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Available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of academic research and teaching only. CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts Editorial introduction and other preliminary materials not by Connolly have been included. The text represents the printed text, but obvious errors have been corrected and marked as corrected. Text has been thoroughly checked, proof-read and parsed using NSGMLS. The electronic text represents the published text. Titles, such as those of newspapers and books, are tagged Reported speech and very short quotations are rendered The practice of the printed text. Soft hyphens are silently removed.
Where a hyphenated word crosses a page boundary the word is completed
before marking the page boundary. Only structural mark-up. Names of persons (given names), and places are not tagged. Terms for cultural and social roles are not tagged. Titles of books and newspapers are tagged. I first met James Connolly in the year 1910
on one of his visits to Belfast to engage in Socialist propaganda, soon
after his return from America. I was at that time a member of the
Independent Labour Party, which had many branches in the city of
Belfast, and was actively engaged in Socialist propaganda work. I knew
little of James Connolly and his work at this stage, as we were nurtured on the British brand of Socialist propaganda, and all the
literature we read, as well as all our speakers were imported from Great
Britain. I had been introduced to the It is quite true I had heard James Connolly and his works
discussed, and an odd copy of his magazine Prior to
seeing him and meeting him, and hearing him speak, I had conjured up a
picture of him in my mind, which actual contact with him proved to be an
illusion. I had conceived of him—my imagination had undoubtedly
been coloured by the visits of some oratorical gladiators I had heard
from Great Britain—as being tall, commanding, and as the advance
notices said of him, a silver-tongued orator. I found him, however, to
be the opposite of my mental picture My mind
was, accordingly, attuned to his message a year later in 1911, when he
came North to settle in Belfast, and later became District Organiser of
the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union. Meantime, I had
considered myself sufficiently conversant with Socialist philosophy and
trade unionism to mount the rostrum at the various street corner
meetings and lecture my fellow citizens on the errors of their political
and economic ways. I was also ready to embrace all of the invitations
extended to me by Connolly to assist him in addressing meetings of
dockers and mill workers whom he was organising into the Union at this
time. His permanent advent to our City meant that we had two main
political Socialist organisations where one had mainly held sway, i.e.,
the Socialist Party of Ireland and the British organisation, the
Independent Labour Party, of which I was a member, and of which James
Keir Hardie, M.P., was one of its leading figures. Connolly's
organisation was Marxist and nationalist in outlook, while the
Independent Labour Party was reformist and pseudo-internationalist.
Obviously the latter in such an environment as Belfast was the more
popular organisation, although Connolly, being on the spot and engaging in active propaganda, was attracting a number of the more thoughtful
elements of the Socialist movement Connolly's
permanent advent to Belfast synchronised with the fierce debates
proceeding in the British House of Commons on the question of Home Rule,
and the organisation of the Ulster Volunteers in the North of Ireland.
Sir Edward Carson, K.C., Bonar Law, This is the background
against which Connolly and a few of us kept alive and engaged in active
propaganda work, an Irish based political organisation, having as our
dual purpose the spread of Socialise ideals and the securing of Home
Rule for the country. It had been the practice during my membership of
the I.L.P. if we were interrogated at question time regarding our
attitude to Home Rule, to reply that a person could hold whatever views
he liked on that question and still be a Socialist, but I remember
Connolly advising me, as I was invariably the Chairman at all the
meetings, at this stage, that if we were asked our views on this
question that we had to be brutally blunt about the matter, and
categorically state that we favoured the granting of Home Rule to
Ireland, and that it was entirely inconsistent with the principles of
Socialism to deny such a right to Ireland, or any other country
struggling to be freed from the rule of their conquerors. We henceforth
nailed our colours to the mast, and whatever part of the City we held
forth in, there was no dissembling on this vital but highly unpopular
matter in some quarters of such a city as Belfast. Almost
simultaneous with his taking up residence in Belfast, Laying aside all questions of personality,
personal ambitions and personal jealousies as being accidental and
unessential, it may be truthfully asserted that one point of divergence
is that the I.L.P. in Belfast believes that the Socialist movement in
Ireland must perforce remain a dues-paying organic part of the British
Socialist movement, or else forfeit its title to be considered a part of
International Socialism, whereas the Socialist Party of Ireland
maintains that the relations between Socialism in Ireland and in Great
Britain should be based upon comradeship and mutual assistance and not
upon dues-paying, should be fraternal and not organic, and should
operate by exchange of literature and speakers rather than by attempts
to treat as one, two peoples of whom one has for 700 years nurtured an
unending martyrdom rather than admit the unity or surrender its national
identity. The Socialist Party of Ireland considers itself the only
international Party in Ireland since its conception of Internationalism
is that of a free federation of free peoples, whereas that of the
Belfast branches of the I.L.P. seems scarcely distinguishable from
Imperialism, the merging of subjugated peoples This article of Connolly's evoked a
reply from William Walker, who was and had been the chief spokesman of
the I.L.P. in the North of Ireland for many years. Before dealing with
Walker's reply, it might be well to say a few words about the type of
man he was. A joiner by trade, at the material time he was the Trade
Union representative of the Joiners for Belfast. He was a highly
intelligent man. In appearance he would have passed for one of the
professional classes, was a brilliant and gifted speaker, was
universally popular with the citizens as well as the workers, and was
generally held in very high esteem. He had been a Poor Law Guardian, a
City Councillor, and had contested North Belfast as candidate of the
British Labour Party on several occasions, and had also, unsuccessfully,
contested an election in Leith Burgh, Scotland, as a Labour Party
candidate. In addition, he had been a member of the Executive of the
British Labour Party, and was a former President of and also a regular
Delegate to the Irish Trade Union Congress. He, however, had the disadvantage of his upbringing and environment, and while as Connolly
reminds him during this controversy he was guilty when a candidate for
North Belfast of the most egregious offences a Socialist could commit in
