Considerations on the Act for encouraging Inland Navigation in Ireland. With some hints of a method for enforcing and executing that act. In a letter from a Country Gentleman to his Friend in the House of Commons.

IRELAND INLAND NAVIGATION. PATRIOPHILUS [PSUED].

Published by Dublin for William Smith, 1729

About this Item

8vo, pp 74, later stiff drab wrappers, slightly chipped to spine, repaired tear to title page, else a good sound copy, FIRST EDITION; Goldsmiths'-Kress 06697. The development of the canal system in Ireland as a means of promoting trade had been long discussed as a private venture; 'in 1729, an Act was passed, declaring it was fit and expedient that works of great public utility, such as this, should be carried on at the expense of the nation'. The present importrant anonymously published tract lays out the economic arguement for Government funding for enterprise of building canals within Ireland's river system. The author was perhaps at the receiving end - possible a director- of a company ruined in the economic down-turn following the South Sea Bubble, to which he refers; he concludes '.there is scarce a man, who rides this day along the banks of the Liffy, and sees those ruins of our unfinished works, which are so many monuments of our miscarriage.the thing was, in itself Chymerical and impractical.' His pleas were seemingly heard.' In 1729 the House of Commons appointed the Commissioners of Inland Navigation to oversee and finance an inland waterway from the coalfield at Lough Neagh to Newry. Canal construction actually began in 1731.'.

Seller Inventory # 30841

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Considerations on the Act for encouraging Inland Navigation in Ireland. With some hints of a method for enforcing and executing that act. In a letter from a Country Gentleman to his Friend in the House of Commons.
• Publisher: Dublin for William Smith
• Publication Date: 1729
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Seller catalogs:
  • eb86