WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1729.
NOTE.
The archbishop to whom Swift wrote was Dr. William King, for
many
years his friend. King was a fine patriot and had stood out
strongly against the imposition of Wood's Halfpence. In this
letter, so characteristic of Swift's attitude towards the
condition
of Ireland, he aims at a practical and immediate relief. The
causes
for this condition discussed so ably by Molesworth, Prior and
Dobbs
in their various treatises are too academic for him. His
“Proposal
for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture” well illustrates
the
kind of practical reform Swift insisted on. Yet the insistence
was
more because of the spirit of independence such a course
demanded.
To Swift there was no hope for Ireland without a radical
change in
the spirit of its people. The change meant the assertion of
manliness, independence, and strength of character. How to
attain
these, and how to make the people aware of their power, were
always
Swift's aims. All his tracts are assertions of and dilations
on
these themes. If the people were but to insist on wearing
their own
manufactures, since they were prohibited from exporting them,
they
would keep their money in the kingdom. Likewise, if they were
to
deny themselves the indulgence in luxuries, they would not
have to
send out their money to the countries from which these
luxuries
were obtained. There were methods ready at hand, but the
practice
in them would result in the cultivation of that respect for
themselves without which a nation is worse than a pauper and
lower
than a slave.
* * * * *
The text of this edition is based on the original manuscript,
and
collated with that of Scott's second edition of Swift's
collected
works.
[T. S.]
A LETTER TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, CONCERNING THE WEAVERS.
MY LORD,
The corporation of weavers in the woollen manufacture, who have so
often attended your Grace, and called upon me with their schemes and
proposals were with me on Thursday last, when he who spoke for the rest
and in the name of his absent brethren, said, “It was the opinion of
the whole body, that if somewhat were written at this time by an able
hand to persuade the people of the Kingdom to wear their own woollen
manufactures, it might be of good use to the Nation in general, and
preserve many hundreds of their trade from starving.” To which I
answered, “That it was hard for any man of common spirit to turn his
thoughts to such speculations, without discovering a resentment which
people are too delicate to bear.” For, I will not deny to your Grace,
that I cannot reflect on the singular condition of this Country,
different from all others upon the face of the Earth, without some
emotion, and without often examining as I pass the streets whether
those animals which come in my way with two legs and human faces, clad
and erect, be of the same species with what I have seen very like them
in England, as to the outward shape, but differing in their notions,
natures, and intellectuals, more than any two kinds of brutes in a
forest, which any men of common prudence would immediately discover, by
persuading them to define what they mean by law, liberty, property,
courage, reason, loyalty or religion.
One thing, my Lord, I am very confident of; that if God Almighty for
our sins would most justly send us a pestilence, whoever should dare to
discover his grief in public for such a visitation, would certainly be
censured for disaffection to the Government. For I solemnly profess,
that I do not know one calamity we have undergone this many years,
whereof any man whose opinions were not in fashion dared to lament
without being openly charged with that imputation. And this is the
harder, because although a mother when she hath corrected her child may
sometimes force it to kiss the rod, yet she will never give that power
to the footboy or the scullion.
My Lord, there are two things for the people of this Kingdom to
consider. First their present evil condition; and secondly what can be
done in some degree to remedy it.
I shall not enter into a particular description of our present
misery; It hath been already done in several papers, and very fully in
one, entitled, “A short View of the State of Ireland.” It will be
enough to mention the entire want of trade, the Navigation Act executed
with the utmost rigour, the remission of a million every year to
England, the ruinous importation of foreign luxury and vanity, the
oppression of landlords, and discouragement of agriculture.
Now all these evils are without the possibility of a cure except
that of importations, and to fence against ruinous folly will be always
in our power in spite of the discouragements, mortifications, contempt,
hatred, and oppression we can lie under. But our trade will never mend,
the Navigation Act never be softened, our absentees never return, our
endless foreign payments never be lessened, or our landlords ever be
less exacting.
All other schemes for preserving this Kingdom from utter ruin are
idle and visionary, consequently drawn from wrong reasoning, and from
general topics which for the same causes that they may be true in all
Nations are certainly false in ours; as I have told the Public often
enough, but with as little effect as what I shall say at present is
likely to produce.
I am weary of so many abortive projects for the advancement of
trade, of so many crude proposals in letters sent me from unknown
hands, of so many contradictory speculations about raising or sinking
the value of gold and silver: I am not in the least sorry to hear of
the great numbers going to America, though very much so for the causes
that drive them from us, since the uncontrolled maxim, “That people are
the riches of a Nation,” is no maxim here under our circumstances. We
have neither [manufactures] to employ them about, nor food to support
them.
