PROPOSALS FOR A Million-Fund AND A True Expedient For Advancing the WOOLLEN MANUFACTURE.  
Humbly Offered to the Consideration of the Honourable House of Commons.  
By JOHN WILLIAMS, Mercht. And Trader in WOOL.  
LONDON: Printed by George Latkin, Jun. at the Half-Moon in New-Street, without Bishopsgate, 1697.   

PROPOSALS FOR A Million Fund, etc.  
AN Additional Duty, Equivolent to the Charge of Dying, being put upon all Cloth, Searges, Bays, Stufs, Stockens, and all other Goods made of Wool, that shall be Exported White and Vndyed (except those that shall be Exported Whitened which are perfectly Manufactured, and aught to pay but Half Duty) will amount to double the Duty which the King receives out of all the Product of England, for Goods Exported, and will Promote Trade, Encourage Navigation, and Advantage the Subject in general; Ease them of a Considerable Tax which they must otherwise bear, whereas no Subject of England Loses a Penny, but Gains by this.  
Reasons for, and Objections against this Duty, and their Answer.  

Reasons for it.  
I. THE King will receive great Sums for the Duty of Goods that must be Exported White and Vndyed, notwithstanding this Duty, because all Died Goods are Prohibited in some Places abroad.  
II. The King will Receive great Sums more for duties of Dye-Stufs (which are very high) because this duty will occasion the Dying of Great Quantities.  
III. Merchants, Seamen, Salters, Dyers, Packers, Tillet-makers, and others, will have a far greater Trade, and will be enabled the better to pay other Taxes.  
iv It will much Improve Land, by sowing of Wadd and Wild, two chief sorts of Dye-Stufs that grow in England, worth now at least Fifteen Pounds per Tun.  

Great Objections against this Duty.  
That our Neighbours have a Law, That none of our Manufacture shall be brought into their Dominions Dyed, and these Goods are so much beaten down already, that the Spinners work hard to earn Four Pence a day, and a Weaver works night and day to get Five Shillings per Week, and one or two of his Children must help him to Spole and Wind his Quills for him, or else he cannot get so much; and this Five Shillings is all he hath to pay his Rent, and Maintain, it may be, Seven or Eight Persons; and Fuller's scarce get 2 d. per piece by some of these Goods, for that they are not half Dressed; therefore if this be Imposed, we cannot die our Goods in England, and they will not bear the duty to be sent abroad, so that we knock the Trade on the head by a Law; and these poor Workers will be Starved, for they are at this time Petitioning the Parliament from all parts, for help against decay of Trade, and these Goods will not bear such a Duty; neither can it be Imposed unless you will Ruin the Nation, for the Woollen Manufacture is the Staff of our Land, and a very Tender Regard must be had to it, for we must not burden nor clog Trade, which is now in a Balance between us and our Neighbours, and the Scale is ready to turn against us; and as many more Truths and Falcities, Delusions and Lies as cunning Men can invent to get Money, by betraying their countries' Interest, etc.   

Answered.  
It is the Wisdom of our Neighbours, finding the great Advantage arising by Dying our Manufacture, to make a Law that no Died Goods shall be Imported into their Dominions.  
It must necessarily then follow, that it is our Wisdom, if we permit our Neighbours to have all the Profitable use of the Manufacturing of our Goods, to make them pay a Duty for it, equivolent to the charge of Dying (if we can without hindering our Trade) And we can do it, unless they Countermine us one of these Three ways, 

