The Querist

81. Qu. Whether immense sums are not drawn yearly into the Northern countries, for supplying the British navy with hempen manufactures? 82. Qu. Whether there be anything more profitable than hemp? And whether there should not be great premiums for encouraging our hempen trade? What advantages may not Great Britain make of a country where land and labour are so cheap? 83. Qu. Whether Ireland alone might not raise hemp sufficient for the British navy? And whether it would not be vain to expect this from the British Colonies in America, where hands are so scarce, and labour so excessively dear? 84. Qu. Whether, if our own people want will or capacity for such an attempt, it might not be worth while for some undertaking spirits in England to make settlements, and raise hemp in the counties of Clare and Limerick, than which, perhaps, there is not fitter land in the world for that purpose? And whether both nations would not find their advantage therein? 85. Qu. Whether if all the idle hands in this kingdom were employed on hemp and flax, we might not find sufficient vent for these manufactures? 86. Qu. How far it may be in our own power to better our affairs, without interfering with our neighbours? 87. Qu. Whether the prohibition of our woollen trade ought not naturally to put us on other methods which give no jealousy? 88. Qu. Whether paper be not a valuable article of commerce? And whether it be not true that one single bookseller in London yearly expended above four thousand pounds in that foreign commodity? 89. Qu. How it comes to pass that the Venetians and Genoese, who wear so much less linen, and so much worse than we do, should yet make very good paper, and in great quantity, while we make very little? 90. Qu.…