If a private gentleman's income be sunk irretrievably for ever from
a hundred pounds to fifty, and that he hath no other method to supply
the deficiency, I desire to know, my Lord, whether such a person hath
any other course to take than to sink half his expenses in every
article of economy, to save himself from ruin and the gaol. Is not this
more than doubly the case of Ireland, where the want of money, the
irrecoverable ruin of trade, with the other evils above mentioned, and
many more too well known and felt, and too numerous or invidious to
relate, have been gradually sinking us for above a dozen years past, to
a degree that we are at least by two thirds in a worse condition than
was ever known since the Revolution? Therefore instead of dreams and
projects for the advancing of trade, we have nothing left but to find
out some expedient whereby we may reduce our expenses to our incomes.
Yet this procedure, allowed so necessary in all private families,
and in its own nature so easy to be put in practice, may meet with
strong opposition by the cowardly slavish indulgence of the men to the
intolerable pride arrogance vanity and luxury of the women, who
strictly adhering to the rules of modern education seem to employ their
whole stock of invention in contriving new arts of profusion, faster
than the most parsimonious husband can afford; and to compass this work
the more effectually, their universal maxim is to despise and detest
everything of the growth and manufacture of their own country, and most
to value whatever comes from the very remotest parts of the globe. And
I am convinced, that if the virtuosi could once find out a world in the
moon, with a passage to it, our women would wear nothing but what came
directly from thence.[100]
The prime cost of wine yearly imported to Ireland is valued at
thirty thousand pounds, and the tea (including coffee and chocolate) at
five times that sum. The lace, silks, calicoes, and all other
unnecessary ornaments for women, including English cloths and stuffs,
added to the former articles, make up (to compute grossly), about four
hundred thousand pounds.
Now, if we should allow the thirty thousand pounds for wine, wherein
the women have their share, and which is all we have to comfort us, and
deduct seventy thousand pounds more for over-reckoning, there would
still remain three hundred thousand pounds, annually spent for
unwholesome drugs, and unnecessary finery. Which prodigious sum would
be wholly saved, and many thousands of our miserable shopkeepers and
manufacturers comfortably supported.
Let speculative people busy their brains as much as they please,
there is no other way to prevent this Kingdom from sinking for ever
than by utterly renouncing all foreign dress and luxury.
It is absolutely so in fact that every husband of any fortune in the
Kingdom is nourishing a poisonous, devouring serpent in his bosom with
all the mischief but with none of its wisdom.
If all the women were clad with the growth of their own Country,
they might still vie with each other in the cause of foppery, and still
have room left to vie with each other, and equally shew their wit and
judgment in deciding upon the variety of Irish stuffs; And if they
could be contented with their native wholesome slops for breakfast, we
should hear no more of their spleen, hysterics, colics, palpitations,
and asthmas. They might still be allowed to ruin each other and their
husbands at play, because the money lost would only circulate among
ourselves.
My Lord; I freely own it a wild imagination that any words will cure
the sottishness of men, or the vanity of women, but the Kingdom is in a
fair way of producing the most effectual remedy, when there will not be
money left for the common course of buying and selling the very
necessaries of life in our markets, unless we absolutely change the
whole method of our proceedings.
This Corporation of Weavers in Woollen and Silks, who have so
frequently offered proposals both to your Grace and to me, are the
hottest and coldest generation of men that I have known. About a month
ago they attended your Grace, when I had the honour to be with you, and
designed me then the same favour. They desired you would recommend to
your clergy to wear gowns of Irish stuffs, which might probably spread
the example among all their brethren in the Kingdom, and perhaps among
the lawyers and gentlemen of the University and among the citizens of
those Corporations who appear in gowns on solemn occasions. I then
mentioned a kind of stuff, not above eightpence a yard, which I heard
had been contrived by some of the trade and was very convenient. I
desired they would prepare some of that or any sort of black stuff on a
certain day, when your Grace would appoint as many clergymen as could
readily be found to meet at your Palace, and there give their opinions;
and that your Grace's visitations approaching you could then have the
best opportunity of seeing what could be done in a matter of such
consequence, as they seemed to think, to the woollen manufacture. But
instead of attending, as was expected, they came to me a fortnight
after, with a new proposal; that something should be writ by an
acceptable and able hand to promote in general the wearing of home
manufactures, and their civilities would seem to fix that work upon me.
I asked whether they had prepared the stuffs, as they had promised, and
your Grace expected; but they had not made the least step in the
matter, nor as it appears thought of it more.