giving an undertaking to the Belfast Protestant However, we better let him speak for himself. He describes Connolly's
brand of Socialism in these words— For if what he
preaches therein be Socialism then surely he has a monopoly of the brand
he adumbrates. I hold no brief for Belfast, but past bigotry aside, we
have moved fast towards municipal Socialism, leaving not merely the
other cities of Ireland far behind but giving the lead to many cities in
England and Scotland. We collectively own and control our gas works,
water works, harbour works, markets, tramways, electricity, museums, art
galleries, etc., whilst we municipally cater for bowlers, cricketers,
footballers, lovers of band music (having organised a Police Band), and
our Referring to Connolly's remark on the relationship that should exist
between the Irish and British Socialist movements, he comments:
That the S.P.I. want the Trade Unionists of Ireland to
cease to contribute dues to Walker also
cited Scotland as a nation seeking, academically at least, legislative
independence, which in the earlier years started a Scottish Labour
Party, and continues— For years that Party
appealed in vain to the workers with the result that in 1909 the
Scottish societies agreed to affiliate with the British Labour Party and
their national organisations, whilst the delegates to the Portsmouth
Bailie Jack (Scottish
Ironmounders) declared that He next quotes from the report of
the British Labour Party, This is
internationalism, and it is the I.L.P. who has pioneered this, and with
their policy and aims on the question, I, at least subscribe to. My
place of birth was accidental, my duty to my class is world-wide, hence
my internationalism. In an attempt to
justify the role the North had played in the National struggle, he wrote
in reply to Connolly— Now The
leader and founder of the '48 revolt was a Presbyterian from
Ulster—John Mitchel. It was in Ulster that the Irish Volunteer
movement had its birth, and its President (Colonel Irvine) and its
Commander (Lord Charlemont) were of the It was a And may
I further point out that the Protestant faith has given more leaders
to the Irish rebels than the Catholic faith, Grattan, Davis, Butt,
Mitchel, Parnell, Shaw, Biggar, etc., are all names to conjure with, and
all without exception were Protestants…. May I
remind Comrade Connolly of the famous dictum of that still more famous
rebel James Fintan Lalor, who declared that In a second
article Connolly, as was to be expected, waxes sarcastic over what he
describes as To demonstrate that Walker's Socialist theories
for the movement in Ireland was not any more sound than his
Nationalistic ones, Connolly quotes an extract from a letter written by
Karl Marx to his friend Dr. L I have become more and more convinced—and the only
question is to bring this conviction home to the English working
class—that it can never do anything decisive here in England until
it separates its policy with regard to Ireland in the most definite way
from the policy of the ruling classes, until it not only makes common
cause with the Irish, but actually takes the initiative in dissolving
the Union established in 1801 and replacing it by a free federal
relationship. And, indeed, this must be done, not as a matter of
sympathy with Ireland, but as a demand made in the interests of the
English proletariat. If not, the English people will remain tied to the
leading-strings of the ruling classes, because it must join with them in
a common front against Ireland. Every one of its movements in England
itself is crippled by the disunion with the Irish, who form a very
important section of the working class in England. In
a further reply Walker attempts to answer Connolly with the following:
Into a pitfall of errors Comrade Connolly falls when he
assumes that I was quoting Connolly further replied:
All that unctuous self-glorification and
holier-than-thou attitudinising about his work for the Reverting to the main theme of the
controversy, he wrote: We of the Socialist Party of
Ireland now, as in the past, hold it to be our duty to assist and foster
every tendency of At the Irish Trade Union Congress, held in Galway on
Whit Tuesday, After a long citation from a speech
delivered by the Socialist Norway,
conquered nearly a century ago by Sweden, and seeking ever since at
intervals, but with increasing vigour, to recover its automony, has at
last proclaimed its national independence. It has broken the link which
for nearly a hundred years has bound it to Sweden. And there has been in
Sweden certain of the Conservative governing class proud and obstinate,
who, for a time, have dreamt of resorting to war to compel Norway to
submit in spite of herself to the Swedish Union. If this war of the
Swedish bourgeoisie had broken out in spite of the Norwegian Socialists,
in spite of the Swedish Socialists, it is very clear that the Norwegian
Socialists who, beforehand, had by their votes, by their suffrages,
affirmed the independence of Norway, would have defended it even by
force against the assaults of the Swedish oligarchy…. But at the same time that the Socialists of Norway
would have been right in defending their national independence, it would
have been the right and duty of the Swedish Socialists to oppose, even
by the proclamation of a general strike, any attempt at violence, at
conquest, at annexation, made by the Swedish bourgeoisie. Walker, in a subsequent contribution, descended to
a personal attack on Connolly, and the Editor was constrained to state
in a footnote that unless the controversy could be raised to a level of
discussion on principles it had better cease. Despairing then of
maintaining it on that level, Connolly forebore to write further. These quotations serve to show the wide gap that separated Little more need be added by
way of comment on this controversy except to say that it is not without
significance to add, in view of the reference to the workhouse child and
the poor consumptive by William Walker that within a period of twelve
months he had accepted a position from the British Government under the
new National Insurance Acts, introduced by Lloyd George, and took his
departure from the Labour movement and the scenes of his former
activities. He also proved an unreliable prophet during this
discussion claiming, as he did, that the I.L.P. propaganda had so
produced an atmosphere of toleration that anyone could be certain of a
fair hearing, even if he did allege that Connolly, with his
nationalistic brand of Socialism, was endeavouring to reap where he had
not sown. How false this claim was, was revealed by the fierce outbreak
of sectarian passion during the summer of 1912 already referred to, when
none but the most orthodox, politically, economically and religiously,
were permitted to work in the shipyards and leading engineering
establishments of the city, and when unoffending citizens were subjected
to excesses of brutality for no reason other than they worshipped This controversy had not the effect of detaching many members of the
I.L.P. from their allegiance to it, but the following year (1912) an
attempt was made to secure the unity of the Socialist movement in
Ireland, and during the summer a conference was convened in Dublin to
consider ways and means and invitations were extended to organisations
and individuals to attend. I remember travelling from Belfast to Dublin
