SOME IRISH INDUSTRIES, PAST AND PRESENT.

IT

T is a stock aphorism that supply and demand decide the increase and prosperity of all industries. This may be correct as a rule, yet in some cases extraneous influences make themselves felt likewise. These, arising from inevitable, or preventable causes, are historically interesting, and may be instructive.

No one can deny that political pressure was enlisted to thwart Irish enterprise in bygone days. In the same way iniquitous monopolies crippled some branches of English trade under the Tudor and earlier Stuart kings. On the other hand, there have been some endeavours to develop new industries in Ireland, whether the effort was purely disinterested or not.

So early as 1589 we find George Long urging upon Lord Burghley, that if the number of glass factories were diminished in England, several might be established in Ireland, where, he adds, each of these would be "equal to a garrison of twenty men," in securing peace for the country. There was diplomacy in this suggestion! Popular riots had taken place in England, excited by the impression that the rural districts were being denuded of their timber to feed the furnaces. There may have been some jealousy too of a trade that was principally in the hands of aliens-Huguenot "gentlemen glass-makers," who being driven out of France, settled upon our Southern shores. Long asserted that there was plenty of wood in Ireland, where also all necessary materials might be found. It would appear that the proposal was favourably received, for our friend purchased a patent and set to work. Presumably the venture failed, for little more is heard about it, except as to the difficulty experienced in finding artizans, who were willing to face the "Wild Irishry." About twenty years later Roger Aston obtained a grant permitting him to make all manner of glass for Ireland, the English monopoly having been secured to Sir R. Mansell. Meanwhile the compulsory use of coal for fuel had brought about many changes.

It was probably due to the efforts of the Dublin Society that

glass-making attained some importance in the eighteenth century. In an old document the following announcement is made :

The Dublin Society, in order to promote such useful Arts and Manufactures as have not hitherto been introduced, or are not yet brought to Perfection in this Kingdom, give Notice that they intend to encourage by Praemiums, annual contributions, and other methods, any persons who are well skilled in such Arts and Manufactures, and will carry them on in the best and most skilful manner. Proposals may be sent to the Society every Thursday at the Parliament House, Dublin. 25th March, 1740.

Then follows a long list of raw and manufactured articles that were habitually imported; the approximate value paid for these amounted to £507,270 25. 3d., an average having been computed from the years 1734-35-36. Amongst the imports mentioned was glass.

Possibly half a century of encouragement may have borne good fruit; the trade must have thriven, for in 1788 a law was passed forbidding the exportation of glass (19 George II., c. 12). In 1778 it had been proposed to allow the export to all countries except Great Britian. If scotched for a time the trade was by no means destroyed, for in 1800 it had secured a firm footing in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Waterford, and a few other places. That for table use was of a massive type, and possibly the introduction of slender crystals may have militated against heavy cut glass, as it has elsewhere.

Although during the latter half of the eighteenth century the Cork manufacture was the clearest, it was not individualized by any particular shape, which lessens the interest from a collector's point of view. The Waterford product showed a slightly bluish tinge An old writer enumerating the industries of that town mentions "vitry, topsails, corn bags, and other articles." The Waterford glass trade has long since been given up, but Thom's Directory says that in 1895 the export from Dublin amounted to £8,170, besides local trade.

There is a little romance about the art of glass-making in Ireland, which is said to have been derived from the Phoenicians. The legend is, that the secret of making their beautifully enamelled beads was brought to the South of Germany by Irish missionaries in the eighth century.

In his work on Ceramic Art, Mr. H. Owen mentions that Bristol once did a lively trade in flint glass, but that, like other industries requiring fuel, it had moved to the closer vicinity of the great coalfields.

If in Belfast the price of coal proved to be a hindrance, it must have been a drawback in Londonderry also. At the same time Mr. Arthur Young, the well-known author of "A Tour in Ireland," thought that too much was made of that difficulty.

He says that, "in London and its neighbourhood, where most of the hoops made in the kingdom are cut, and a great proportion of other heavy work, such as anchors, ship work, &c., is carried on, coals are 30 per cent. dearer than in Dublin."

A hope was always cherished, that when the canals, which were in progress towards the end of the eighteenth century, should be completed, the coal supply of Ireland would suffice for carrying on home manufactures. Then other difficulties were raised and little done.

Linen is the industry which has never suffered from any kind of repression. "Let them have their linen" was the answer, in reply to remonstrances with regard to other taxation. Although mentioned in the reign of Henry VIII., to the ill-fated Lord Strafford the credit is due of firmly establishing it as a national product. At the Restoration wise measures were taken by the Duke of Ormonde, which infused fresh life into the industry.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes made many homeless; some of these sought refuge in Ireland, where their knowledge of various handicrafts made them useful citizens, and their influence upon the linen trade was beneficial. Fifty-five years later, in the Dublin Society's tables, already quoted, the total importation of linen, valued at 4s. an ell, figured only at £618, whereas £17,933 was paid for cambric at 5s. 6d. This was a striking contrast, for which a remedy was promptly found. Some workers were brought from Flanders, and soon 1,500 looms were working in Ulster. The finest fabrics are now a spécialité of the country. Prosperity did not come without fostering care. From accounts laid before Parliament, it appears that between the years 1700 and 1777 £847,504 were paid for the use of the linen manufacturers of Ireland-see "Com. Jour.," vol. xv., p. 396—but the value of the linen exported from Ireland in six years, 1771-1777, reached £1,615,654, whilst in 1895 it exceeded six millions.