1. They must bring People to wear no . Or,  
2. They must wear some other sort of . Or,  
3. They must find another way to procure the same sorts of Goods as Cheap as from England, after this Duty is Imposed.    
If I defend our Nation, and carry these Three Points, you will allow, That England is able to put a Pole Tax upon the whole World.  
1. The Duty will not arise to above One Shilling upon a Suit, and People will not go Naked, though their Clothes cost a little dearer.  
2. We find Men so wedded to Custom, that you have a hard matter to beat them out of their old way, in doing any work, though you had a new way never so much easier; be sure than they will have the same  they use to wear, if they cost One Shilling dearer, they will not change their Habits for twice the value.  
3. They must find a way to procure these same sorts of Goods as Cheap elsewhere as from England, after this Duty is Imposed.  
Answ. Here it happens very luckily, for the greatest part of these Goods are the very Cheapest that are made in all parts of England, and yet take up the greatest quantity of Wool, and are such as England doth in a most special manner exceed all the World in, as Yorkshire Cloth, Colchester Bays, Exeter Searges, viz. Long and Short els, Half Quarters, Ten Hundred Yards, and Ranters Norwich Chains, etc. For,  
1. By long Experience, and continual Practice, we have got such a 'Slight and Skill to make these Goods, as well as all other, that no Nation can out do us.  
2. We have greater Plenty of Wool than any other, and therefore it is Cheaper here than in other countries', which plainly appears, if we consider that Men adventure their Lives and Estates to Transport our Wool to other Nations, than it is evident that they are Encouraged by Price, or they would not do it.  
3. When they give such Encouragement to bring them our Wool, and these Goods take up such great Quantities of Wool, our Neighbours will never set about making these Goods that are so Cheap. Now let us look back and we shall find,  
First, That these are the Cheapest sorts of Goods.  
Secondly, That we have the greatest slight and skill in making them.  
Thirdly, That we have Wool Cheapest. And,  
Fourthly, Nothing's got by all our Art and Skill.  
Sure then our Neighbours cannot find a way to buy these Goods cheaper than from us, after this Duty is put upon them; neither can any other Country out do us.  
But to go through with the Answer to the latter part of the Objection, That the Trade is just at a Balance, and the scale ready to turn against us; this is the reason we are forced to beat down our poor Workmen, that they can scarce Live, and 'tis as much as we can do to maintain our Trade; we are under sold in the straits, etc.  
Answ. The Trade comes to a Balance and many times turns against us, but our own Manufacture are in both scales, which comes to pass by this means.  
The duties of our Dye Stufs are very high, so that our Neighbours die our Goods cheaper than we do, therefore they are carried to other Countries and Died, and then sent to the straits, where our Merchants are under sold by our own Goods: We may thank our Hambrough Merchants and others for this: Against whom have the poor Makers Petitioned many time? but against the Hambrough Company, whom they did set forth, in their Petitions, to be Ruiners and Destroyer's of their Trade.  
Now if this Duty be Imposed, our Merchants will be able to Trade again with our own Goods, for they are no other than our own in other men's hands, that can stand in competition with us; it will then necessarily follow, that to set our Merchants even with Foreigners in their Trade, you must impose this duty on Whites, or take of half the duty of Dye-stufs, (which is a thing not fit to be named) for we cannot Trade unless we betray our Nation, as some do, who send out our Goods to be Manufactured else where; and what difference is there between this and the sending abroad our Wool? It is Spun, Woven, and one third Dressed; but Spinners and Weavers are slaves to Foreigners, and neither King nor Subject get any thing by these Goods, which are two thirds of the Nations Manufacture, and tends only to our shame and dishonour: To whom shall the Trade go from us? when it requires all the Goods which can be made in the whole World; as for instance the last year it swallowed up all the Wool in the Nation.  
This is not a Burdened but an Easing of the Trade: Why should not we be able to Sell our own Goods in the straits as Cheap as our Neighbours?  
We may observe from the scarcity of Wool last year, the great advantage which hath accrued to Trade by the act of burying in Woollen; there are near Ten thousand Parishes in England and Wales, and if you Compute one to die a week out of a Parish, one with another, and allow four pounds of Ruffel Wool, before ti's Manufactured, in a Burying Suit, 'tis Forty Thousand Pounds of Wool buried every week, which is about One Thousand Tun a year buried, and is a great advancement to Trade.  
It would be a good answer to the Petitions of the Poor Tradesmen, if we find out another Expedient like to this, and lay a small Tax of Two Shillings the year to be paid at Sixpence per Quarter by all those that wear any other then Flannel Shirts, and if the People should all come to this, and avoid the Tax, we may compute it thus, allow fivehundred People in a Parish, and these have two Shirts each every year, and two pound of Ruffel Wool must be allowed to make a Shirt, which shall scarce be above one when made, so that here is four pound of Wool consumed more than now by five hundred in every Parish, which will be a Tun in a year, and ten thousand Parishes is Ten thousand Tun, which will be consumed in one year, but if you will allow but Two hundred and fifty in a Parish, then 'tis Five Thousand Tun; here you see what a Great Consumption this will make of the Woollen Manufacture; this will advance Trade and make goods dearer, and then shall be a quiker Trade and greater price, and quite contrary to the Hambrough Companies Notion, who would bring Goods for cheapeness, like dirt, to advance Trade: Thus I have cast my two Mites into your Treasury, where I leave it to have that use made of it which your Wisdom shall direct: And Humbly Pray, if this pass into an Act, that as it will be of Mighty Advantage to the Dyers, so if this House think fit, for the Encouragement of all other Persons that study the Promotion of Trade and the Welfare of the English Nation, a Clause may be Inserted, That the Dyers pay the Proposer One Farthing a Piece for all Goods charged by this Act, which shall be Died during his Life, which can be but for a little while, he being in the Fiftieth Year of his Age.    
FINIS.