"Odious! In woollen! 'twould a saint provoke!
Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke."
In 1781, when, the price of wool being low, the Lincolnshire woolgrowers met
under the chairmanship of their great landowners, and resolved on petitions
praying "that British might be exported and that Irish wool might be excluded
from England;" thereupon the Yorkshire manufacturers met and resolved that
"the exportation of wool would be ruinous to the trade and manufactures of
England," that the manufacturers would be obliged to leave the kingdom for
want of employment, and that the importation of Irish woollen yarn ought to
be interdicted.
The manufacturers were under the impression that no other country than
England could produce the long wools suitable for the manufacture of worsted.
Some time afterwards the woollen manufacturers thought themselves likely to
be ruined by the introduction of cotton cloth, "to the ruin of the staple
trade of the kingdom," and succeeded in placing an excise duty upon the new
fabric.
The contention between sheepowners and manufacturers continued until, in
1824, when the influence of Mr. Huskisson's opinions on trade were beginning
to be felt in Parliament, and to the disgust of both parties, a compromise
was effected by a reduction of all wool duties to a uniform duty of ld.
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