407 



" dom crieth in the ftreets, and no man regardeth." The leglflature 

 impofed a tax of two-pence per pound on the importation of paper, 

 each quire of which might, on an average, weigh a pound, and be , 

 worth ten-pence. This was a duty of about twenty per cent, to the 

 importer, and of courfe, produces a rife of near thirty per cent, in 

 the price of the comm.odity to the confumer. 



The allegations of the petitions were fpeedily verified, by melan- 

 choly experience. No fooner was the tax impofed, than violent com- 

 binations, for encreafe of wages, took place among the workmen, 

 employed in the paper manufafture. The printing bufinefs in Ireland 

 was immediately extinguiflied ; a lucrative and promifing trade was an- 

 nihilated, a meritorious and tndullrious fet of manufacturers were 

 thrown out of employment. Nor was the calamitous eifeft confined 

 to mere printers ; it extended to a variety of manufadlurers, connefted 

 with the art of printing, either immediately or indire^ly ; as book- 

 binders ; leather-dreiTers ; makers of pafteboard, glue and parchment j 

 dealers in colours, thread and filk, and gold-beaters. A vaft number 

 of printers, with their families, would have been immediately forced 

 to emigrate, from the country, if a temporary relief had not been 

 offered to them, by an extenfive undertaking in the department of, 

 printing, which was commenced in this country ; I mean, a large im- 

 preffion of the parliamentary journals. This work, however, is near 

 a clofe, and then the people who have hitherto been maintained by 

 it, will be left wholly deftitute. 



Imported paper having been thus taxed, and the Irifli manufafture of 

 printed books, ruined, in confequence of the impoft ; it was feen, that the 

 demand for Irifli paper, inftead of an increafe, experienced a fenfible diminu- 

 tion. The principal demand for paper is in the printing manufafture ; but 

 when the Irifli printers, who had been traders, in common, with the print- 

 ers of England, in certain branches of the trade, were wholly thrown out 

 of employment, the Irifli market for printing papers, ceafed, almoft en- 

 tirely ; and the Iriftx paper-makers, inftead of their being gainers, loft the 



fliare 



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