THE ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY 203 



not easy to understand why master manufacturers had 

 to be taxed to encourage a manufacture. When goods 

 are dearer the consumption is less, so that consumption 

 on credit was lessened, that the ready-money purchaser 

 might get his goods at a cheaper rate. Many thinking- 

 persons saw that if the manner in which the Dublin 

 Society acted in this matter of the silk warehouse was 

 justified, then all the trade should be diverted thither, 

 in which case no place would be left for mercers or 

 drapers. Great jealousies became rife in the trade, and 

 Arthur Young expressed the view that if a manufac- 

 ture were of such sickly growth as to need all this 

 nursing, it was not worth consideration. What in 

 reality was brought about, was a great increase in the 

 importation and consumption of foreign silks, a result 

 the very opposite of what the Society had intended. 

 One serious disadvantage operated against the mercers 

 which compelled them to defend their own interests. 

 When they were supplied with a good selling pattern, 

 and entrusted it to be made, as soon as the manufac- 

 turer executed (say) ten pieces for them, he made prob- 

 ably thirty for himself, which he retailed to the ware- 

 house at a less rate than he charged wholesale to the 

 mercers. When the directors made a rule that no 

 mercers were to be permitted to buy goods in the 

 warehouse for retail, the latter were compelled to import 

 foreign silks. The mercers should have been allowed 

 to purchase for ready-money, at a reduction, in the 

 warehouse, and the retail trade in shops should have 

 been put on an equal footing with it ; premiums should 

 have been withdrawn, and the House opened for 

 manufacturers who might not be able to dispose of 

 their pieces by wholesale. 1 



1 Considerations on the Silk Trade in Ireland, addressed to the 

 Dublin Society ; Haliday Pamphlets, 1778, ccccii. 2. 



