THE RESOURCES OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 13 May 1920, Page 9

THE RESOURCES OF IRELAND

(By Robert Barry, in the Catholic Bulletin:) In some recent important publications, on the subject of the development of Irish industries, it has been stated, with regard to the revival of the leather trade, that the extent of the tanneries in Ireland in former times could not be ascertained. The writer of this article after considerable research and investigation, has, however, succeeded in tracing not pnly the number of tanners in Ireland from the end* of the eighteenth down to the first quarter of the nineteenth century, but the extent in cubic feet of the tanneries and the excise duty paid. The decline in the number of tanners, between 1795 and 1823, by nearly one-half, suggested further investigations as to the cause of this abnormal decrease. From these inquiries it appears perfectly clear that the Irish leather manufacture was primarily destroyed by excessive duties and by restrictions imposed by- the English Government. It is necessary, in the first instance, to glance at the legislation of the Irish Parliament,, and to compare it with that of the English Parliament after the Act of Union. By tho Irish Act 3 Geo. 111. c. xvi. (1763), the sum of £B,OOO was granted to the Dublin Society for the encouragement of, among other trades, the leather industry; by 5 Geo. 111. c. xii. a further sum of £B,OOO was granted for a similar purpose.; by 7 Geo. 111. c. xv. a sum of £7,000 was likewise granted, and by 25 Geo. 111. c. Ixi. (1785), the sum of £2,500. Down to the year 1800 the duties levied on hides*’ and skins tanned were ascertained by weight. The latest Act of the Irish. Parliament, enacting the payment of duty in this way is 38 Geo. 111. c. xxiii.(l79B). It will lie necessary to compare, Jeter on, the duties imposed by this Act with the crushing duties subsequently imposed by an English Act. In the year 1/96 tho number of tanners in Ireland was 876, and the total amount of leather duty- paid was £17,481 4s 3d. In 1799, the year after the passing of the above Act, the number of tanners licensed was 799, and the duty collected was £18,791. The year 1800 brought a change in the system of charging duty. By the Irish Act, 40 Geo. 111. c. lx. (1800) it was enacted that, for the'better collecting ami levying of all duties, the Irish tanners were to make a return of the number of cubic feet jn each of the pits called vats, handlers and latches, and in every other pit in every tan yard kept by them in which bark was used; that every tanner should be charged according to the number of cubic feet contained in his pits, at the rate of ninepence bv the year, in respect of each cubic foot. -'vith an allowance of two-ninths of the whole number of such cubic feet for the contents of the pits called hitches'license to be granted subject to the execution of a bond to His Majesty in the sum of £2OO. For 1801 the ve-ir after the passing of this Act, the number of tanners £50521t W TI o’ Whi,e tho <lutv P aid had jumped to £o0,o21! The approximate contents of the Irish tanneries, on which this duty of ninepence per cubic foot was paid would be, therefore, 1,347,226 cubic feet. In 1/96 there were, as already stated, 876 tanners—49 ST iji” ■" 1801-lio-mecl, while tin- duty pj „*( cnly ti / ,481. 1 Ins means that within a-. space of live W £33 010' e nm U ° om tn, " Krii ba '« '-n increased by £33,040 per annum. The increased dutv imposed bv the assessment of the cubical content of the tanpits was .undoubtedly inspired by England for the purpose of =^ Xt bv X 1 ’ Freth d t7 iSi position of Ireland 'L 'S-II.'S” Murrays Commercial Besfrictions thus- ‘ ' " In H 93 the war with France began and the even c‘ <>f v " ; ' war the Tnrrl T-V’ n 1 . r IG commencement of the war, tne tmid Lieutenant said that the TCi.wr r i firm and of the Irish House of'com’all parties agTidlha^tl m ICial d * batcs of this session the last ten years had been of the war began to tell P T„ i,„i i ~ f s t la)n burden soon became even heavier . I ,and th . e Galicia! ■resources of the countrv Heavier m proportion to the the war with France there for added , if. the expenses of the war with France there , 1 tlle expenses of •■■■■« there was now the necessity of large

