A.D. 1689 
-1776. 
and grant- 
ing boun- 
Hes on 
export. 
New- 
fashioned 
textiles 
of silk 
516 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
1745, when a penalty of five pounds was imposed on those 
who should wear French cambrics or lawn; a similar fine 
was imposed on those who sold it’. Anderson® expresses 
doubt as to whether it was seriously intended to try to 
enforce such a measure; but it is in full accord with the 
policy which was habitually pursued, of giving as much 
ancouragement to the native linen manufacture as could be 
done without interfering with the supremacy of the cloth 
trade; and the facts, that it was amended after three years’ 
time, and that the Commons refused to repeal it even 
when its futility was demonstrated? seem to show that the 
legislators were perfectly in earnest. Parliament also had 
recourse to another expedient, which found favour at the 
time, for fostering the silk trade, an industry which did not 
owe its introduction to, but was at all events invigorated by, 
the Huguenot immigration. The legislature not only tried 
i promote home consumption, but to stimulate the export 
rade as wells This whole system of bounties was a most 
sxtravagant mode of encouraging the new industries and 
gave rise to effective criticism, especially as there was con- 
siderable doubt in many minds as to the advisability of 
introducing these manufactures at all. They were for the 
most part exotic trades, the materials of which were not of 
English growth? 
The silk manufacture was the business which was 
specially cared for; and curiously enough, the new trades, 
which eventually attained the greatest importance, were so 
far from being favoured that they were positively dis- 
couraged. The woollen manufacturers were exceedingly 
1 18 Geo. II. c. 86 re-enforced by 21 Geo. II. c. 26. 
4 His work was incorporated by Macpherson, Annals, 1. 245. 
3 Sir J. Barnard’s Speech (1753), Parl. Hist. Xv. 163. 
4 In 1722 a bounty of three shillings a pound was granted on the exportation 
of silks, four shillings on silk mixed with gold or silver. and one shilling on silk 
stockings. 8 Geo. I. c. 15. 
§ Davenant, Essay on the East India Trade, in Works, 1. 99; also Arthur 
Young, in Farmer's Letters, p. 17, condemns the pains taken to develop such 
manufactures. J. Massie writes with great discrimination on the kinds of manu- 
tacture to be encouraged and the importance of native materials, Representation 
soncerning the Knowledge of Commerce, 20; Plan for the establishment of Charity 
Houses, p. 10; Reasons against laying any further British duties on Wrought 
Silks. D. 4.