THE UNION WITH IRELAND 591 
So far for internal traffic; but attempts were also made to A-D: 1689 
develop the industries of the country as well. Fishing busses sng in 
were subsidised, so was the cotton manufacture, and Irish promoting 
trade increased enormously for a time. Still it may be rr 
doubted whether the bounties really brought about this ’ 
change, and it is certain that they were not the only reason 
for the new development. At all events they were a costly 
expedient’, and the fraud and peculation to which they gave 
rise? were a serious drawback to the system. It seems 
probable that the sudden, though brief, expansion of Irish 
trade was due to other causes which affected her commerce, 
and especially to the improved facilities which were given 
for trade with France by Pitt's treaty. Though the custom- 
house books do not seem to show it, there can be little doubt 
that the French trade had always been considerable; the 
“ running ” of wool had been a matter of constant complaint”, 
and the claret, which was so lavishly consumed in Ireland, 
must have been paid for in goods, even if much of it evaded 
the duty. The decline of the new era of prosperity appears 
to synchronise with the fresh rupture with France; and the 
rebellion of 1798, with the subsequent reconquest of Ireland, 
sufficiently account for the decline. 
The changes which had placed the economic life of Tk 
Ireland outside the control of the British Parliament had House of 
created a somewhat anomalous situation. By the new Com Coton 
position which Ireland had acquired, in 1782, it became mieid go 
necessary to arrange for the commercial relationships on gpm 
the basis of a treaty between the two kingdoms, and not, roughout 
as hitherto, by the regulations which England chose to a 
impose on a dependency. In 1784 a committee of the 
British Privy Council examined the trade between the two 
countries, and framed a report which was regarded in Ireland 
as admirably impartial’. Early in the following year a 
scheme, based upon it, was submitted to the Irish House 
of Commons and readily accepted by them: but it was not 
L Martin, 43. Compare Mr Cavendish's motion for retrenchment in 1784, 
Newenham, 206. This was an old complaint in regard to other bounties. 
Caldwell, Debates on affairs of Ireland, 138, 803, 521. 
3} Martin, op. cit. 43; Newenham, op. cit, 206. 
3 See above, p. 550. 
¢ Newenham, 253.