With regard to the state of Ireland, it was ridiculous to argue that any circumstances had since occurred to justify or call for the present arrangement. It had been attempted to be proved in the Report of the Committee of Privy Council that Ireland had begun to shew a hostile disposition towards Great Britain, and that she had passed two or three acts, imposing duties on some articles of British export. It was idle to reason from such trivial circumstances. One or two of these acts, it was known, had passed the Irish Parliament rather by stealth and through inadvertency. No material principle upon which the two countries were to remain connected, had been violated; and when we considered the perpetual shifting of the government and system in Ireland, that every three months wasted over a new Lord Lieutenant, the only wonder was that those principles had been so steadily adhered to. The clamour and riots of Dublin had also been resorted to as pretences for this arrangement; this sort of argument had been sufficiently reprobated by a Rt. hon. Friend of his (Mr. Burke) on a former day, but if clamour was to be attended to, let the meaning of it, where there was any, be preferred to the noise. Had the Irish clamoured for the present settlement, or for any one article contained in it? Had they been loud in demanding access to the British market in preference to protecting duties? Had they requested to be tied for ever to the British monopoly in the West Indies, and to have the price of the commodities of those Colonies increased upon them. Had they complained that fortune had offered the trade of the United States of America to them without condition or restraint? Had they vehemently expressed their apprehensions, that the rich commerce of the East would speedily be open to them, if effectual measures were not taken to prevent it? Had they regretted that they were burthened with a surplus of the hereditary revenue? Had they called out, that they were tired of their Legislative Independence, and intreated to be relieved from it? But the fallacy of stating such flimsy ground, as the supposed cry of the populace, as the real origin and spur of this important arrangement, was too obvious to be commented on. The true spring and incentive to this artful and complicated business evidently lurked in this fourth pernicious Resolution, the tendency of which, was of a piece with their whole system of Government in Ireland, with the arbitrary and illegal proceedings of their agents in the business of attachments, with their attacks on the liberty of the press, measures arguing a mind hostile to the true principles of constitutional freedom, and justifying us in presuming that similar steps would be pursued in this country, if they could be practised with equal impunity.
Mr. Sheridan now adverted to what the noble Lord in the Blue Ribband (Lord North) had said, was his conception of the spirit of the Proposition then in debate. The noble Lord had very fairly stated, that it was unquestionably a proposal on the part of the British Parliament, that Ireland should, upon certain conditions, surrender her now acknowledged right of external legislation, and return as to that point to the situation from which she had emancipated herself in 1782. The noble Lord had also added, that though he might not approve of the manner and circumstances under which this offer was made, yet he sincerely hoped, that Ireland would forget both, and perceive her interest in acceding to the proposal. The noble Lord was right in saying, that Ireland must forget before she could consent; but she had more to forget than the insidious and unfair manner in which this proposal come to her; she must forget that Great Britain ever had the power now required to be conceded to her; she must forget the use Great-Britain made of it while she possessed it. And by what arguments is Ireland to be induced to relinquish this right? Can it be stated to her, that she has ever once exercised it to the injury of this country? No, but we are told, that it is possible that she may do so; and is it not equally possible that Great Britain may abuse the trust, and employ this power to the oppression of Ireland? It is argued that the malice of party, the interested views of mercantile speculation, or the folly of narrow politicians, may, at some time or other, lead Ireland, even at the expence of her own interest, to measures which might embarrass the trade and navigation of the Empire. And has Ireland nothing to apprehend from party, from mercantile avarice, or from blind and narrow policy? If it is urged that England is grown too liberal and enlightened to justify any such apprehensions on the part of Ireland, the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself contradicts this reasoning, by asserting, that the two hundred thousand manufacturers whose petitions are on the Table, are all influenced either by the suggestions of faction, or blinded by prejudice and selfishness; in truth, there is not a single argument which can be used as an inducement to Great Britain to attempt to resume this power, which does not equally apply as a motive to Ireland not to part with it, with this difference only, that fact and experience will justify the refusal of the one, but have afforded no pretence for the requisition from the other.
But this power, if returned to Great Britain, is to be returned with this qualification. The laws which Ireland is to be bound to adopt and to obey, are ‘to enforce the same restraints, and to confer the same benefits upon the subjects of both countries.’