military preparations' at homo ; to maintain tho Government and repress the growing disorders. After 1796 Parliament found it no longer possible to exempt the very poor from taxation, and besides the hearth tax, the salt and leather taxes now fell very heavily upon them. .. . . from 1797 Ireland had to reckon with the Rebellion as ell as with the French war. The entire cost of the great numbers of English troops sent to Ireland was borne by that country. ... From 1793 to the Union, expenditure increased at a very rapid rate ... the total expenditure tor the year ended Lady Day, 1800, was as much as five 1793 ” greater than that for the year ended Lady Day, leather taxes fell heavily on the Irish people in 1 1 96, when there was little decline in the prosperity of the country it requires no stretch of the imagination to realise the hardship caused in 1801 when the duties levied made the revenue from leather three times greater. The lush 1 arliament s subserviency to the interests of England since 1800 could not, perhaps, be more clearly demonstrated than in the placing of this colossal burden on the shoulders of the Irish leather trade. It has been stated in recent histories that the tannin »■ trade was the one exception to the almost universal penty in Ireland during the period of Grattan’s Parliament; that the depression in’the industry was duo to the absence of woods in Ireland and the consequent shortage of bark and to the growing practice of exporting live cattle. I he latter might certainly be understood to operate, m subsequent times, in view of the effects of the Act of 1800, but notwithstanding all these explanations, it must be remembered that between the years 1795 and 1803 there wore in existence in Ireland close on a thousand tanners, and that the decrease in their number, in later years, synchronises with the increase of destructive British financial legislation. I be Act of Union. 39-40 Geo. 111. c. Ixvii. soon followed the Act just referred to. All prohibitions, by this Act, in both Great Britain and Ireland were to cease, and a perfectly free exportation from one country to the other was to be established, corn only excepted. The goods of each country were to be imported into the other, free of duty, with certain specified exceptions (18 in all), on winch 10 per cent, ad valorem duty was to be placed. Saddlery was one of the 18 articles thus excepted. The lowering of all protective duties that were above 10 per cent to that amount, exposed, said the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, the infant manufactures of Ireland to the overwhelming competition of the great capital of England. A drawback, by Article six, was to be given in those eases where a countervailing duty was taken, & and the articles to be charged with a countervailing duty, both in Ireland and Great Britain, included leather. ' Hides and skins, however, were not subject to either of these reservations, and the English tanner and boot manufacturer were, therefore, bound to profit by, and ultimately capture the entire Irish market. This would naturally follow from the decrease in Irish tanneries, owing to excessive duties, and the consequent export of cattle, hides** and skins. Apparently the two Acts of 1800 were not sufficiently destructive of tho leather industry in Ireland, in 1812, though the number of tanners in that year cannot be ascertained, the licensing of traders having been transferred from the Excise to the Stamp Department, the leather duty paid was £36,546, while the contents of the tanneries were 968,281 cubic feet. A further Act was then passed 53 Geo. 111. c. lx. (1813), which preserved the system of duty by cubic admeasurement. By the Irish Act 40 Geo. 111. c. ix. an allowance of two-ninths on the duly was made tor the contents on the pits called latches mentioned in italics above. This allowance was discontinued in the Act of 1813. A further obstacle placed on the development of the tanning industry was that no license was to bo granted to any person to tan hides unless the pit contained 400 cubic feet at least. This must have, destroyed the trade, of a vast number of small tanners situate m outlying and remote districts. Finally, it was enacted by this Statute that those who desired to obtain a license should find two sureties in a bond of £SO for every 100 cubic feet of the pits. Under the Irish Act a bond of £2OO for the whole pit was considered sufficient I nor to the enactment of this Statute, English tanners had protested against certain privileges which they considered the Irish tanners had over them. From the passing of the foregoing Act there was a steady in the number of tanners and of the duty paid. In 1815 there were only 634 tanners, in 1818 there were 574, in 1821 the number fell to 497, and in 1823 to 476. The revenue was then down to £31,651 fall of nearly £20,000 per annum in 20 years. The English interests were, however, still dissatisfied, and Government proceeded to consider what steps should be taken, ostens-