to attend this conference with amongst others, James Connolly, Tom
Johnson, Davy Campbell, Danny McDevitt and Joseph Mitchell. The
conference was held in the premises of the Socialist Party of Ireland in
the Antient Concert Buildings The main decision of the conference was to found a new organisation,
with the same principles as the Socialist Party of Ireland, but to name
it the Independent Labour Party of Ireland. A short time after our
return to Belfast, I was chosen as Chairman of the Belfast Branch of the
Party, with a room in Upper Donegall Street, for business As I have
already mentioned, Home Rule for Ireland was being hotly debated, not
alone in the British Parliament but from every political platform in the
country as wide apart as from Portrush to Cork. The Unionist Party,
under the vigorous leadership of Sir Edward Carson, had organised the
Ulster Volunteer movement throughout the North of Ireland and had armed
it with rifles, which had been run into Larne and parts of the Co. Down
coast in an effort, as they stated, to prevent the extension of Home
Rule to Ireland. The Liberal Government of the day, under the
Premiership of Mr. Asquith, in an effort to avert what he regarded as
the impending civil war in Ireland had induced the leaders of the Irish
Parliamentary Party to agree to the temporary exclusion of certain
counties of Ulster from the provisions of the Home Rule Bill. John
Redmond, Joe Devlin and others had addressed their followers at a
meeting in St. Mary's Hall, Belfast, early in 1914, and had secured
their acquiescence to the Liberal Government's proposal to exclude
Ulster for a period of years. This betrayal of the Nationalist
interests was not allowed to pass unchallenged by Connolly, who
organised a demonstration in the same hall in April, 1914, under the
auspices of the Independent Labour Party of Ireland, to protest against
the exclusion of Ulster. As Chairman of the Party in Belfast, I presided
at the meeting and, in addition to Connolly, I was supported on the
platform by Captain J. R. ( The other incident was the contrast in the
reception given by this audience—an almost exclusively Nationalist
one—to the speakers. Captain White, who was an indifferent sort of
speaker in those days, had a short time prior to this been mixed up in
some trouble with the police in Dublin—an aftermath of the 1913
struggle—and came to the meeting with his head swathed in
bandages. He was given a vociferous reception by the meeting and an
attentive hearing during the course of a short, hesitant speech. In
contrast Connolly, who made an infinitely better speech, in fact one of
the best I had heard him deliver, was received with tepid lukewarmness
and had to shout above the subdued hum of conversation of the audience
to make himself heard and understood by those who desired to hear him.
The explanation of this was that Captain White About this time the Countess Markievicz was induced by
Connolly to visit Belfast and delivered a lecture in our Hall in
Rosemary Street, entitled Connolly was the complete propagandist and was a man with a mission
in life. His aims whilst active in Belfast could be regarded as
three-fold, the furtherance of the Irish Transport and General Workers'
Union, of which he was District Organiser, and his desire to raise the
standard of life, particularly of the dockers and the mill workers; the
development of the For a period after William Walker's defection
from the movement we had a joint committee, operating between ourselves
and the I.L.P., to conduct propaganda in the city. This was responsible
for producing my one difference with Connolly, as I usually found him an
extremely easy colleague to work with, although I have known him to be
rude, if not indeed intolerant, with those who differed from him on
Socialist matters. Under this arrangement at our open-air meeting
in Library Street one Sunday evening in 1913 we had as speaker a member
of the I.L.P. He was an Englishman, residing in Belfast and was employed
in some managerial capacity. The title of his lecture is long since
forgotten by me, the subject matter of it is, however, still fresh in my
memory as being the Chairman of the meeting I have occasion to remember
it. During the course of his speech he produced a sovereign from his
waist-coat pocket and explained that, as he had always one of these to
spare, his attitude to the Socialist movement was one of benevolence as
he was not like the ordinary proletarian in a Connolly occasionally made trips to
Dublin during the week-ends, and whilst there We held meetings to commemorate all sorts
of events in the Socialist and Nationalist calendars. Two of which were
outstanding. The celebration of the Paris Commune (1871), which he held
was the classical example of a working class insurrection, as distinct
from the many We also contested Dock Ward
in the municipal elections of January, 1913, with Connolly as our
candidate on a programme of wider municipal reforms on the part of the
Belfast City Council. We had a Tory as opponent but failed to make any
impression on the electorate, polling some nine hundred votes and being
beaten by about two to one, receiving mainly a Nationalist vote,
together with a small number of Protestant Labour votes. The
shadows of World War I began to hover over Europe. As the war clouds gathered jingoism
became more rampant in Belfast and the difficulty of our type of
propaganda meetings increased in ratio. Indifference to our meetings
gave way to hostility and we could only continue our open-air meetings
at Library Street with very great difficulty. During this period, on a
Sunday, when Connolly was absent in Dublin, I addressed the meeting and
was subjected to interruption so continuous during the course of an
hour's speech that I only got order on It was not Connolly's wish that the meetings
should be abandoned; it was not his method nor yet his disposition to
yield to the opposition of an irate mob, but rather to meet force with
force sooner than tamely submit to a noisy and turbulent element swayed
by war hysteria. A meeting of the party, however, called to consider the
continuation or otherwise of the meetings in those fateful late August
or early September days decided to suspend the meetings until more
rational days returned with Connolly and myself—the two main
speakers—the minority in favour of continuing them. This decision
filled him with disgust, as designs were already taking shape in his
mind should the war situation continue and develop, which led unerringly
to his challenge to the might of the British Empire and his heroic fight
in the ruins of Dublin's General Post Office during Easter Week, 1916,
and his no less valiant death before a firing party of British
soldiers. The story of my association with Connolly in Belfast
would not be complete were I to omit from it a few names of those WILLIAM
McMULLEN. Let us free
Ireland! Never mind such base, carnal thoughts as concern work and
wages, healthy homes, or lives unclouded by poverty. Let us free
Ireland! The rackrenting landlord; is he not also an Irishman, and
wherefore should we hate him? Nay, let us not speak harshly of our
brother—yea, even when he raises our rent. Let us free
Ireland! The profit-grinding capitalist, who robs us of three-fourths
of the fruits of our labour, who sucks the very marrow of our bones when
