Insulated from the
continental turmoil, served by her Titanic bondsmen coal and iron,
England was able to defeat the Titan, Napoleon. Now it is idle to deny
that this period would under any government have strained Ireland, as
the phrase goes, to the pin of her collar. But the Union made her task
impossible. Lord Castlereagh was quite right in pointing to the
accumulation of capital as the characteristic advantage of England.
Through centuries of political freedom that process had gone on without
interruption. Ireland, on the contrary, had been scientifically pillaged
by the application to her of the "colonial system" from 1663 to 1779; I
deliberately exclude the previous waste of war and confiscation. She had
but twenty years of commercial freedom, and, despite her brilliant
success in that period, she had not time to accumulate capital to any
great extent. But Grattan's Parliament had shown itself extraordinarily
astute and steady of purpose in its economic policy. Had its guidance
continued--conservative taxation, adroit bounties, and that close
scrutiny and eager discussion of the movements of industry which stands
recorded in its Journal--the manufactures of Ireland would have
weathered the storm.
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