ibly to i increase its revenue, but , in reality, k it seems, to crush-the Irish? tanning trade entirely. J " By two Actsl and 2 Geo. IV. c. : xc. and 3 Geo. IV. a. xxxvii. (1821-3), Commissioners were appointed to inquire into the collection and management of the Public Revenue arising in Ireland, As a result of their inquiry into the manner of collecting the revenue derived from leather manufacture, they recommended the adoption of the practice of charging the duty on all leather manufactured in Ireland, at the same rate, according to the same denominations, and under the same regulations as in England, namely, by weight, and strongly advocated the abolition of the practice of charging duty by the cubical contents of the pits. This recommendation was made in opposition to the strong objection advanced by Irish tanners who stated in evidence that owing to tho poverty of Ireland the change would be most harmful to the trade. The reasons given by the English Commissioners as a justification for the change were, that “when, the duty was originally adopted (1800), it was intended to act as a check, both upon the officer and the tanner, and was supposed to be equal, according to the mode of tanning then in use, to the amount of the duty imposed by weight; that the number and size of the tan pits, and the duty-paid, had rapidly diminished.” The original object of the cubic admeasurement was not so much to act as a check on the parties concerned as to increase the revenue for the . purpose of defraying the expenses of the English Government occasioned by the wars of the period. The decrease in the number of tan pits is explained by the restrictions in the Act of 1813. The Report continues:- — “There is no reason to believe that a smaller quantity of leather is consumed in Ireland, and it appears from the Revenue accounts that the proportion supplied from Great Britain was not increased ; it is not therefore probable that tho total quantity manufactured suffered any diminution. By tho use of Vallonia, and other ingredients mixed with the bark, as well as by applying the liquid in a heated state, tho tanners gradually substituted a rapid for a slow process of tanning, and in consequence, whatever may have been the case when the duty on the pit was first enacted, it soon ceased to bear the due proportion to that which the law imposed by weight.” This is scarcely consistent with the facts. When the leather was charged for by weight under Acts of the Irish Parliament, tho duty paid in 1796 by 876 tanners was £17,481 — 1805, when duty was charged by cubic contents and the number of tanners had fallen to 759, the duty paid was £38,541. The report concluded : “By charging the duty in Ireland, at the same rate as in Great Britain, ve are aware some addition will be made to the. amount at present levied. In our opinion, however, Ireland will be more than compensated for this additional burthen by a great improvement in the quality of an article of such general use ; and by the removal of all countervailing duty and drawback in the trade between the two countries, a measure particularly desirable with respect to leather, which forms a component part of many manufactured articles, in all of which any existing difference of duty ought to bo adjusted on import into either country.” The concern of the commissioners for the improvement in -the quality of Irish leather is most touching. The evidence of the few Irish tanners examined on this and other points, negatives the charges made against the tanners and. manufacturers. The following extracts from the evidence are of importance ; Mr. John White, tanner, Dublin, examined: Q. Are you well acquainted with the English leather? Tolerably so. Q. Is the English leather better made? —f have never seen better sole leather or butt leather, than some of that we have in Dublin, our best. 1 have sold leather tanned in Liverpool, and some tanned at Bristol, and some in London, but of that which would suit this country to deal in, I never saw any to excel our Dublin leather. Q. Do you think the mode of impressing the duty has any effect at all upon the quality of the leather; does it tempt the tanners to hurry the —lndeed I cannot, say that it does; J think the leant of capital in the country to the, great reason for hurrying the process , those with capital are able to let their leather lie. . . . The English, tanners have a great advantage over us in point of bark. Mr. .William Ord, tanner, examined; Q. Do you think that the English leather is hurried through the pit faster than it is in Ireland? think it is; and it is manufactured with much less labor than we manufacture Irish. Q. Is Irish leather much exported to England? No. not latterly, in consequence of failuresthere was a vast deal exported from 1810 to 1813, and since that we have been importing a large quantity from England.