we are young, and then throws us out in the street, like a worn-out tool
when we are grown prematurely old in his service, is he not an Irishman,
and mayhap a patriot, and wherefore should we think harshly of him Let us free Ireland! And, says the
agricultural workers, after we have freed Ireland, what then? Oh, then
you can go scraping around for the landlord's rent or the money-
lenders' interest same as before. Whoop it up for liberty! After
Ireland is free, says the patriot who won't touch Socialism, we will
protect all classes, and if you won't pay your rent you will be evicted
same as now. But the evicting And when you cannot find employment, and, giving up the struggle of
life in despair, enter the poorhouse, the band of the nearest regiment
of the Irish army will escort you to the poorhouse door to the tune of
faith
by some of my
friends, who like myself worked in Messrs. Harland & Wolff's shipyard,
and although my mind, like most teen-agers at the time, was concentrated
on sport to the exclusion of almost every other consideration, I was
induced to take home and read Robert Blatchford's Galloper
F. E. Smith, K.C.,
Lord works
department do an enormous amount of time and
contract
work within the municipality. With the above in operation,
we in Belfast have no need to be ashamed of being compared in municipal
management with any city in the Kingdom.what was wanted was the unity of our
forces all over
. Just so, but Ireland has to be, must be, treated
differently. Why? Because of the conservative temperament of certain
Irish propagandists, and because of their insistence on viewing the
class war as a national question instead of as it is, a world-wide
question.sturdy
Protestant Democracy of the North
. Did you understand what you
wrote and what a libel the above is upon many of the greatest leaders
whose recorded deeds illumine the pages of Irish history?sturdy Protestant Democracy
of the North
. It was in Belfast their first grand review took
place. Twenty years before Michael Davitt started on the great career
for the solution of the Irish Land problem, Ulster had taken and given a
lead to Ireland. A meeting was held in Dublin on sturdy Protestant Democrats
of the
North are always found leading—William Sharman Crawford, M.P.,
Rev. Mr. Rodgers of Comer and Daniel McCurdy Greet, B.L., are names
whose association with agrarian agitation is so intimate as to call for
no further comment.sturdy Protestant Democrat of the
North
who led the revolt of the Irish Party, and began that career
of obstruction so effective to Ireland. And Joseph Gillies Biggar, the
Belfast Pork Merchant, can challenge any section of Nationalist
Ireland
for work done for the country, whilst in the great fight on
the Land Bill of Gladstone, Lord Russell's name, a Belfast Catholic is
inseparably associated, and the famous Protestant Theobald Wolfe Tone
found Belfast to be the Society of United Irishmen
, an
organisation that has to its credit at least wonderful doughty deeds. In
fact, whilst not disparaging the other provinces of Ireland, one can
truthfully say that Ulster has given her fair quota to the work so much
believed in by Comrade Connolly, viz.—Nationalism.The land question
contains and the legislative question does not contain the materials
from which victory is to be manufactured
.….
But it does seem a peculiar brand of Socialism that aims at legislative
independence before socialism.tawdy rhetoric, cheap and irrelevant schoolboy
history, and badly digested political philosophy, all permeated with an
artfully instilled appeal to religious prejudice and civic
sectionalism, carefully calculated to make Belfast wrap itself round in
a garment of self-righteousness, and to look with scorn upon its
supposed weaker Irish brethren.
And continuing in
the same vein he refers to Lord Charlemont as an
aristocratic poltroon who deserted and betrayed the Irish Volunteers
when they proposed to use their organisation to obtain a Democratic
extension of the suffrage and religious toleration. That he should be
cited as a Democrat proves that there is a kink somewhere, either in
Walker's conception of Democracy or in his knowledge of Irish
history.
But friend Walker blunders on from absurdity to
absurdity. Remember that he is opposed to self-government to Ireland,
sturdy Protestant Democrats
who gave their whole
lives in battling, suffering and sacrifice for the cause of National
Freedom which Comrade Walker rejects. He cites Theobald Wolfe Tone.
Wolfe Tone recognised that National Independence was an essential
element to Democracy, and declared that to break the connection with
England the never failing source of all our political evils
. He
cited James Fintan Lalor. Lalor declared that the Irish people should
fight for full and absolute independence for this island, and for every
man within this island
. Lalor was not a Protestant, but our Comrade
also cites Lalor's contemporary, Mitchel, whom he wrongly describes as a
Presbyterian. He was instead a Unitarian. Mitchel summed up his politics
in these words We must have Ireland, not for certain peers, and for
nominees of peers in College Green; but Ireland for the Irish
.Comrade Walker also cites Joseph Gillies Biggar, a sturdy and
uncomprising Home Ruler. In fact, practically all the
sturdy
Protestant Democrats
he cited are men who would have treated with
contempt Walker's pitiful straddle on Irish politics. They are all men
to whom he would have been opposed were he living in their time. He
reminds us of this section by quoting among the names of Irish
Rebels, Grattan, Butt and Shaw
, a quotation that must have
brought a grin to the face of anyone who read it, and had even a
rudimentary knowledge of Irish history.In passing let me remark
that the names cited by Comrade Walker but confirm my point. We do not
care so much what a few men did as what the vast mass of their
co-religionists do. The vast mass of the Protestants of Ulster, except
during the period of 1798, were bitter enemies of the men he has named,
and during the bitter struggle of the Land League, when the peasantry in
the other provinces were engaged in a life and death struggle against
landlordism, the sturdy
the Protestant Rebels
as approving of
them. I wasn't, but I was pointing out that Catholic Ireland had many
Protestant leaders in all the great revolutionary movements, and this
evidently was information to friend Connolly. But to get to
essentials. What do you want an Irish Labour Party for? Will Ireland
more readily respond to it than to the British Labour Party? What is
your experience? Have you proved that? No; everything that the people of
Ireland want can be safeguarded much better under the protection of
the United Democracies than if we were isolated. This truth has been
reaffirmed at the recent Irish Trade Union Congress Nationalism forming the basis of Internationalism
has
been plentiful with some people, some of us in Belfast have been doing
something to improve conditions poor
consumptive, the workhouse child and the Trade Union member, the textile
worker, the dockers and the carters, the sweated and the oppressed
,
and that work bringing no personal remuneration or glory, yet lifts the
veil of poverty a little from the face of the people, all that is
valuable, as a study in the psychology of Comrade Walker, and as an
indication that the Pharisaical spirit of the
and rigidly righteous
still walks abroad amongst