Here then arises a question which will necessarily be duly weighed and duly considered by the Irish. Is it, or is it not possible for Great Britain, under the title of Laws for the Regulation of Trade and Navigation, or for regulating and restraining the Trade of the British Colonies and Plantations, to adopt restrictions and enforce conditions which may materially cripple and embarrass the trade and navigation of Ireland without proportionably affecting the commerce of Great Britain. He took upon him confidently to assert, that this might be done in innumerable particulars. He had stated for example sake some instances upon a former day; he had stated that Great Britain might restrain the trade and navigation between the Colonies and these kingdoms to vessels of considerable burthen and a proportionable number of seamen. England has large ships and numerous crews, Ireland has neither. The advantage of Ireland has been supposed to be her making more frequent voyages to the Plantations and for smaller cargoes. Such a measure of legislation as is alluded to, would evidently have a different operation on the commerce of the two Countries. He had stated, that Great Britain reserving the power of prescribing the form of original certificates to be given by the Revenue Officers of the Colonies, and of requiring them to accompany the importation of every article of Colonial produce, imported from Ireland into Great Britain, might, by limiting the time at which they should be allowed, and by various other means entangle and distress the Irish Trader, and the more so, as the restraint was not even to be reciprocal. He had stated, that Great Britain might make it a condition, that no ship should clear out a cargo from the West Indies, which did not take out a stipulated quantity of some British manufacture not to be obtained in Ireland; but it was unnecessary for him to multiply or argue upon examples. If he was wrangled out of one case, still the principal he went upon was not defeated, for he was not to be called upon to prove the probability of the instances he quoted, or that Great Britain would not injure herself were she to adopt them, because the whole of the present arrangement was built upon this foundation, that it was essential to the system that neither country should retain a power upon any terms to injure the commerce of the other.
But whether it was probable or not that Great Britain would in future exercise this right of external legislation over Ireland with justice and liberality, shutting her ears to prejudice and self-interest, still it must be admitted, that it was claiming a considerable sacrifice from the sister kingdom; and what were the advantages held out to her to induce her to make this sacrifice? He wished the House to view the whole of this matter, and not to confine their attention to the subject of the British market, which had been argued upon as if there was nothing else to be conceded by one side or acquired by the other. What was the present situation of Ireland in respect to all branches of commerce, independent of her intercourse with this kingdom? Here Mr. Sheridan went into a more minute detail, than it is necessary for us to pursue, in order to shew the situation in which Ireland now stood, in respect to her tr
ade with our Colonies and with Foreign Countries, and that in which she was proposed to be placed, should the system of arrangement at present in contemplation, be adopted.
With respect to the West Indies, Ireland was to agree to forego every market, but that of the British Plantations, to give up the cheapest for the dearest, to lose the option she at present possessed, of being supplied circuitously through Great Britain upon the low duties, if she found it not to her advantage to apply to the direct trade for the whole of her consumption, to double her present duties on the article of rum, to impose not only equal port duties upon her exports, but to countervail every internal duty, which Great Britain may impose upon any similar article of her own manufacture, so that if Great Britain was to lay a duty upon the export of her linen to those Colonies, which would be of little injury to her, Ireland must do the same, though the reverse would be the consequence; in short, the whole was sacrifice and surrender on the part of Ireland.
As to America, the difference lay in a word. Instead of a trade to that whole Continent without restriction or duty, but what she should think proper herself to impose, she was to admit into her ports no articles of similar growth, produce, or manufacture, to those of the British Colonies, or which were liable to be imported from thence as such, but upon the terms that Great Britain should hereafter dictate. With Africa, she was to be placed upon the same footing as with the West Indies, and for India, she was to abandon all hope and prospect of intercourse with those countries to the end of time, and consent that an immoveable boom should be placed from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan. Thus restrained and dependent, her prospects of European commerce were to be proportionably diminished; these sacrifices could not be disputed; and it was to be considered that every article proposed to be abandoned by Ireland, was an advantage to which her title was not disputed, an advantage that she held as a right, for which she had a claim to compensation if relinquished.