I did some years ago propose to the masters and principal dealers in
the home manufactures of silk and wool, that they should meet together,
and after mature consideration, publish advertisements to the following
purpose.[101] That in order to encourage the wearing of Irish
manufactures in silk and woollen, they gave notice to the nobility and
gentry of the Kingdom, That they the undersigned would enter into
bonds, for themselves and for each other, to sell the several sorts of
stuffs, cloths and silks, made to the best perfection they were able,
for certain fixed prices, and in such a manner, that if a child were
sent to any of their shops, the buyer might be secure of the value and
goodness, and measure of the ware, and lest this might be thought to
look like a monopoly any other member of the trade might be admitted
upon such conditions as should be agreed on. And if any person
whatsoever should complain that he was ill used in the value or
goodness of what he bought, the matter should be examined, the person
injured be fully satisfied, by the whole corporation without delay, and
the dishonest seller be struck out of the society, unless it appeared
evidently that the failure proceeded only from mistake.
The mortal danger is, that if these dealers could prevail by the
goodness and cheapness of their cloths and stuffs to give a turn to the
principal people of Ireland in favour of their goods, they would
relapse into the knavish practice peculiar to this Kingdom, which is
apt to run through all trades even so low as a common ale-seller, who
as soon as he gets a vogue for his liquor, and outsells his neighbour,
thinks his credit will put off the worst he can buy; till his customers
will come no more. Thus I have known at London in a general mourning,
the drapers dye black all their old damaged goods, and sell them at
double rates, and then complain and petition the Court, that they are
ready to starve by the continuance of the mourning.
Therefore I say, those principal weavers who would enter in such a
compact as I have mentioned, must give sufficient security against all
such practices; for if once the women can persuade their husbands that
foreign goods besides the finery will be as cheap, and do more service,
our last state will be worse than the first.
I do not here pretend to digest perfectly the method by which these
principal shopkeepers shall proceed in such a proposal; but my meaning
is clear enough, and cannot reasonably be objected against.
We have seen what a destructive loss the Kingdom received by the
detestable fraud of the merchants, or Northern weavers, or both,
notwithstanding all the care of the Governers at that Board; the whole
trade with Spain for our linen, when we had an offer of commerce with
the Spaniards, to the value as I am told of three hundred thousand
pounds a year. But while we deal like pedlars, we shall practise like
pedlars; and sacrifice all honesty to the present urging advantage.
What I have said may serve as an answer to the desire made me by the
Corporation of Weavers, that I would offer my notions to the public. As
to anything further, let them apply themselves to the Parliament in
their next Session. Let them prevail in the House of Commons to grant
one very reasonable request: And I shall think there is still some
spirit left in the Nation, when I read a vote to this purpose:
“Resolved, nemine contradicente, That this House will, for the
future, wear no clothes but such as are made of Irish growth, or of
Irish manufacture, nor will permit their wives or children to wear any
other; and that they will to the utmost endeavour to prevail with their
friends, relations, dependants and tenants to follow their example.”
And if at the same time they could banish tea and coffee, and
china-ware, out of their families, and force their wives to chat their
scandal over an infusion of sage, or other wholesome domestic
vegetables, we might possibly be able to subsist, and pay our
absentees, pensioners, generals, civil officers, appeals, colliers,
temporary travellers, students, schoolboys, splenetic visitors of Bath,
Tunbridge, and Epsom, with all other smaller drains, by sending our
crude unwrought goods to England, and receiving from thence and all
other countries nothing but what is fully manufactured, and keep a few
potatoes and oatmeal for our own subsistence.
I have been for a dozen years past wisely prognosticating the
present condition of this Kingdom, which any human creature of common
sense could foretell with as little sagacity as myself. My meaning is
that a consumptive body must needs die, which hath spent all its
spirits and received no nourishment. Yet I am often tempted to pity
when I hear the poor farmer and cottager lamenting the hardness of the
times, and imputing them either to one or two ill seasons, which better
climates than ours are more exposed to, or to the scarcity of silver
which to a Nation of Liberty would be only a slight and temporary
inconveniency, to be removed at a month's warning.
Ap., 1729.
OBSERVATIONS,
OCCASIONED BY READING A PAPER ENTITLED, “THE
CASE OF THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES
OF DUBLIN,” ETC.[102]
The paper called “The Case of the Woollen Manufactures,” &c. is very
well drawn up. The reasonings of the authors are just, the facts true,
and the consequences natural. But his censure of those seven vile
citizens, who import such a quantity of silk stuffs and woollen cloth
from England, is an hundred times gentler than enemies to their country
deserve; because I think no punishment in this world can be great
enough for them, without immediate repentance and amendment. But, after
all, the writer of that paper hath very lightly touched one point of
the greatest importance, and very poorly answered the main objection,
that the clothiers are defective both in the quality and quantity of
their goods.
