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IRISH PROTECTING DUTIES12 June 1820 - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 5 Speeches and Evidence [1819]

Edition used:

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 5 Speeches and Evidence 1815-1823.

Part of: The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, 11 vols (Sraffa ed.)

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


IRISH PROTECTING DUTIES1
2 June 1820

Mr. Curwen presented a petition from the woollen cloth manufacturers of Keswick against continuing the protecting duties upon Irish linen.

Mr. Ricardo observed, that it seemed to be admitted on all sides, that these protecting duties ought to be repealed. They had existed for 20 years, which surely was a period quite long enough to give the Irish manufacturers an opportunity of preparing for their repeal, if any such opportunity were necessary; and he really could see no reason for their further continuance.

8 June 1820

The Chancellor of the Exchequer moved that the duties on several articles produced in Great Britain and Ireland, imported from one country into the other, should be continued till 1825, and thereafter at reduced rates till 1840, when they would finally cease.

Mr. Ricardo said, he was glad to see even that the time was to come when the country would rouse to those right principles, from which there never should have been any deviation; and hoped, that when the question of bounties with respect to linen, was brought forward, a proposition would be adopted to limit the existence of those bounties also to a certain period, as they were quite as objectionable, upon principle, as the duties referred to in the resolutions before the committee.

Mr. J. Foster observed, that the duties alluded to were protecting duties for England as well as for Ireland.1

Mr. Ricardo considered those duties injurious to Ireland as well as to England, especially in the intercourse between the two countries.

The resolutions were agreed to.2

[1 ]On 25 May Mr. S. Wortley presented a Petition from certain Linen Manufacturers in the county of Forfar, praying that they might be put on the same footing with regard to the bounties on exportation, as the Linen Manufacturers of Ireland. ‘Mr. Ricardo considered the practice of giving bounties on exportation as nothing less than bribing the consumers of our goods to take them off our hands. It was giving a part of the bounty to foreign consumers. At this time of day the system was most absurd, and he was astonished to see it acted upon.’ (The Star, 26 May 1820. The matter is not mentioned in Hansard.)

[1 ]This paragraph is from the Star’s report.

[2 ]On 30 June, in a debate on Linen bounties, ‘Mr. Ricardo considered bounties given to Ireland in this way, as in the nature of a Tax on the people of this country, and therefore he was generally opposed to such measures.’