These then being the sacrifices which Ireland was to make in her prospects of an extended foreign commerce, where was to be her retribution? In what instance was the advantage in this treaty to be on her side? From whence was she to receive the boasted compensation? The BRITISH MARKET — that was to be opened to her. There, and there only, was she to look for an equivalent for the numerous and important sacrifices she was to make both in commerce and constitution. He defied any man to have the confidence to deny, for a moment, that in every other instance Ireland was not to be placed in an infinitely worse situation than that in which she now stands, and in which she stands by fair and acknowledged right. But how was this advantage to be given to her? Upon what terms was the British market to be opened? If he was to adopt the language and sentiments of those who propose this boon, he should answer, upon such terms as shall effectually prevent Ireland from ever profiting, in the smallest degree by the concession. To this point, all their arguments had tended: to this, all their evidence had been pointed; so that if we were to give credit to the Minister, and his supporters, this equitable treaty, this bargain upon the basis of reciprocity, would prove neither more nor less than a direct fraud, cheat, and robbery, stripping Ireland of all the commercial advantages she had obtained, as well as of the constitution which secured them to her, and giving nothing in return, but a right to render herself odious in this country, by an attempt at a rivalship, which could not be profitable to herself, though it might be mischievous to Great Britain. He was not inclined, however, to give credit to the Minister’s reasoning on this subject, and much less to the evidence he had brought to support it, the greater part of which had been merely a libel on the character and habits of the Irish nation, nor did he at the same time go with the manufacturers of this country to the extent of the evils which they apprehended — many of their arguments were undoubtedly well founded, and the evidence they had given at the Bar merited the most serious attention: there was one point, however, in which he most completely agreed with them, — in their assertion, that if the Irish trader should be enabled to meet the British merchant and manufacturer in the British market, the gain of Ireland must be the loss of England. This was a fact not to be controverted on any principle of common sense, or reasonable argument. The pomp of general declamation and waste of fine words, which had on so many occasions been employed to disguise and perplex this plain simple truth, or still more fallaciously to endeavour to prove, that Great Britain would find her balance in the Irish market, had only tended to shew the weakness and inconsistency of the doctrine, they were meant to support. The truth of the argument was with the manufacturers, and this formed, in Mr. Sheridan’s mind, a ground of one of the most vehement objections he had to the present plan. Ireland must not endeavour to rise on the ruin of the trade of Great Britain — she must not aim to thrive avowedly at the expence of the British manufacturer, however alluring the prospect, not justice and generosity alone, but interest and policy, would call upon her to desist from the attempt. Possibly at first she might find a profit and an advantage in the contest — but how was a great part of this advantage to be obtained? — by means incompatible with the true spirit and principles, which led to permanent commercial prosperity, by means which had been stated at the bar, to form a great part of the apprehensions of those who petitioned against these Propositions, by a lax execution of her revenue laws, by the corrupt countenance of her legislature to such a conduct, by stealing her own manufactures into this country, by passing those of foreign countries for her own, by obtaining a transfer of capital, and enticing over artists and workmen by salfe hopes and ill-founded prospects, in short by smuggling, by evading, by defrauding, by conniving, by deceiving. The profit earned by such means would by the system they tend to introduce be ruinous in the end to the country which practised them, while they would immediately deeply injure the sister kingdom if she submitted to them; but that would not long continue, the consequence would be, that even the name of Irishman would become odious and detestable to the commercial interest of Great Britain, and Ireland would soon be taught to know, that while she was pressing by all possible means her own advantage from this article of the settlement, she had by other conditions of the treaty surrendered into the hands of Great Britain the power of crippling and crushing the whole scheme of her commerce, of chastising her presumption, and of reducing her to her former state of abject dependence, whenever the interest, the prejudices, or the animosity of the trading part of this community should countenance the measure. Mr. Sheridan urged this in other points of view, and declared, that if he were a person of consideration in Ireland, so far from encouraging the people there to struggle for the British market, he should think it his duty, and what he owed to the interests of his countrymen, to call loudly to the whole land to turn away their eyes and thoughts from that one object, to attempt no race or contest with the British manufacturer, to shun, as the greatest evil, the jealousies, heart burnings, and destructive ill will, which would necessarily breed on such a competition, circumstanced so peculiarly with respect to burthens as Great Britain was, and biassed by rooted habits of thinking upon this particular point, but to endeavour to increase by fair and gentle means the home consumption of the produce of their own industry, and by systematic and vigorous enterprize to aim at a successful intercourse with every foreign port; there, if they met the British merchant, it would be a liberal emulation, there, he could have no innovation or unfairness to complain of, and there, even if successfully rivalled, he would be conscious that the encreasing wealth of Ireland, from such a source, might with truth be stated to be a fund wherein the general commerce of England would assuredly find its compensation. Thus might Ireland be addressed under her present circumstances, but let the settlement now proposed be once established, what would be the answer? Would not the Irish merchant and manufacturer reply —
“What you advise us to is unreasonable and preposterous, We have bound ourselves for ever to the monopolies of Great Britain in the East and in the West; we receive the commodities of both at her
will, at her prices, and at her duties; we are crippled in our intercourse with America, holding a precarious and restrained trade with those Sovereign States, as if they were still British Colonies; our dreams of being the depot and emporium for the foreign countries of Europe are of consequence become visionary and ridiculous; we have violated the principles of our Constitution, by giving a perpetual aid to a military force at the will of the executive Magistrate; we have for ever surrendered our right of external legislation into the hands of British Parliament: for all this the British market is our compensation; upon that we are compelled to fasten our minds, to that we must cling, that we must obtain by every possible exertion of every kind, and if Great Britain suffers by it, the mischief is of her own seeking, and the restrictions which force us to this contest of her own imposing.”
Delphi Complete Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan Page 65
