THE SUPPLY OF WOOL, IRELAND AND AUSTRALIA 645 
increasing reliance on foreign wools!, especially those of 5+. an 
Saxony, and it seemed as if England were becoming dependent 
on foreign countries for the materials not only of the cotton 
trade, but of the long-established woollen industry as well. 
The anxiety which was felt upon the subject comes out 
strikingly in one of the incidental controversies that arose 
over the union of Ireland with England. High as was the 
price of wool in England, it was dearer still in the sister 
island ; possibly the repression of the woollen manufactures 
had been only too complete, and wool-growing, under the 
discouragements to which the manufacture was subjected, 
had ceased to be so profitable as to lead men to prosecute it 
on a considerable scale®; but whatever the reason may have 
been, the fact remains that the price of wool ranged much 
higher in Ireland®. In the Act of Union it was proposed 
that there should be a free interchange of goods between 
England and Ireland. The manufacturers had long en- 
joyed a monopoly of the home supply; they believed they 
had reason to fear that export to Ireland, which had hitherto 
been prohibited, would force them to pay at a still higher 
rate. There were some signs of the old jealousy of Irish and revived 
manufactures; but the opposition was chiefly due to a belief un 
that English wool, if readily transferred to Ireland, would be , 
clandestinely exported thence to the continent, and that our “2. , 
rivals in France and the Low Countries would secure a 
regular supply of English wool, which would enable them to 
1= 
1 
Lords Committee on the State of the British Wool Trade, in Reports, 1828, vi. 
{00, printed pag. 48. Though the weight of wool was increased, when sheep were 
fed on clover and turnips, the quality produced was inferior to that from sheep fed 
on the downs and heath, N. Forster, Answer to Sir J. Dalrymple (1782), p. 27; 
also Alexander Williams, Address to the Woollen Manufacturers (1800), quoted by 
Bischoff, 1. 334. 
1 In 1800 the importation of wool from Germany was 412,394 1bs., in 1814 if 
was 3,432,465 lbs. ; in 1825 it reached the unprecedented figure of 28.799.6611bs. 
Reports, 1828, vir. Ap. 1, 681. 
3 Pococke in 1752 calls attention to the specially good quality of wool 
produced near Galway. Tour, p. 108. Much of the Irish wool thus found its way 
io Cork, p. 118. For licenses for export of wool from Ireland see Calendar of 
State Papers, Home Office, 1760-65, pp. 251, 875, 508, 687. 
8 In England in 1795 wool was 8}d. per 1b. as against 11d. per Ib. in Ireland. 
In 1797 wool in England was 63d. as against 93d. in Ireland, and in 1799 wool was 
3d. per 1b. in England ag against 1s. 344. in Ireland. Bischoff, 1. 324.