us, but as a real contribution to the question in dispute, like the
flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la, they have nothing to do with
the case.Either affliate with England or we will squelch
you
. His amendment was carried by 32 votes to 29. The unborn Labour
Party of Ireland was strangled in the womb by the hands of the
I.L.P.ers. The 29 votes for the motion represented all the militant
forces of the more progressive Trade Unions of Ireland; forces anxious
for a battle on behalf of Labour against the political forces of Irish
Capitalism; the 32 votes for Walker's amendment represented the forces
of reaction anxious at all costs to save the present political parties
from the danger inherent in a proposal to give the political forces of
Labour an Irish home, and an Irish basis of operations. Had the motion
been carried, next General Election would have seen some seats in
Ireland fought by Labour against all comers. The motion was defeated by
an unholy alliance, and reaction in Ireland breathes freely once
more.the peerless orator of the International
Socialist movementon the Nonvay and Sweden Parallel to Ireland and
England
, speaking at Limoges in 1905: Northern Ireland
Socialism, and it may not be irrelevant to
state that this tradition has continued since through all the
vicissitudes of the national struggle, until to-day we have the pitiful
spectacle of the Six Counties Labour Party recognising the territorial
status of Northern Ireland
and functioning as an open and avowed
partitionist Labour organisation.Bounders College
for our propaganda meetings during
the winter. Our forum during the summer was at the lamp in Library
Street where, on occasions, we drew large crowds.Jack
) White, D.S.O., Thomas Johnson,
Davy Campbell and Dick Breathwith, the latter who was known as the
Bubbleburster
was a convert from the Belfast Protestant
Association. This was the first big political demonstration I had
addressed indoors and the hall was packed to capacity, mainly by a Falls
Road as a
corpse on the dissecting table
and, as he added, amputating the
Northern portion
. The meeting was voted an overwhelming success, our
resolutions condemning the exclusion of Ulster were unanimously carried
and Connolly was quite jubilant at its close. It is, I think, worth
recording that Connolly was the only Catholic amongst the platform
speakers.your children will
laugh at it
.owing to Mr. Connolly's political opinions and ungodly
propensities
it left them no option but to dissociate themselves
from such a man and from such a Union. On showing me this
letter—which is now in the possession of Bill O'Brien—he
smiled faintly in appreciation of the difficulty of making speeches to
suit two such diametrically opposed view points as obtained in Belfast
and Dublin. He did not, however, on account of this temper the wind
to the shorn lamb
.that never failing source of all our political evils
. The
speaker at this meeting was Ernest Blythe of Lisburn, active I
understood, in the Nationalist movement of the time and later to attain
eminence in the subsequent Nationalist struggles and become Finance
Minister in the Cosgrave Government.The land that bred and bore us
. And the
landlord who makes us pay for permission to live upon it. Whoop it up
for liberty!Let us free Ireland
, says the patriot who
won't touch Socialism. Let us all join together and cr-r-rush the
br-r-rutal Saxon. Let us all join together, says he, all classes and
creeds. And, says the town worker, after we have crushed the Saxon and
freed Ireland, what will we do? Oh, then you can go back to your slums,
same as before. Whoop it up for liberty!
Now, my friend, I also am Irish, but I'm a bit more logical. The capitalist, I say, is a parasite on industry; as useless in the present stage of our industrial development as any other parasite in the animal or vegetable world is to the life of the animal or vegetable upon which it feeds.
The working class is the victim of this parasite—this human leech, and it is the duty and interest of the working class to use every means in its power to oust this parasite class from the position which enables it to thus prey upon the vitals of labour.
Therefore, I say, let us organise as a class to meet our masters and destroy their mastership; organise to drive them from their hold upon public life through their political power; organise to wrench from their robber clutch the land and workshops on and in which they enslave us; organise to cleanse our social life from the stain of social cannibalism, from the preying of man upon his fellow man.
Organise for a full, free and happy life
We quite appreciate the fact that peasant proprietary is somewhat of a hindrance to the spread of socialist ideas, but an effective bulwark for capitalism it decidedly is not. Two of the countries named as possessing a peasant proprietary, and therefore as safe from socialism, are just the two countries in which socialism is strongest, viz., France and Germany.
In Germany the socialist party has the strongest voting power of any party in the state, polling over two millions and a quarter votes, and in France, we are informed on the authority of the clerical organ, the
But the principle of
socialism affords just that outlet and at the same time ministers to
both his social and political aspirations. When agriculture ceases to be
a private enterprise, when a free nation organises the production of its
own food stuffs as a public function, and intrusts the management of the
function to the agricultural population, under popular boards of their
own election, then the keen individualism of the Irish peasant
will find its expression in constant watchfulness over the common stock
and supervision of each others' labour, and will form the best security
against wastefulness, and the best incentive to honest toil. When the
land is the property of the people in the fullest sense (
For very many years we have seen the London Parliament sending forth Land Act after Land Act, each and every one of them heralded by a declaration that it embodied a complete cure for the land question in Ireland. To-day the land question is as far from being settled as ever it was; at least in appearance. The reason may escape the eye of the Home Rule or Unionist editor, who dare not notice any point of industrial development other than it suits the interests of his employers to bring before the public, but it is very palpable indeed to all who seek, with unbiassed minds, to ascertain the truth.
The successive Land Purchase Bills, Land Courts for adjustment of rents, etc., are perhaps powerful enough in softening the rigour of the relations between landlord and tenant; and were this island surrounded by a wall of brass shutting out the world from intercourse, might serve to settle for a long time the agrarian disputes in Ireland. But as long as the produce of Irish farmers must sell upon the market side by side with the produce of countries better situated, better equipped and better organised for agricultural operations, so long will the Irish produce be undersold: so long will Irish farming fail to pay. Were the landlords to disappear to-morrow, and their titles to land to become cxtinct, the peasant proprietors remaining would still be involved in a hopeless struggle for subsistence, whilst this island remains dominated by capitalistic conditions.
