In this connection there arises a question which is very pertinent to the present inquiry and which must therefore be considered.  I have seen it argued by English economists that the industrial revolution which took place at the end of the eighteenth and commencement of the nineteenth century would in any case have destroyed, by force of open competition, industries which, it is admitted, were previously legislated away.  They point out that the change from the order of small scattered home industries to the factory system would have suited neither the temperament nor the industrial habits of the Irish.  They tell us that with the industrial revolution the juxtaposition of coal and iron became an all-important factor in the problem, and they recall how the north and west of England captured the industrial supremacy from the south and east.  Incidentally they point out that the people of the English counties which suffered by these economic causes braced themselves to meet the changes, and it is suggested that if the people of Ireland had shown the same resourcefulness, they, too, might have weathered the storm.  And, finally, we are reminded that England, by her stupid Irish policy, punished her own supporters, and even herself, quite as much as the ‘mere Irish.’

Much of this may be true, but this line of argument only shows that these English economists do not thoroughly understand the real grievance which the Irish people still harbour against the English for past misgovernment.  The commercial restraints sapped the industrial instinct of the people—­an evil which was intensified in the case of the Catholics by the working of the penal laws.  When these legislative restrictions upon industry had been removed, the Irish, not being trained in industrial habits, were unable to adapt themselves to the altered conditions produced by the Industrial Revolution, as did the people in England.  And as for commerce, the restrictions, which had as little moral sanction as the penal laws, and which invested smuggling with a halo of patriotism, had prevented the development of commercial morality, without which there can be no commercial success.  It is not, therefore, the destruction of specific industries, or even the sweeping of our commerce from the seas, about which most complaint is now made.  The real grievance lies in the fact that something had been taken from our industrial character which could not be remedied by the mere removal of the restrictions.  Not only had the tree been stripped, but the roots had been destroyed.  If ever there was a case where President Kruger’s ‘moral and intellectual damages’ might fairly be claimed by an injured nation, it is to be found in the industrial and commercial history of Ireland during the period of the building up of England’s commercial supremacy.