522 Whether it would not on many accounts be right if we observed the same course with respect to our linen manufacture; and that diapers were made in one town or district, damasks in another, sheeting in a third, fine wearing linen in a fourth, coarse in a fifth, in another cambrics, in another thread and stockings, in others stamped linen, or striped linen, or tickings, or dyed linen, of which last kinds there is so great a consumption among the seafaring men of all nations?
523 Whether it may not be worth while to inform ourselves of the different sorts of linen which are in request among different people?
524 Whether we do not yearly consume of French wines about a thousand tuns more than either Sweden or Denmark, and yet whether those nations pay ready money as we do?
525 Whether it be not a custom for some thousands of Frenchmen to go about the beginning of March into Spain, and having tilled the lands and gathered the harvest of Spain, to return home with money in their pockets about the end of November?
526 Whether of late years our Irish labourers do not carry on the same business in England to the great discontent of many there?
But whether we have not much more reason than the people of England to be displeased at this commerce?
527 Whether, notwithstanding the cash supposed to be brought into it, any nation is, in truth, a gainer by such traffic?
528 Whether the industry of our people employed in foreign lands, while our own are left uncultivated, be not a great loss to the country?
529 Whether it would not be much better for us, if, instead of sending our men abroad, we could draw men from the neighbouring countries to cultivate our own?
530 Whether, nevertheless, we are not apt to think the money imported by our labourers to be so much clear gains to this country, but whether a little reflexion and a little political arithmetic may not shew us our mistake?
531 Whether our prejudices about gold and silver are not very apt to infect or misguide our judgments and reasonings about the public weal?
532 Whether it be not a good rule whereby to judge of the trade of any city, and its usefulness, to observe whether there is a circulation through the extremities, and whether the people round about are busy and warm?
533 Whether we had not, some years since, a manufacture of hats at Athlone, and of earthenware at Arklow, and what became of those manufactures?
534 Why we do not make tiles of our own, for flooring and roofing, rather than bring them from Holland?
535 What manufactures are there in France and Venice of gilt-leather, how cheap and how splendid a furniture?
536 Whether we may not, for the same use, manufacture divers things at home of more beauty and variety than wainscot, which is imported at such expense from Norway?
537 Whether the use and the fashion will not soon make a manufacture?
538 Whether, if our gentry used to drink mead and cider, we should not soon have those liquors in the utmost perfection and plenty?
539 Whether it be not wonderful that with such pastures, and so many black cattle, we do not find ourselves in cheese?
540 Whether great profits may not be made by fisheries; but whether those of our Irish who live by that business do not contrive to be drunk and unemployed one half of the year?
541 Whether it be not folly to think an inward commerce cannot enrich a State, because it doth not increase its quantity of gold and silver? And whether it is possible a country should? not thrive, while wants are supplied, and business goes on?
542 Whether plenty of all the necessaries and comforts of life be not real wealth?
543 Whether Lyons, by the advantage of her midland situation and the rivers Rhone and Saone, be not a great magazine or mart for inward commerce? And whether she doth not maintain a constant trade with most parts of France; with Provence for oils and dried fruits, for wines and cloth with Languedoc, for stuffs with Champagne, for linen with Picardy, Normandy, and Brittany, for corn with Burgundy?
544 Whether she doth not receive and utter all those commodities, and raise a profit from the distribution thereof, as well as of her own manufactures, throughout the kingdom of France?
545 Whether the charge of making good roads and navigable rivers across the country would not be really repaid by an inward commerce?
546 Whether, as our trade and manufactures increased, magazines should not be established in proper places, fitted by their situation, near great roads and navigable rivers, lakes, or canals, for the ready reception and distribution of all sorts of commodities from and to the several parts of the kingdom; and whether the town of Athlone, for instance, may not be fitly situated for such a magazine, or centre of domestic commerce?
547 Whether an inward trade would not cause industry to flourish, and multiply the circulation of our coin, and whether this may not do as well as multiplying the coin itself?
548 Whether the benefits of a domestic commerce are sufficiently understood and attended to; and whether the cause thereof be not the prejudiced and narrow way of thinking about gold and silver?
549 Whether there be any other more easy and unenvied method of increasing the wealth of a people?
550 Whether we of this island are not from our peculiar circumstances determined to this very commerce above any other, from the number of necessaries and good things that we possess within ourselves, from the extent and variety of our soil, from the navigable rivers and good roads which we have or may have, at a less expense than any people in Europe, from our great plenty of materials for manufactures, and particularly from the restraints we lie under with regard to our foreign trade?
551 Whether annual inventories should not be published of the fairs throughout the kingdom, in order to judge of the growth of its commerce?
552 Whether there be not every year more cash circulated at the card tables of Dublin than at all the fairs of Ireland?