Every perfection of agricultural methods or machinery
lowers prices; every fall in prices renders more unstable the position
of the farmer, whether tenant or proprietor; and every year—nay
every month—which passes sees this perfection and
Meanwhile it is
instructive to notice that the United Irish League agitators—from
Mr. William O'Brien down—have no remedy to offer which does not
smack of socialistic principles. The compulsory expropriation of the
graziers; the break up of grazing lands; the state help for agriculture; in fact, every proposal advocated proceeds upon the assumption
that property
has no rights as against the welfare of the community, and that the life and prosperity of the people is, or ought to
be, the first care of legal
rights of property
shall be subordinated, or even totally set aside, it must be done.
Those who seek a comprehensive remedy for the
sufferings of the working classes look beyond trades unionism. They
perceive that they must modify more profoundly the relations between
labour and capital; to bridge across the chasm dividing them, and so to
abolish that rivalry of interest out of which has grown so much
inhumanity to man. One class of reformers propose to effect this change
by the absolute abolition of private capital—by taking capital,
or the material instruments of wealth production, out of the hands of
the individuals and classes, and making it the property of the
community, vesting it in the State. This scheme—a dream of the
socialist—impossible to work out in practice, hopelessly breaking
down wherever it has been tried, violates the fundamental conception of
all property. What a free man creates by his labour, that is his
property; if it is his property he can do with it what he
wills—consume it by present use or reserve it for further production. To forbid him the right to reserve it or use it as capital
would be to deny him the right to possess property. From this point of
view—as well as from others—socialism is seen to have much
in common with slavery.
The above quotation, from the paper on
We readily allow that no man in Ireland within the clerical body, and
few men in Ireland outside the ranks of the adherents patriotism
or
true religion
, as helps to the intelligent discussion of an
economic question they are worse than useless.
The economic theories held by the non-socialist parties in Ireland to-day and voiced by their publicists on parties on press and platform, are in fact the theories which prevailed in England more than fifty years ago—during the agitation for the repeal of the corn laws, and for free trade in general. Such ideas are now regarded throughout the remainder of the world as outworn and obsolete; it is only in Ireland they survive, and in Ireland only among men, who having failed to keep step with the intellectual march of the world, would fain convince themselves that the intellectual incapacity which shuts them off from sympathy with the thought of the age is the distinguishing birthmark of a true celt. That the criticism of such persons should be of little effect in adding to our knowledge any important truth on an economic subject is, of course, to be expected, and we do not propose to waste our own or our readers' time in discussing them. But the arguments of Father Finlay naturally carry more weight, and deserve, we repeat, a much more serious study.
To begin with we would like to remind
the reverend lecturer that he did not place before his hearers such a
clear and definite idea of the true socialist position as he himself
possesses. In free contract
between master and man—was only developed according as the system
of feudalism—or serf labour under a hereditary landowning
nobility—broke down owing to the demand for new methods of
industry produced by the opening up of new markets through the discovery
of America, and the perfection of means of transit and communication, in
like manner will socialism also come when the development of capitalism
in its turn renders the burden of a capitalist class unbearable, and the
capitalist system unworkable.
Socialists point out that the
capitalist system depends upon the maintenace of an equilibrium between
the producing and consuming powers of the world; that business cannot go
on unless the goods produced can find customers; that owing to the rapid
development of machinery this equilibrium cannot be maintained; that
the productive powers of the world are continually increasing whilst the
virgin markets of the world are as continually diminishing; that every
new scientific process applied to industry, every new perfecting of
machinery, increases the productivity of labour, but as the area of the
world remains
Here then is a statement of the aims
and principles of modern socialism. The intelligent reader will observe
that this is not a mere piece of speculative philosophy, nor yet the
product of disordered brains acted upon by hunger-weakened stomachs. On
the contrary it is primarily a scientific analysis of the past and
present structure of society—a comprehensive
In face of this fact, which we would
most respectfully remind Father Finlay he has himself most loudly
explained ere now, what becomes of his statement at Maynooth that
socialism had hopelessly broken down wherever it has been tried
.
The broken down wherever it has been tried
, because, being the fruit
of an historical evolution yet to be completed,
If Father Finlay can tell when and where such an industrial order as would be recognised by the socialist parties of the world as socialism has been tried and failed then we will publicly recant our errors. Wanting such information we, and with us an ever-increasing band of the wage-slaves of capitalism will continue to prepare for that revolt which shall establish the socialist republic.
Let me also add that it is about time, in their own interests, that the clergy began to study what socialism really is. I have read a good many scare fulminations against socialism from his Holiness down and I have never seen but one from such a source that showed any real knowledge of what socialism really is.
Having been again asked to contest the Wood Quay Ward in the interests of labour, I desire, in accepting this invitation, to lay before you a few of the principles upon which I conducted the campaign last election, and on which I shall fight this.
Our defeat of last year, brought about as it was by a campaign of slander and bribery, and a wholesale and systematic debauching of the more degraded portion of the electorate, did not in the slightest degree affect the truth of the principles for which we contested. These principles still remain the only principles by which the working class can ever attain its freedom.
When the workers come into the world we find that we are outcasts in the world. The land on which we must live is the property of a class who are the descendants of men who stole the land from our forefathers, and we who are workers, are, whether in town or country, compelled to pay for permission to live on the earth; the houses, shops, factories, etc., which were built by the labour of our fathers at wages that simply kept them alive are now owned by a class which never contributed an ounce of sweat to their erecting, but whose members will continue to draw rent and profit from them while the system lasts. As a result of this the worker in order to live must sell himself into the service of a master—he must sell to that master the liberty to coin into profit the physical and mental energies.
A shopkeeper
in order to live must sell his goods for what he can get, but a worker
in order to live must sell a part of his life, nine, ten, or twelve
hours per day as the case may patriots suffering for their
country
. But as they were only workmen fighting for their class
interests, we were told by the Home Rule newspapers that they were
misguided individuals
.
