A.D. 1689 
—1776. 
while their 
pasture 
farming 
was dis- 
couraged, 
582 . PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
mentalists in new methods of culture.” Absentees could 
take no such interest in their estates; and the existing 
laws did not ensure such profit to the agriculturist as to 
render tillage a tempting investment in Ireland. The 
trivial bounties? which were eventually given on export 
(unaccompanied as they were by any protection against the 
constant importation of bounty-favoured corn from England) 
did not render tillage profitable. Landlords were on the 
whole opposed to it?, and the measures, which tried to force 
them to adopt it, remained a dead letter®. It was not till 
England had begun to lose her position as a European granary, 
and the necessity for import was coming to be regularly felt, 
that Ireland was put on anything like an equality with her 
in regard to the encouragement of corn-growing®. 
The landed men, in the pasture counties of England, were 
inclined to be jealous of the favour extended to their corn- 
growing compatriots; and this made them all the more eager 
to obtain protection against the competition of Irish graziers. 
Their success in prohibiting the legitimate trade in Irish 
wool, and Irish provisions, was most detrimental to the 
economic interests of the realm as a whole; Irish wool 
was smuggled to the continent in considerable quantities, 
and supplied the staple material for manufactures which 
threatened to rival our own® while the Dutch and the 
French had the advantage of providing their ships on 
easy terms with Irish victuals, since there were so many 
hindrances to the purchase of them for English vessels’; 
but the landowners in the grass counties were inclined to 
demand farther protective measures. 
1 Thorold Rogers, Agriculture and Prices, v. p. vil. 
3 Newenham, 121, 130. 8 Ib. 126. 
t 1 Geo. II. ¢. 10 (Irish) ; Newenham, 128. 
5 19 and 20 Geo. IIL. ¢. 17 (Irish); Newenham, 142. 
6 See above, pp. 374, 378. 
7 Ireland had been allowed a direct trade with the colonies in 1660, but this 
permission was withdrawn by the terms of 22 and 23 C. IL ec. 26, and 7 and 8 
W. III. ¢. 22. The first relaxation of this restriction, 4 Geo. IL e. 15, only 
enabled her to procure rum on easy terms from the West Indies, and this again 
may be represented as sacrificing native distilling to a trade in which much 
English capital was invested (Newenham, 100). It also encouraged the Irish to 
purchase West Indian products from the French Islands; and to pay for them by 
victualling French ships. Caldwell, Enquiry, in Debates, 771. 
BW. Allen. The Landlord's Companvon (1742), p. 21.