ring public confidence. He met
the smuggler by a reduction of Custom-duties which made his trade
unprofitable. He revived Walpole's plan of an Excise. Meanwhile the
public expenses were reduced, and commission after commission was
appointed to introduce economy into every department of the public
service. The rapid developement of the national industry which we have
already noted no doubt aided the success of these measures. Credit was
restored. The smuggling trade was greatly reduced. In two years there
was a surplus of a million, and though duty after duty was removed the
revenue rose steadily with every remission of taxation. Meanwhile Pitt
was showing the political value of the new finance in a wider field.
Ireland, then as now, was England's difficulty. The tyrannous
misgovernment under which she had groaned ever since the battle of the
Boyne was producing its natural fruit; the miserable land was torn with
political faction, religious feuds, and peasant conspiracies; and so
threatening had the attitude of the Protestant party which ruled it
become during the American war that they had forced the English
Parliament to relinquish its control over their Parliament in Dublin.
Pitt saw that much at least of the misery and disloyalty of Ireland
sprang from its poverty. The population had grown rapidly, while culture
remained stationary and commerce perished. And of this poverty much was
the direct result of unjust law. Ireland was a grazing country, but to
protect the interest of English graziers the import of its cattle into
England was forbidden. To protect the interests of English clothiers and
weavers, its manufactures were loaded with duties. To redress this wrong
was the first financial effort of Pitt, and the bill which he introduced
in 1785 did away with every obstacle to freedom of trade between England
and Ireland. It was a measure which, as he held, would "draw what
remained of the shattered empire together," and repair in part the loss
of America by creating a loyal and prosperous Ireland; and, struggling
almost alone in face of a fierce opposition from the Whigs and the
Manchester merchants, he dragged it through the English Parliament,
though only to see it flung aside by the Protestant faction under
Grattan which then ruled the Parliament of Ireland. But the defeat only
spurred him to a greater effort elsewhere. If Ireland was England's
difficulty, France had been looked upon as England's natural enemy. We