What is wanted then is for the
workers to organise for political action on socialist lines. And let us
take lesson by the municipal election of last year. Let us remember how
the drink-sellers of the Wood Quay Ward combined with the slum owner and
the house jobber; let us remember how Alderman Davin, Councillor McCall,
and all their fellow publicans issued free drinks to whoever would
accept, until on the day before election, and election day, the scenes
of bestiality and drunkenness around their shops were such as brought
the blush of shame to every decent man and woman who saw them. Let us
remember the threats and the bribery, how Mr. Byrne of Wood Quay told
the surrounding tenants, that if Mr. Connolly was elected their rents
would be raised
; let us remember how the spirit of religion was
prostituted to the service of the drinkseller to drive the labourer back
into his degradation; how the workers were told that socialism and
freethinking were the same thing, although the free thinking government
of France was just after shooting down socialist workmen at Martinique
for taking part in a strike procession; let us remember how the paid
Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, you understand my position. This is socialist republicanism, the politics of labour, of freedom from all tyrants, foreign and native. If you are a worker your interests should compel you to vote for me, if you are a decent citizen, whether worker or master, you should vote for me; if you are an enemy of freedom, a tyrant, or the tool of a tyrant, you will vote against me.
Believing that in this fight I am fighting the fight of my class, invite every self-respecting worker to join our committee and help the cause.
The farmers of Ireland denounced as unpatriotic everything that failed to serve their class interest—including even the labourer's demand for a cottage—let the working class of Ireland follow their lead and test the sincerity of every man's patriotism by his devotion to the interests of labour. In the eyes of the farmers no wagging of green flags could make a landgrabber a patriot; let the workers apply the same test and brand as enemies of Ireland all who believe in the subjection of labour to capital—brand as traitors to his country all who live by skinning Irish labour. For the working class of the world the lesson is also plain. In every country socialism is foreign, is unpatriotic, and will continue so until the working class embracing it as their salvation make socialism the dominant political force…. By their aggressiveness and intolerance the possessing classes erect the principles of their capitalist supremacy into the dignity of national safeguards; according as the working class infuse into its political organisation the same aggressiveness and intolerance it will command the success it deserves, and make the socialist the only good and loyal citizen.
The action taken upon the
Local Government Act by the representatives of the trade unionists of
Dublin is perhaps the most important step yet taken by the organised
workers in Ireland…. We do not, however, labour
under the belief that delegates so chosen will be socialists, or consciously in favour of socialist principles. On the contrary, we are
quite prepared to find each and every one of these representatives
solemnly repudiating the taint of socialism. But we do believe, and not
only believe but know that every workingman elected to the Municipal
Council of Dublin, if he be true to his class when elected, will find
that every step he takes in the Council in furtherance of the interests
of his class, must of necessity take the form of an application of
socialist principles. The direct employment of labour by the
municipality and consequent abolition of contracting, the rigid
enforcement of sanitary laws, reductions of the hours of labour,
increase of the wages of the lower grades of workers and reduction of
the absurdly high salaries of superior officials, exceptional taxation
of unlet property, in short, every measure for the betterment of the
condition of the workers which our working class representatives in the
Corporation could urge for adoption, has long since been adopted into
the palliative programme of the socialists, and is, in greater or
Moreover, in pressing forward even the mildest of these reforms, it will be found that the representatives of property in the Corporation will, irrespective of party, line up solidly against reform, and our friends who imagine that they will secure the co-operation of the master class in safeguarding the interests of labour will be sadly deceived. It is because we realise these facts that we are unqualifiedly in favour of this proposed action of the Dublin trade unions.
When the worker has so far advanced as to realise that his master's interests are antagonistic to his own, that the master class use every weapon from Parliament to prison to maintain their position against what they consider the encroachment of their serfs, then we have no doubt that the next step in the intellectual development of the worker will be to consider whether it is wise to tolerate longer a class in society which requires to be watched so constantly and guarded against so vigilantly; whether there is indeed any useful function performed by the capitalist and landlord class which the organised workers cannot perform without them. Whether the ownership of property cannot be vested in the organised community, and the conduct of industry entrusted to our trade unions, who could surely furnish men who would organise production and distribution in the interests of all much better than it is at present done by a class animated solely by considerations of profit. When the logic of events forces this question on the Dublin workers as it surely will, we believe that they will not fail to answer it aright, and that the answer will be well for our hopes of a socialist republic.
We are trade unionists, but we are more than trade unionists. The trade unionist who is only a trade unionist is to the socialist what the believer in constitutional monarchy is to a republican. The constitutional monarchist wishes to limit the power of the king, but still wishes to have a king; the republican wishes to abolish kingship and puts his trust in the people; the trade unionist wishes to limit the power of the master but still wishes to have masters: the socialist wishes to have done with masters and pins his faith to the collective intelligence of a democratic community.
We, as socialist republicans, adopt in each case the more logical
course and bend our energies to the abolition of that principle of evil,
whose influence our moderate friends would seek only to minimise. A
socialist republic is the application
We repeat then, we hail with joy this action of the Dublin trade unions, our candidates will joyfully co-operate with them, for if they do not become lackeys of the capitalist class, they must inevitably become allies of the Socialist Republican.
We have no desire to carp at, or
needlessly to criticise, any party sailing under the banner of labour,
but we feel we would not be performing our duty to the socialist working
class of Ireland did we not point out the fact that the interests of
labour were in no way involved in the contest for the mayoral chair. It
could hardly be otherwise. It should be remembered that the Labour Party
form but a fraction of the Municipal Council; moreover that of this number only a very small minority were elected on an independent ticket:
the majority of the Labour members being chosen on the same lines as the
middle class members, nominated by the same committee, and running on
the same programme. All of them hold the same political and social
beliefs as the remainder of the Municipal Council—believe equally
with them in the capitalist system, and that rent, profit and interest
are the necessary and inevitable pillars of society…. From the entry of the Labour Party into the
Municipal Council to the present day their course has been marked by
dissension, squabbling and recrimination. No single important move in
the interest of the worker was even mooted, the most solemn pledges were
incontinently broken, and where the workers looked for inspiration and
leadership, We, like many others, confess to having been
disappointed in the Labour men elected under the auspices of the Labour
Electoral Association; we did not expect that the splendid class spirit
shown by the Dublin workers at the late election would, through the
arrogance and weakness of their elected representatives, be of no
practical advantage to them as a class.Dublin Labour
Party
:Dublin Labour
Party
is fully confirmed by contemporary accounts, e.g. Arthur
Griffith in the
Internationalism is not an invention of socialists. As socialism itself has sprung out of the combinations of modern society, and as the international organisation of labour and the international scope of commerce are but manifestations of these conditions, so the internationalism of the socialist movement simply reflects the development of society at large.
