Mr. Pitt, in introducing in the English House of Commons his celebrated Commercial Propositions for the regulation of trade between England and Ireland, thus speaks: "To this moment (February, 1785) no change had taken place in the intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland themselves. Some trivial points, indeed, had been changed, but no considerable changes had taken place in our manufactures exported to Ireland, or in theirs imported to England. That, therefore, which had been done was still believed by the people of Ireland to be insufficient, and clamours were excited and suggestions published in Dublin and elsewhere of putting duties on our products and manufactures under the name of protecting duties."[146] Chief Justice Whiteside thus states summarily the scope of Mr. Pitt's propositions:-- "It was proposed to allow the importation of the produce of all other countries through Great Britain into Ireland, or through Ireland into Great Britain, without any increase of duty on that account. It was proposed, as to any article produced or manufactured in Ireland or in England, where the duties were then different on importation into either country, to reduce those duties in the kingdom where they were highest down to the lower scale. And it was asked from Ireland that when the gross hereditary revenue should rise above a fixed sum, the surplus should be appropriated towards the support of the naval force of the Empire. These propositions passed through both branches of the Irish Legislature, were remitted to England, and by Pitt laid before the British House of Commons. He was immediately attacked by Fox and the Whigs, aided by Lord North, who one and all declared themselves the uncompromising enemies of free trade. And these factious men declared that in the interests of the British manufacturers they could not allow Irish fustians to be brought into England to ruin English manufacturers. The fustian they affected to fear was nothing to be compared with the fustian of their speeches. The enlightened views of the great Conservative minister were in a measure baffled by the shameful opposition of Fox, and of his friends in Parliament, and of thick-headed cotton manufacturers out of the House. The result was that Pitt was coerced to introduce exceptions and limitations. The eleven propositions grew up to twenty, the additional propositions relating to various subjects, patents, copyrights, fisheries, colonial produce, navigation laws, the enactment as to which was that whatever navigation laws were then, or should thereafter be enacted by the Legislature of Great Britain, should also be enacted by the Legislature of Ireland; and in favour of the old East India Company monopoly, Ireland was debarred from all trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan." "There seemed to be nothing hurtful to the pride of Ireland in the affair. But when Fox found that his great rival