400 THE WOOLLEN INDUSTRY IN IRELAND. 



factories for spinning and weaving, so as to turn to account the great sheep- 

 breeding industry which had grown up, and which now found itself without 

 an outlet. A flourishing home trade now sprang up, and an export trade 

 began to attain dimensions which aroused the commercial jealousy of 

 England. 



At this point we come to the first systematic attempts on the part of the 

 English Government to repress this growing industry. An Act of Charles I. 

 prohibited the export of Irish wool (unmanufactured) except to England 

 and Wales. This, of course, was aimed at Holland, but it was followed by 

 Charles II. 12, c. 4., laying prohibition duties on the import of Irish woollen 

 goods into England, while other Acts restrained or suppressed trade with 

 the colonies and the import of dye stuffs into Ireland. 



These Acts, together with the devastation wrought by the Jacobite wars, 

 brought the Irish export trade very low. In 1697 the exports of manu- 

 factured woollens amounted only to ^^23,61 7.* In the following year came 

 the well-known compact between the English and Irish Parliaments which 

 is so often, and justly, referred to as the cause of the destruction of the 

 Irish woollen trade. The English Parliament were determined to have no 

 interference with the woollen trade which they had established as the staple 

 industry of England, and they accordingly proposed to Ireland that the 

 latter country should practically abandon all export trade in woollens, in 

 return for certain very favourable enactments as regards linen goods with 

 which England did not desire to compete. Irish hnen was to be admitted 

 free of duty into England, while a duty of 25 per cent, was imposed on 

 foreign linens, and a bounty was given on Irish exports from England. 



The Irish Parliament was of course in no position to make a free choice 

 in the matter, and probably their acceptance of the above terms was the 

 wisest course they could have followed under the circumstances. During 

 the next seven years the Irish linen export trade expanded nearly thirty- 

 fold. The anti-woollen legislation of 1698 and 1699 had no reference to 

 manufactures for the home market, but a home trade could not flourish 

 when hampered by the unfair conditions under which it was obliged to 

 compete with English imports. The better classes of material ceased to be 

 made, and sheepwalks were turned into tillage, to such an extent that the 

 price of wool in Ireland became considerably higher than in England.! A 

 temporary revival took place under the auspices of Grattan's Parliament, 

 but it did not endure. Having lost the foreign market the Irish, like the 

 Dutch a couple of centuries previously, were unable to recover it. The 

 industry had ceased to attract enterprise and could display no adaptability 

 to new conditions. Consequently, when the great era of the development 

 in mechanism set in, the Irish manufacture, free though it now was, had 

 neither the moral nor material resources necessary to meet it, and the ruin 

 which followed from the operation of free competition was more speedy and 

 complete than any which had been produced as the direct effects of repres- 

 sive legislation. 



Since the full development of the mechanical epoch this ancient Irish 

 industry has, however, begun to show considerable recuperative power. 

 " Authentic statistics on the subject are scanty," as the late Registrar- 

 General, Dr. T. W. Grimshaw, observes,+ but from reliable statistics 



* "Memoirs of Wool," Rev. Joseph Smith, ii., 34, 244. 

 t Hutchinson : '•Commercial Restraints," p. 73. 

 j "Facts and Figures about Ireland," p. 38. 



