DUBLIN:
Printed by S. HARDING, next Door to the Crown in
Copper-Alley, 1727-8.
NOTE.
This tract, written and published towards the end of the year
1728,
summarizes the disadvantages under which Ireland suffered at
the
time, and re-enforces the contention that these were mainly
due to
England's jealousy and stupid indifference. Swift, however,
does
not lose sight of the fact that the people of Ireland also
were
somewhat to blame, though in a much less degree.
In Dublin, where tracts of this nature had now become almost
commonplace and where official interference in their
publication
had been found unwise and even dangerous, the issue of the
“Short
View” was effected without any official comment. In England,
however, where it was reprinted by Mist the journalist, it was
otherwise. Its publication brought down a prosecution on Mist,
who,
no doubt, numbered this with the many others which were
visited
upon him. It is an important tract, to which many historians
of
Ireland have often referred.
* * * * *
The text of the present edition is based on that of the first
edition and compared with that given by Sir Walter Scott.
[T. S.]
A SHORT VIEW
OF
THE STATE OF IRELAND.
I am assured that it hath for some time been practised as a method
of making men's court, when they are asked about the rate of lands, the
abilities of tenants, the state of trade and manufacture in this
Kingdom, and how their rents are paid, to answer, That in their
neighbourhood all things are in a flourishing condition, the rent and
purchase of land every day increasing. And if a gentleman happens to be
a little more sincere in his representations, besides being looked on
as not well affected, he is sure to have a dozen contradictors at his
elbow. I think it is no manner of secret why these questions are so
cordially asked, or so obligingly answered.
But since with regard to the affairs of this Kingdom, I have been
using all endeavours to subdue my indignation, to which indeed I am not
provoked by any personal interest, being not the owner of one spot of
ground in the whole Island, I shall only enumerate by rules generally
known, and never contradicted, what are the true causes of any
country's flourishing and growing rich, and then examine what effects
arise from those causes in the Kingdom of Ireland.
The first cause of a Kingdom's thriving is the fruitfulness of the
soil, to produce the necessaries and conveniences of life, not only
sufficient for the inhabitants, but for exportation into other
countries.
The second, is the industry of the people in working up all their
native commodities to the last degree of manufacture.
The third, is the conveniency of safe ports and havens, to carry out
their own goods, as much manufactured, and bring in those of others, as
little manufactured as the nature of mutual commerce will allow.
The fourth, is, That the natives should as much as possible, export
and import their goods in vessels of their own timber, made in their
own country.
The fifth, is the liberty of a free trade in all foreign countries,
which will permit them, except those who are in war with their own
Prince or State.
The sixth, is, by being governed only by laws made with their own
consent, for otherwise they are not a free People. And therefore all
appeals for justice, or applications, for favour or preferment to
another country, are so many grievous impoverishments.
The seventh, is, by improvement of land, encouragement of
agriculture, and thereby increasing the number of their people, without
which any country, however blessed by Nature, must continue poor.
The eighth, is the residence of the Princes, or chief administrators
of the civil power.
The ninth, is the concourse of foreigners for education, curiosity
or pleasure, or as to a general mart of trade.
The tenth, is by disposing all offices of honour, profit or trust,
only to the natives, or at least with very few exceptions, where
strangers have long inhabited the country, and are supposed to
understand, and regard the interest of it as their own.
The eleventh is, when the rents of lands, and profits of
employments, are spent in the country which produced them, and not in
another, the former of which will certainly happen, where the love of
our native country prevails.
The twelfth, is by the public revenues being all spent and employed
at home, except on the occasions of a foreign war.
The thirteenth, is where the people are not obliged, unless they
find it for their own interest, or conveniency, to receive any monies,
except of their own coinage by a public mint, after the manner of all
civilized nations.
The fourteenth, is a disposition of the people of a country to wear
their own manufactures, and import as few incitements to luxury, either
in clothes, furniture, food or drink, as they possibly can live
conveniently without.
There are many other causes of a Nation's thriving, which I cannot
at present recollect; but without advantage from at least some of
these, after turning my thoughts a long time, I am not able to discover
from whence our wealth proceeds, and therefore would gladly be better
informed. In the mean time, I will here examine what share falls to
Ireland of these causes, or of the effects and consequences.