For my own part, when I consider the several societies of
handicraftsmen in all kinds, as well as shopkeepers, in this city,
after eighteen years' experience of their dealings, I am at a loss to
know in which of these societies the most or least honesty is to be
found. For instance, when any trade comes first into my head, upon
examination I determine it exceeds all others in fraud. But after I
have considered them all round, as far as my knowledge or experience
reacheth, I am at a loss to determine, and to save trouble I put them
all upon a par. This I chiefly apply to those societies of men who get
their livelihood by the labour of their hands. For, as to shopkeepers,
I cannot deny that I have found some few honest men among them, taking
the word honest in the largest and most charitable sense. But as to
handicraftsmen, although I shall endeavour to believe it possible to
find a fair dealer among their clans, yet I confess it hath never been
once my good fortune to employ one single workman, who did not cheat me
at all times to the utmost of his power in the materials, the work, and
the price. One universal maxim I have constantly observed among them,
that they would rather gain a shilling by cheating you, than twenty in
the honest way of dealing, although they were sure to lose your custom,
as well as that of others, whom you might probably recommend to them.
This, I must own, is the natural consequence of poverty and
oppression. These wretched people catch at any thing to save them a
minute longer from drowning. Thus Ireland is the poorest of all
civilized countries in Europe, with every natural advantage to make it
one of the richest.
As to the grand objection, which this writer slubbers over in so
careless a manner, because indeed it was impossible to find a
satisfactory answer, I mean the knavery of our woollen manufacturers in
general, I shall relate some facts, which I had more opportunities to
observe than usually fall in the way of men who are not of the trade.
For some years, the masters and wardens, with many of their principal
workmen and shopkeepers, came often to the Deanery to relate their
grievances, and to desire my advice as well as my assistance. What
reasons might move them to this proceeding, I leave to public
conjecture. The truth is, that the woollen manufacture of this kingdom
sate always nearest my heart. But the greatest difficulty lay in these
perpetual differences between the shopkeepers and workmen they
employed. Ten or a dozen of these latter often came to the Deanery with
their complaints, which I often repeated to the shopkeepers. As, that
they brought their prices too low for a poor weaver to get his bread
by; and instead of ready money for their labour on Saturdays, they gave
them only such a quantity of cloth or stuff, at the highest rate, which
the poor men were often forced to sell one-third below the rate, to
supply their urgent necessities. On the other side, the shopkeepers
complained of idleness, and want of skill, or care, or honesty, in
their workmen; and probably their accusations on both sides were just.
Whenever the weavers, in a body, came to me for advice, I gave it
freely, that they should contrive some way to bring their goods into
reputation; and give up that abominable principle of endeavouring to
thrive by imposing bad ware at high prices to their customers, whereby
no shopkeeper can reasonably expect to thrive. For, besides the dread
of God's anger, (which is a motive of small force among them,) they may
be sure that no buyer of common sense will return to the same shop
where he was once or twice defrauded. That gentlemen and ladies, when
they found nothing but deceit in the sale of Irish cloths and stuffs,
would act as they ought to do, both in prudence and resentment, in
going to those very bad citizens the writer mentions, and purchase
English goods.
I went farther, and proposed that ten or a dozen of the most
substantial woollen-drapers should join in publishing an advertisement,
signed with their names to the following purpose:—That for the better
encouragement of all gentlemen, &c. the persons undernamed did bind
themselves mutually to sell their several cloths and stuffs, (naming
each kind) at the lowest rate, right merchantable goods, of such a
breadth, which they would warrant to be good according to the several
prices; and that if a child of ten years old were sent with money, and
directions what cloth or stuff to buy, he should not be wronged in any
one article. And that whoever should think himself ill-used in any of
the said shops, he should have his money again from the seller, or upon
his refusal, from the rest of the said subscribers, who, if they found
the buyer discontented with the cloth or stuff, should be obliged to
refund the money; and if the seller refused to repay them, and take his
goods again, should publicly advertise that they would answer for none
of his goods any more. This would be to establish credit, upon which
all trade dependeth.
I proposed this scheme several times to the corporation of weavers,
as well as to the manufacturers, when they came to apply for my advice
at the Deanery-house. I likewise went to the shops of several
woollen-drapers upon the same errand, but always in vain; for they
perpetually gave me the deaf ear, and avoided entering into discourse
upon that proposal: I suppose, because they thought it was in vain, and
that the spirit of fraud had gotten too deep and universal a possession
to be driven out by any arguments from interest, reason, or conscience.