592 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
so satisfactory to the English House of Commons; and the 
draft which contained their amendments roused a strong 
feeling of resentment throughout Ireland. But the existence 
of these conflicting views brought out the necessity of 
creating some ultimate authority which might settle differ- 
ences as they arose. The English House of Commons had 
attempted to reserve the power of final decision for England, 
and this had been the main ground of dissatisfaction with 
the revised scheme of commercial intercourse. Two other 
possible arrangements remained; either a legislative union, 
or the “ establishment of a board, constituted of independent 
commissioners, equally and impartially drawn from both 
kingdoms” This last suggestion was never carried into 
effect, and a legislative union seemed to offer the only 
possible solution of the commercial difficulties’. The policy 
of fostering national industry, on which the Irish Parliament 
had entered, was already discredited in England; and the 
demands, which were commonly heard in Ireland, for the 
prohibition of British manufactures’, could not be favourably 
received in England. 
In the first decade of the eighteenth century, the organ- 
isation of the Darien expedition had opened the eyes of 
Englishmen to the necessity of treating Great Britain as 
one economic community, for the purposes of commerce and 
colonisation; they had been glad to arrange for Scottish 
as had been Tepresentation as a means of securing this result. In the 
bah last year of the eighteenth century Englishmen were be- 
ward lo coming convinced that Great Britain and Ireland must also 
be treated as one community for industrial and commercial 
purposes, and once more & legislative Union was carried into 
effect. The representation for which the American colonies 
had appeared to pine was granted to the Irish, and it might 
have proved a sufficient remedy in a country that was less 
distracted by internal differences. In the case of Ireland 
the grievances had been very serious. but they were merely 
A.D. 1689 
—1776. 
and a 
legislative 
union was 
the only 
course 
available, 
I Newenham, 255. 
2 Compare Lord Sackville, Parl. Hist. xxv. 877. 
8 7b., 870; Martin, 19. 
} On the effects of the Union, see below, p. 845.