It is not my intention to complain, but barely to relate facts, and
the matter is not of small importance. For it is allowed, that a man
who lives in a solitary house far from help, is not wise in
endeavouring to acquire in the neighbourhood, the reputation of being
rich, because those who come for gold, will go off with pewter and
brass, rather than return empty; and in the common practice of the
world, those who possess most wealth, make the least parade, which they
leave to others, who have nothing else to bear them out, in shewing
their faces on the Exchange.
As to the first cause of a Nation's riches, being the fertility of
the soil, as well as temperature of climate, we have no reason to
complain; for although the quantity of unprofitable land in this
Kingdom, reckoning bog, and rock, and barren mountain, be double in
proportion to what it is in England, yet the native productions which
both Kingdoms deal in, are very near on equality in point of goodness,
and might with the same encouragement be as well manufactured. I except
mines and minerals, in some of which however we are only defective in
point of skill and industry.
In the second, which is the industry of the people, our misfortune
is not altogether owing to our own fault, but to a million of
discouragements.
The conveniency of ports and havens which Nature bestowed us so
liberally is of no more use to us, than a beautiful prospect to a man
shut up in a dungeon.
As to shipping of its own, this Kingdom is so utterly unprovided,
that of all the excellent timber cut down within these fifty or sixty
years, it can hardly be said that the Nation hath received the benefit
of one valuable house to dwell in, or one ship to trade with.
Ireland is the only Kingdom I ever heard or read of, either in
ancient or modern story, which was denied the liberty of exporting
their native commodities and manufactures wherever they pleased, except
to countries at war with their own Prince or State, yet this by the
superiority of mere power is refused us in the most momentous parts of
commerce,[49] besides an Act of Navigation to which we never consented,
pinned down upon us, and rigorously executed,[50] and a thousand other
unexampled circumstances as grievous as they are invidious to mention.
To go unto the rest.
It is too well known that we are forced to obey some laws we never
consented to, which is a condition I must not call by its true
uncontroverted name for fear of my Lord Chief Justice Whitshed's ghost
with his Libertas et natale solum, written as a motto on his
coach, as it stood at the door of the court, while he was perjuring
himself to betray both.[51] Thus, we are in the condition of patients
who have physic sent them by doctors at a distance, strangers to their
constitution, and the nature of their disease: And thus, we are forced
to pay five hundred per cent. to divide our properties, in all
which we have likewise the honour to be distinguished from the whole
race of mankind.
As to improvement of land, those few who attempt that or planting,
through covetousness or want of skill, generally leave things worse
than they were, neither succeeding in trees nor hedges, and by running
into the fancy of grazing after the manner of the Scythians, are every
day depopulating the country.
We are so far from having a King to reside among us, that even the
Viceroy is generally absent four-fifths of his time in the Government.
No strangers from other countries make this a part of their travels,
where they can expect to see nothing but scenes of misery and
desolation.[52]
Those who have the misfortune to be born here, have the least title
to any considerable employment to which they are seldom preferred, but
upon a political consideration.
One third part of the rents of Ireland is spent in England, which
with the profit of employments, pensions, appeals, journeys of pleasure
or health, education at the Inns of Court, and both Universities,
remittances at pleasure, the pay of all superior officers in the army
and other incidents, will amount to a full half of the income of the
whole Kingdom, all clear profit to England.
We are denied the liberty of coining gold, silver, or even copper.
In the Isle of Man, they coin their own silver, every petty Prince,
vassal to the Emperor, can coin what money he pleaseth.[53] And in this
as in most of the articles already mentioned, we are an exception to
all other States or Monarchies that were ever known in the world.
As to the last, or fourteenth article, we take special care to act
diametrically contrary to it in the whole course of our lives. Both
sexes, but especially the women, despise and abhor to wear any of their
own manufactures, even those which are better made than in other
countries, particularly a sort of silk plaid, through which the workmen
are forced to run a sort of gold thread that it may pass for Indian.
Even ale and potatoes in great quantity are imported from England as
well as corn, and our foreign trade is little more than importation of
French wine, for which I am told we pay ready money.
Now if all this be true, upon which I could easily enlarge, I would
be glad to know by what secret method it is that we grow a rich and
flourishing people, without liberty, trade, manufactures, inhabitants,
money, or the privilege of coining; without industry, labour or
improvement of lands, and with more than half of the rent and profits
of the whole Kingdom, annually exported, for which we receive not a
single farthing: And to make up all this, nothing worth mentioning,
except the linen of the North, a trade casual, corrupted, and at mercy,
and some butter from Cork. If we do flourish, it must be against every
law of Nature and Reason, like the thorn at Glastonbury, that blossoms
in the midst of Winter.
