to leave this kingdom for want of employment; many parts of the southern and western counties were so far depopulated that they have not yet recovered a reasonable number of inhabitants; and the whole kingdom was reduced to the greatest poverty and distress.[323] The linen trade of Ireland was then of little consideration, compared with the woollen.[324] The whole exportation of linens, in 1700,[325] amounted only in value to £14,112. It was an experiment substituted in the place of an established trade.
The English ports in Asia, Africa, and America were then shut against our linens; and, when they were opened[326] for our white and brown linens, the restraints of imports from thence to Ireland made that concession of less value, and she still found it her interest to send, for the most part, her linens to England. The linen could not have been a compensation for the woollen manufacture, which employs by far a greater number of hands, and yields much greater profit to the public, as well as to the manufacturers.[327] Of this manufacture there are not many countries which have the primum in equal perfection with England and Ireland; and no countries, taking in the various kinds of those extensive manufactures, so fit for carrying them on. There cannot be many rivals in this trade: in the linen they are most numerous. Other parts of the world are more fit for it than Ireland, and many equally so.
If this could be supposed to have been an equivalent at the time, or to have become so by its success, it can no longer be considered in that light. The commercial state of Europe is greatly altered. Ireland can no longer enjoy the benefit intended for her. It was intended that the great sums of money remitted out of England to foreign countries in this branch of commerce should all centre in Ireland, and that England should be supplied with linen from thence;[328] but foreigners now draw great sums from England in this trade, and rival the Irish in the English markets. The Russians are becoming powerful rivals to the Irish, and undersell them in the coarse kinds of linen. This is now the staple manufacture of Scotland. England, that had formerly cultivated this manufacture without success, and had taken linens[329] from France to the amount of £700,000 yearly, has now made great progress in it. The encouragement of this trade in England and Scotland has been long a principal object to the British Legislature; and the nation that encouraged us to the undertaking has now become our rival in it.[330] That this is not too strong an expression will appear by considering two British statutes, one of which[331] has laid a duty on the importation of Irish sail-cloth into Great Britain, as long as the bounties should be paid on the exportation from[332] Ireland, which obliged us to discontinue them; and the other[333] has given a bounty on the exportation of British chequered and striped linens exported out of Great Britain to Africa, America, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, the island of Minorca, or the East Indies. This is now become a very valuable part of the manufacture, which Great Britain, by the operation of this bounty, keeps to herself. The bounties on the exportation of all other linen, which she has generously given to ours as well as to her own,[334] operate much more strongly in favour of the latter;[335] the expense of freight, insurance, commission, &c., in sending the linens from Ireland to England has been computed at four per cent.; and if this computation is right, when the British linens obtain £12 per cent., the full amount of the premium, the Irish do not receive above eight. Those bounties, though acknowledged to be a favour to Ireland, give Great Britain a further and a very important advantage in this trade, by inducing us to send all our linens to England, from whence other countries are supplied.
The great hinge upon which the stipulation on the part of England, in the year 1698, turned was, that England should give every possible encouragement to the linen and hempen manufactures in Ireland. Encouraging those manufactures in another country was not compatible with this intention. The course of events made it necessary to do this in Scotland;[336] the course of trade made it necessary for England to do the same. A commercial country must cultivate every considerable manufacture of which she has or can get the primum. These circumstances have totally changed the state of the question; and if it was reasonable and just that Ireland, in 1698, should have accepted of the linen in the place of the woollen manufactures, it deserves to be considered whether by the almost total change of the circumstances it is not now unreasonable and unjust.
America itself, the opening of whose markets[337] to Irish linens was thought to have been one of the principal encouragements to that trade, is now become a rival and an enemy; and when she puts off the latter character, will appear in the former with new force and infinite advantages.
The emigration for many years of such great multitudes of our linen manufacturers to America,[338] proves incontrovertibly that they can carry on their trade with more success in America than in Ireland. But let us examine the facts to determine whether the proposed encouragements have taken place. The declaration of the Lords of England for the encouragement of the linen manufacture of Ireland was “to all the advantage and profit that kingdom can be capable of;” and of the Commons, “that they shall be always ready to give it their utmost assistance.” The speech of the Lords Justices shows the extent of this engagement, and promises the encouragement of England “to the linen and hempen manufactures of Ireland.”