After eighteen years of ferment
within Ireland and friction without, British and Irish statesmen, face
to face with civil war and French invasion, realised that the sorry
farce had to come to an end. Meanwhile the immediate economic effect of
liberation from the direct restrictions on Irish foreign trade, already
conceded in 1779, and helped in various directions by judicious
bounties, was undoubtedly to give a new impetus to production in
Ireland. The first ten years of Grattan's Parliament were, on the whole,
years of growing prosperity. Whether, even apart from civil war and
increasing taxation, that prosperity would have continued to increase,
if the Union had not come about, is, however, a more doubtful matter.
The immense industrial development of England during the next
half-century would probably, in any case, have crushed out the smaller
and weaker Irish industries, while the existence of a separate tariff in
Great Britain would have been a serious obstacle to the development of
Irish agriculture. A full customs union, with internal free trade, was
undoubtedly the best solution of the difficulty.
Pages:
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470