Let the worthy Commissioners who come from England ride round the
Kingdom, and observe the face of Nature, or the face of the natives,
the improvement of the land, the thriving numerous plantations, the
noble woods, the abundance and vicinity of country seats, the
commodious farmers houses and barns, the towns and villages, where
everybody is busy and thriving with all kind of manufactures, the shops
full of goods wrought to perfection, and filled with customers, the
comfortable diet and dress, and dwellings of the people, the vast
numbers of ships in our harbours and docks, and shipwrights in our
sea-port towns. The roads crowded with carriers laden with rich
manufactures, the perpetual concourse to and fro of pompous equipages.
With what envy and admiration would these gentlemen return from so
delightful a progress? What glorious reports would they make when they
went back to England?
But my heart is too heavy to continue this journey[54] longer, for
it is manifest that whatever stranger took such a journey, would be apt
to think himself travelling in Lapland or Ysland,[55] rather than in a
country so favoured by Nature as ours, both in fruitfulness of soil,
and temperature of climate. The miserable dress, and diet, and dwelling
of the people. The general desolation in most parts of the Kingdom. The
old seats of the nobility and gentry all in ruins, and no new ones in
their stead. The families of farmers who pay great rents, living in
filth and nastiness upon butter-milk and potatoes, without a shoe or
stocking to their feet, or a house so convenient as an English hog-sty
to receive them.[56] These indeed may be comfortable sights to an
English spectator, who comes for a short time only to learn the
language, and returns back to his own country, whither he finds all our
wealth transmitted.
Nostrâ miseriâ magnus es.
There is not one argument used to prove the riches of Ireland, which
is not a logical demonstration of its poverty. The rise of our rents is
squeezed out of the very blood and vitals, and clothes, and dwellings
of the tenants who live worse than English beggars. The lowness of
interest, in all other countries a sign of wealth, is in us a proof of
misery, there being no trade to employ any borrower. Hence alone comes
the dearness of land, since the savers have no other way to lay out
their money. Hence the dearness of necessaries for life, because the
tenants cannot afford to pay such extravagant rates for land (which
they must take, or go a-begging) without raising the price of cattle,
and of corn, although they should live upon chaff. Hence our increase
of buildings in this City, because workmen have nothing to do but
employ one another, and one half of them are infallibly undone. Hence
the daily increase of bankers, who may be a necessary evil in a trading
country, but so ruinous in ours, who for their private advantage have
sent away all our silver, and one third of our gold, so that within
three years past the running cash of the Nation, which was about five
hundred thousand pounds, is now less than two, and must daily diminish
unless we have liberty to coin, as well as that important Kingdom the
Isle of Man, and the meanest Prince in the German Empire, as I before
observed.[57]
I have sometimes thought, that this paradox of the Kingdom growing
rich, is chiefly owing to those worthy gentlemen the BANKERS, who,
except some custom-house officers, birds of passage, oppressive thrifty
squires, and a few others that shall be nameless, are the only thriving
people among us: And I have often wished that a law were enacted to
hang up half a dozen bankers every year, and thereby interpose at least
some short delay, to the further ruin of Ireland.
“Ye are idle, ye are idle,” answered Pharaoh to the Israelites, when
they complained to his Majesty, that they were forced to make bricks
without straw.
England enjoys every one of these advantages for enriching a Nation,
which I have above enumerated, and into the bargain, a good million
returned to them every year without labour or hazard, or one farthing
value received on our side. But how long we shall be able to continue
the payment, I am not under the least concern. One thing I know, that
when the hen is starved to death, there will be no more golden eggs.
I think it a little unhospitable, and others may call it a subtile
piece of malice, that, because there may be a dozen families in this
Town, able to entertain their English friends in a generous manner at
their tables, their guests upon their return to England, shall report
that we wallow in riches and luxury.
Yet I confess I have known an hospital, where all the household
officers grew rich, while the poor for whose sake it was built, were
almost starving for want of food and raiment.
To conclude. If Ireland be a rich and flourishing Kingdom, its
wealth and prosperity must be owing to certain causes, that are yet
concealed from the whole race of mankind, and the effects are equally
invisible. We need not wonder at strangers when they deliver such
paradoxes, but a native and inhabitant of this Kingdom, who gives the
same verdict, must be either ignorant to stupidity, or a man-pleaser at
the expense of all honour, conscience and truth.