' > (Note 1813 — of Restrictions passed and see references above.) ■ - - ;; ; Further evidence of Mr. Ord: The ;more inferior, in fact, an article is latterly in consequence of the poorness of the people the better has been, the demand for it—it is the poverty of the country that is the cause of the difference ' in the quality of the leather. Evidence of Mr. E. Harper: The hides in Ireland remain as long in the tan as they do in England, and in some of the houses in Ireland they remain a great deal longer than in England. . . , The way the duty is paid now is best, the leather will be worse if the duty is taken off the pit . . . it will be no advantage to the poor, for it is the cheap article they buy. I should think if the duty on foreign bark were taken off, it would be of immense service to this country . . . we use far more foreign bark than they do in England. Notwithstanding the evidence of the tanners that, a change in the duty was undesirable, on account of the poverty of Ireland, an Act was passed in 1825—5 Geo. IV. ('• Eu assimilating the duties in Ireland to those payable in England. I he Act opens with that expression of such ill-omen to Irelandexpediency “lt is expedient to discontinue the leather duties in Ireland and to impose those payable in Great Britain.” V e have compared the new duties under this Act with the old duties under the Irish Acts, before duty by cubical contents was introduced, and a few- items are here given: Under Under Irish English Act. Act. s. d. s. d. I pon every hide and skin tanned other than those specially mentioned, per pound weight avoirdupois ... ... 0 1 0 ,1J For hides of horses, mares and geldings, per hide ... 1-0 16 For every pound weight deer skin, goat skins and beaver skins dressed in oil 0 8 10 Other skins ... ... ... ... Sheep and lamb skins, per pound weight 0 Of 0 3 Every dozen skins of vellum ... ... 0 6 3 6 Every dozen skins of parchment ... ... 0 3 19 Under the Irish Acts the duty for all skins for shoes and like purposes was 2s 6d for every dozen; under the English Act, the duty on every dozen of slink calf skins was 3s, on hides of steers and cows 3s per hide. The imposition of these duties could have but one effect "on the Irish leather and boot and shoe trade —utter extinction. l lie English Government, it may be mentioned, had before it, when the foregoing Act was passed, two reports dealing with the extreme poverty of Ireland. The report of a Parliamentary Committee in 1819 opens by stating that the general distress and deficiency of employment in Ireland ore, so notorious as to render the production of any -particular evidence to establish the extent and variety of the evil unnecessary.” The. report of the Select Committee of 1823 (two years before the Act passed) describes the condition of the people as “wretched and calamitous to the last degree.” It states that the people lived in a state of the utmost destitution, with scarcely an article of furniture in their miserable cabins, using as bed covering a little fern and a quantity of straw thrown over it. In 1830 (five years after the Act of assimilation) a Committee of the British House of Commons attested that a fourth of the Irish population was in want of work, and that this cause produced destitution and suffering such as it was “impossible for human tongue to describe.” Beyond this period, the writer will not, for the present, produce further evidence of the means by which the Irish tanning industry was rendered negligible. He concludes by pointing out that before the war the Irish people paid for English boots and shoes £1,884,317 per annum. In addition, they paid to England for leather itself, saddlery, leather belting, leather and kid gloves a vast sum, the total cost of a year’s supply amounting to £2,400,000. Last year it appeared as if Ireland was on the eve of a great revival in its. leather manufactures. At least one company was formed for the establishment of a dead meat trade. In view of the past history of the tanning industry,, and of the subsequent and more recent restrictions on Irish trade, efforts should be made as soon as feasible to form companies with storages at the principal ports of the country. Tanneries would follow and in time the Irish people would be wearing again boots and shoes manufactured in their own country, and generally using native leather in the various industries into which it enters. The strongest protest that can be made against the prohibitions on Irish commerce is the investment of our capital in and the application of our pat-

riotism., to. the support, the construction, and the development of those industries "and resources which will make Jrehind self-reliant and self-dependent. Aonach na SSly“ enter Prises of the kind cannot be proclaimed