The Querist | Page 6

would not be a more discouraging as well as a more adequate punishment for felons than even death itself?
59. Qu. Whether there are not such things in Holland as bettering houses for bringing young gentlemen to order? And whether such an institution would be useless among us?
60. Qu. Whether it be true that the poor in Holland have no resource but their own labour, and yet there are no beggars in their streets?
61. Qu. Whether he whose luxury consumeth foreign products, and whose industry produceth nothing domestic to exchange for them, is not so far forth injurious to his country?
62. Qu. Whether, consequently, the fine gentlemen, whose employment is only to dress, drink, and play, be not a pubic nuisance?
63. Qu. Whether necessity is not to be hearkened to before convenience, and convenience before luxury?
64. Qu. Whether to provide plentifully for the poor be not feeding the root, the substance whereof will shoot upwards into the branches, and cause the top to flourish?
65. Qu. Whether there be any instance of a State wherein the people, living neatly and plentifully, did not aspire to wealth?
66. Qu. Whether nastiness and beggary do not, on the contrary, extinguish all such ambition, making men listless, hopeless, and slothful?
67. Qu. Whether a country inhabited by people well fed, clothed and lodged would not become every day more populous? And whether a numerous stock of people in such circumstances would? and how far the product of not constitute a flourishing nation; our own country may suffice for the compassing of this end?
68. Qu. Whether a people who had provided themselves with the necessaries of life in good plenty would not soon extend their industry to new arts and new branches of commerce?
69. Qu. Whether those same manufactures which England imports from other countries may not be admitted from Ireland? And, if so, whether lace, carpets, and tapestry, three considerable articles of English importation, might not find encouragement in Ireland? And whether an academy for design might not greatly conduce to the perfecting those manufactures among us?
70. Qu. Whether France and Flanders could have drawn so much money from England for figured silks, lace, and tapestry, if they had not had academies for designing?
71. Qu. Whether, when a room was once prepared, and models in plaster of Paris, the annual expense of such an academy need stand the pubic in above two hundred pounds a year?
72. Qu. Whether our linen-manufacture would not find the benefit of this institution? And whether there be anything that makes us fall short of the Dutch in damasks, diapers, and printed linen, but our ignorance in design?
73. Qu. Whether those specimens of our own manufacture, hung up in a certain public place, do not sufficiently declare such our ignorance? and whether for the honour of the nation they ought not to be removed?
74. Qu. Whether those who may slight this affair as notional have sufficiently considered the extensive use of the art of design, and its influence in most trades and manufactures, wherein the forms of things are often more regarded than the materials?
75. Qu. Whether there be any art sooner learned than that of making carpets? And whether our women, with little time and pains, may not make more beautiful carpets than those imported from Turkey? And whether this branch of the woollen manufacture be not open to us?
76. Qu. Whether human industry can produce, from such cheap materials, a manufacture of so great value by any other art as by those of sculpture and painting?
77. Qu. Whether pictures and statues are not in fact so much treasure? And whether Rome and Florence would not be poor towns without them?
78. Qu. Whether they do not bring ready money as well as jewels? Whether in Italy debts are not paid, and children portioned with them, as with gold and silver?
79. Qu. Whether it would not be more prudent, to strike out and exert ourselves in permitted branches of trade, than to fold our hands, and repine that we are not allowed the woollen?
80. Qu. Whether it be true that two millions are yearly expended by England in foreign lace and linen?
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