addrefs, That, gratified in thofe particulars, no conftitutional queftion between the two nations will any longer 'exist, which can interrupt their harmony *.' In the answer to this, the King told them that this declaration was very pleasing to himt.' At the close of the feffion, the Commons fay to the Lord Lieutenant, We shall have feen this great national arrangement (the fole and exclufive right of legislation in that Parliament) established on a basis which fecures the tranquillity of Ireland, and unites the affections as • well as interests of both kingdoms ‡.' Laftly, for I think I have now quoted all the paffages on which the chief ftrefs has been laid, his Grace, in his speech on the prorogation, fays,Convince the ' people in your feveral diftricts, as you yourselves are 'convinced, that every cause of past jealousies and dif'contents is finally removed; that both countries have pledged their good faith to each other; and that their beft fecurity will be an inviolable adherence to that compact: convince them that the two kingdoms are now one, indiffolubly connected in unity of conftitution and unity of interests §.' Now, Mr. Speaker, I must confefs I cannot fee any thing in all this but the expreffion of, first, an opinion that the paft caufes of difcontent and jealousy were then finally removed; and what has happened to prove that they were not? Has the Parliament of Great Britain renewed her claim to bind Ireland? Has there not been an annual mutiny act in Ireland ever fince? Has * 28th May 1782. † 13th June 1782. Poyning's Poyning's law; has the appellate jurifdiction of this counttry been restored? Secondly, a hope, fomewhat too fanguine perhaps, that no queftion on conftitutional points would any longer exist between the two nations. This hope the Irish Houfe of Commons expreffed in the form of an affertion, which it would feem his Majefty was no farther advifed to adopt than by declaring the pleasure it gave him to find they entertained that belief. But does it follow from thence, that either Parliament meant to preclude themfelves from treating together on any measure which the King might recommend, or they think beneficial to both countries? By the phrafe conftitutional questions which might interrupt their harmony,' was clearly meant, difputes and claims on the one part or the other; not propofals from the one to the other, or from the Sovereign to both, which either might approve or reject as they faw fit. Such is the prefent proposal, which I therefore think they never meant to bind themfelves not to entertain; which they could not conclude us, their fucceffors in both kingdoms, from entertaining; which in my confcience I believe many of the wifeft and best men in both then hoped might, fome time or other, be brought forward with fuccefs; which the fecond refolution I have mentioned, as come to by this Houfe, and received with fatisfaction in Ireland, feems in fome degree to fuggeft; and which, when I recollect the reports I have read and heard of the Minister's fpeech who moved thofe refolutions, I can never ceafe thinking his mind was full of on the occafion*, till I fhall learn that he himself has declared the contrary. * I do not fay he had it exprefsly in contemplation then or afterwards to propofe it. In his fpeech on the 22d of July 1785, he is reported to have spoken of the circumstance of a Union as extremely defirable.' Parliamentary Regifter, vol. xviii. p. 344. Is it to be taken for granted, that the improvement beyond example which the trade, manufactures, and wealth of the people of Ireland are said to have experienced during the laft fixteen or feventeen years, must be afcribed to the renunciation by this country of the claim to legiflate for them? It seems very difficult to fee how a mere negative act of that fort could poffibly have such an effect. Had the British Legislature, by its ufurped authority over that country, for many years previous to that time interfered with the internal or external commerce of Ireland? had the Irish Parliament been reftrained from regulating and encouraging that commerce (the export woollen trade excepted) in the way they might think most likely to promote its increafe? or did the abolition of the appeal to the British House of Lords produce a new influx of British capital into Ireland? The great points gained by Ireland from this country as to commerce have, I believe, hitherto been confidered to have been the fruit of those feveral acts of the British Parliament in 1779 and 1780 t, of which one has been already obferved upon, and which first opened to her a general freedom of trade, not only with the reft of the world, but with our American and Weft India colonies, the best mart for her commodities as well as ours. And if the advantages then obtained have been farther improved by the permiffion to trade with those colonies in every respect on the fame footing as Great Britain does, which was granted in 1793‡; was the British act of that year giving +19 Geo. III. c. 35. 19 Geo. III. c. 37. 20 Geo. III. c. 6. 20 Geo. III. c. 10. 20 Geo. III. c. 18. 33 Geo. III. c. 63. fuch permiffion a confequence of what has been called the emancipation of Ireland? But, Sir, I think fome here must know, and many may recollect to have heard, that Ireland was growing fast in industry, enterprise, manufactures, trade, and agriculture, long before either the acknowledgment of her independence, or the grant of what was called a free trade. Indeed I believe it will be found, whatever may have been the cause, that all the three kingdoms, and his Majefty's dominions in general, have flourished with an accelerated degree of rapidity in all the branches of national exertion productive of trade and wealth, for a period of about fifty years, to be dated from the time of the general pacification of Europe by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. With regard to Ireland, befides general memory, I might appeal to the weighty teftimony recorded by Mr. Arthur Young, of the late Lord Chief Baron Fofter, in whose family an enlightened attention to political economy and the fources of national prosperity feems to be hereditary. In Mr. Young's account of a vifit he paid to that learned perfon during his tour through Ireland in the year 1776, he says he gave him a variety of information relative to the state of that country uncommonly valuable, and among other things mentions his having told him, 'that < Ireland was more improved in the last twenty years than ' in a century before; that the great spirit began in 1749 ́ and 1750*; that thirty years before the export of linen ' and * Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. i. p. 153. Agricultural improvement feems to have been a very principal object of Lord Chief Baron Fofter's attention and practice, and the conversations mentioned by Mr. Young related in a great degree to that object; And yarn was only about 500,000l. but that it was then from 1,200,000l. to 1,500,000l.*'-that is, it had been nearly trebled in that time. By the fame proportion and progrefs, if only the fame caufes which then exifted, and had produced the great fpirit mentioned by Lord Chief Baron Fofter, had continued to operate, this export would, in fix or feven years hence, amount to four millions and a half. Now, Sir, with all the fuppofed affiftance it has derived from the tranfaction of 1782, when a fair account is taken, it will not be found to have gone on increasing in that ratio. The annual rated value of Irish exports of every fort to all parts of the world, of which provifions made probably more than one third †, is ftated from the official accounts of that country, on an average of the three years ending on the 25th of March 1798, to have been in Irish money only 4,642,7791. I own therefore I think it much more reasonable that we should ascribe the growing improvement of Ireland in the chief article of her manufacture to the fpirit which began in 1750, and appears to have continued in full force during the interval between that time and the date of Mr. Young's tour, than either to a new spirit said to have been roufed by the arrangement of 1782, an arrangement which had no direct it has been lately stated, however, that the rife of agriculture began in Ireland with the conftitution of 1782.'-Mr. Fofter's Speech, p. 105. *Young's Tour, vol. i. p. 151. By Mr. Irving's Tables, out of 5,612,6897. the true annual value of all the exports from Ireland to Great Britain on the average of the fame three years, provifions, exclufive of corn and live cattle, amounted to 1,954,1137.-Accounts laid before the Houfe of Lords, No. 4. 16. Vide Appendix to Lord Auckland's Speech, No. 9. |