ants, and these as our customs or
fashions? Of how great consequence therefore are fashions to the
public?

106. Qu. Whether it would not be more reasonable to mend our state
than to complain of it; and how far this may be in our own power?

107. Qu. What the nation gains by those who live in Ireland upon the
produce of foreign Countries?

108. Qu. How far the vanity of our ladies in dressing, and of our
gentlemen in drinking, contributes to the general misery of the
people?

109. Qu. Whether nations, as wise and opulent as ours, have not made
sumptuary laws; and what hinders us from doing the same?

110. Qu. Whether those who drink foreign liquors, and deck
themselves and their families with foreign ornaments, are not so far
forth to be reckoned absentees?

111. Qu. Whether, as our trade is limited, we ought not to limit our
expenses; and whether this be not the natural and obvious remedy?

112. Qu. Whether the dirt, and famine, and nakedness of the bulk of
our people might not be remedied, even although we had no foreign
trade? And whether this should not be our first care; and whether,
if this were once provided for, the conveniences of the rich would
not soon follow?

113. Qu. Whether comfortable living doth not produce wants, and
wants industry, and industry wealth?

114. Qu. Whether there is not a great difference between Holland and
Ireland? And whether foreign commerce, without which the one could
not subsist, be so necessary for the other?

115. Qu. Might we not put a hand to the plough, or the spade,
although we had no foreign commerce?

116. Qu. Whether the exigencies of nature are not to be answered by
industry on our own soil? And how far the conveniences and comforts
of life may be procured by a domestic commerce between the several
parts of this kingdom?

117. Qu. Whether the women may not sew, spin, weave, embroider
sufficiently for the embellishment of their persons, and even enough
to raise envy in each other, without being beholden to foreign
countries?

118. Qu. Suppose the bulk of our inhabitants had shoes to their
feet, clothes to their backs, and beef in their bellies, might not
such a state be eligible for the public, even though the squires
were condemned to drink ale and cider?

119. Qu. Whether, if drunkenness be a necessary evil, men may not as
well drink the growth of their own country?

120. Qu. Whether a nation within itself might not have real wealth,
sufficient to g