When opposing a proposal to tax English goods, John Foster, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1784, pointed out that the total amount imported per annum reached one million, whilst the Irish linen alone that was exported was worth a million and a half, and the danger of reprisals on the part of England would be too great to risk. Writing in 1781, John Angel mentions that "some of the greatest obstructions to the benefit and increase of the manu

factures of Ireland are the frequent riots and combinations amongst the manufacturers." ... "It would be highly becoming the wisdom of our legislature," he continues, "to endeavour to adopt some method to prevent them, as the legislature of England hath done." To remedy this evil, heads of Bills were introduced in the Irish Parliament during the Session of 1780. Thus we have an eminently fair man, who frankly admits that want of prosperity may be traced to more than one source.

In 1823 the Linen Board offered £2,000 to promote the saving of flax seed. It was then supposed to be a great matter to be independent of foreign assistance. Presumably this is not considered so now, judging from the fact that in 1876 27,141 tons of flax were raised, and in 1895 the total had dwindled to 12,193 tonsless than half.

There has never been any transaction connected with the liner trade, which could raise a regret amongst those who regard each interference with the woollen trade as a black spot in Irish history, although admitting the folly of judging past ages by nineteenthcentury standards.

The quaint author of "A Discourse on the Woollen Manufactury of Ireland, and the Consequence of Prohibiting its Exportation," published in Dublin, 1698, throws a light upon the subject, which, whatever it is worth, was probably shared by many of the writer's contemporaries. He warns and entreats the authorities to pause before they acted so rashly, seeing that the woollen trade was the sole support of the Protestants of Ireland. He enters into his subject at length and with vigour, writing in an intolerant spirit, giving his reasons to prove his case. Amongst other things, he says, that large colonies of English wool combers were settled in the counties of Cork and Waterford. "It is," he continues, "more than probable that the pretended mischief of the increase of the woollen manufacture in Ireland, doth arise from the restraint put upon the Irish from exporting their black cattle into England, because they were necessitated by it to run upon the breeding a greater number of sheep, which furnishing them with a store of wool, led them naturally to manufacturing it, and should the people of Ireland be denied the privilege, that both Nature and Necessity seems to entitle them to, of exporting superfluities of their manufactures, it will be very happy if such a restraint be not attended with worse consequences to the land and trade of England, than the prohibiting of Irish cattle have occasioned." Vexatious as this enactment with regard to the cattle must have been, it was somewhat shortsighted,

for the Irish undersold their rivals in the French market, and this led to fresh heart-burnings.

Before the Restoration the Irish woollen industry consisted only of blankets and friezes, although they may have been an advance upon the products described by Sir William Petty, who talks of cloth made in small pieces, measuring twenty by twenty-four inches each. The Duke of Ormonde promoted factories, which led to such an increase of cloth-making that it affected the amount of the raw material exported. Agitations were set on foot in England, resulting in the Act of 1696, of which Dean Swift writes :

At the passing of that fatal Act the condition of our Trade was glorious and flourishing, though no way interfering with the English. We made no broad cloth over six shillings a yard; coarse drugget, baize and shalloon, worsted damask, strong draught-work, light half-work, and stuffs were the only produce of our looms. They were partly consumed by the meanest of our people, and partly sent to northern nations, from which we had in exchange timber, iron, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, and hard dollars.

Sir John Browne dedicated one of his tracts upon trade to Dean Swift, in which he eulogises this spirited defence of the oppressed. In another of his pamphlets he asks indignantly, "Could there be in appearance a greater Hardship upon them, than by Laws, made in a Parliament wherein they had no representatives, to be restrained from exporting the Manufactures of Wooll (the most Abounding and Precious of all their commodities) to any part of the World, and from exporting Wooll itself, raw and unmanufactured, to any place but England?" "True it is," he says elsewhere, "that particular Persons and Societies may be affected by the success of Ireland in Trade, but if England in general is the gainer thereby, it would be a thing of fatal consequence to be led by their insinuations into such Councils as might cramp it in those branches of Trade which do not clash with her own."

The closing words of the last paragraph indicate, that even this clear-headed thinker was not altogether free from the prejudices of his time.

By an Act of Edward IV., the importation of cloth into England was forbidden from any part of the world, but it was afterwards declared that this did not apply to "the wares and commodities" of Ireland. Under this tacit agreement the question rested until the return of the Stuarts, when all manner of woollen cloths imported were rated at 8s. a yard (12 Chas. II. c. 4).

An Act of William and Mary selected six Irish ports from which wool might be shipped, and certain English towns were mentioned where the merchandise might be landed, practically leaving it to the