For example: Certain ignorant people in Ireland, (politicians and such like) claim that Ireland should have no concern with matters other than Home Rule, land reform and taxes, and other matters adjustable within the four seas of Erin. To such people I recommend a study of the following cutting from an American capitalist paper.
Then let him remember that one of the
chief industries in Ireland to-day is the rearing and exportation of
cattle for the English market, and that tens of thousands of people are
dependent upon that for a livelihood. The American Beef
Trust has taken an important step toward securing complete control of
the London refrigerated meat trade. A powerful shipping combination
backed by the Beef Trust has been organised here to provide fast
steamships to bring refrigerated meat from Argentina, carrying only beef
controlled by the trust, which hopes to freeze out all independent
shippers from Argentina. Regular weekly service between London
and the Plate river will be maintained, for which nine fifteen-knot
steamships are to be built. Owing to the decrease in supplies
from the United States, England is becoming daily more dependent on
Argentina for her meat supply. The Plate river trade has been controlled
hitherto by two independent firms, both English and South American. In the past few years the trust has been endeavouring to
get a foothold in Argentina and has absorbed two important firms
here. The recent enormous issue of new capital by the Chicago
big Four
is designed to be used to capture the Argentina trade.
The trust has enormous holdings here already, owning a large number of
stalls in Smithfield market, and some hundreds of shops in different
parts of the country.
Now, just as a lesson in
economics, figure out how far-reaching will be the effect of that deal
when it is completed. It means that there is a capitalist concern in
Chicago which has hundreds of stores or shops in Great Britain,
Now turn to its effect upon Ireland. I have already spoken of the tens of thousands of people who in Ireland are dependent upon the cattle trade. This living is menaced by the competition of the Beef Trust, and nothing within the purview of Irish politicians can save them.
There is another angle from which this situation can be approached. For some time in Ireland there has been agitation against the huge grazing farms. It has been felt—and rightly—that the land so given up to cattle would be better occupied by human beings. That it were better to see thriving men and women and children, and happy homes than to see sheep and cows.
But sheep and cows paid better than men and women, and
Now comes along the Beef Trust with its elaborately organised machinery of competition to bring the product of Argentine Republic to compete with the grazing farms of Meath and Kildare, and I make the prophecy that if this trust succeeds in its designs cattle raising in Ireland will be unprofitable. And if it becomes unprofitable to raise cattle for the London market then the Irish grazier and his landlord will become convinced of the error of their ways, and the farms will be let for tillage purposes to the people now clamouring in vain for their possession.
Is it not calculated to provide thought, even in a politician, that the chances of some Irish peasants getting farms in Ireland depend upon the success of the Beef Trust in conquering the markets of the Argentine Republic?
In like
manner the question of whether Irish peasants are paying too much or too
little for their farms under the new Land Acts does not depend upon the
quality of their lands so much as it depends upon agricultural prices,
and agricultural prices depend upon the development of transatlantic
steam service bringing the product of the mammoth farms of the United
States and South America to Europe. Every so
un-Irish
.
This is the title of a pamphlet by Patrick J. Cooney of Bridgeport, Conn., which we would like to see in the hands of all our readers, and especially those who are struggling towards the light out of the economic darkness of to-day. To Catholics who have been repelled from socialism by the blatant and rude atheism of some of its irresponsible advocates—and unfortunately the number of such Catholics is legion—this book will be as refreshing as an oasis in the desert to the tired and thirsty traveller.
The author is an
active Catholic and at the same time a militant socialist, and in his
presentation of our socialist doctrines he never wavers in his
allegiance to either. Here and there indeed his loyalty to the Church
seems to betray him into statements regarding her position which to our
mind would hardly stand the test of modern criticism and historical
research. But we confess that in that respect his attitude is a
refreshing change from that of the crudely superficial thinkers (?) and
scribblers who so commonly discredit the socialist ranks by their
dogmatisms on that subject. If we had to choose between the perfervid
Catholicity of our author and the blatant anti-Catholicism of the men
who are so fond of repelling earnest Catholics by their assertion that
the great conflict of the social revolution will be between the forces
of the Catholic Church and those of socialism, then we should prefer the
position of Comrade Cooney as containing the highest propagandist value,
as well as being, if historical precedents count for anything, the most
probable to last and stand the test of time.Socialism, as a party, bases itself upon
its knowledge of facts, of economic truths, and leaves the building up
of religious ideals or faiths to the outside public, or to its
individual members if they so will. It is neither Freethinker nor
Christian, Turk nor Jew, Buddhist nor Idolater, Mahommedan nor
Parsee—it is only
I have long been of the opinion
, wrote
Connolly in that the socialist movement elsewhere was to a great extent
hampered by the presence in its ranks of faddists and cranks, who were
in the movement, not for the cause of socialism, but because they
thought they saw in it a means of ventilating their theories on such
questions as sex, religion, vaccination, vegetarianism, etc., and I
believed that such ideas had or ought to have no place in our programme
or in our party…. We were as a body concerned only
with the question of political and economic freedom for our class. We
could not claim to have a mission to emancipate the human mind from
To use a homely
adage the Church does not put all her eggs in one basket
, and
the man who imagines that in the supreme hour of the proletarian
struggle for victory the Church will definitely line up with the forces
of capitalism, and pledge her very existence as a Church upon the
hazardous chance of the capitalists winning, simply does not understand
the first thing about the policy of the Church in the social or
political revolutions of the past. Just as in Ireland the Church
denounced every Irish revolutionary movement in its day of activity,
as in 1798, 1848 and 1867, and yet allowed its priests to deliver
speeches in eulogy of the active spirits of those movements a generation
afterwards, so in the future the Church, which has its hand close upon
the pulse of human society, when it realises that the cause of
capitalism is a lost cause it will find excuse enough to allow freedom
of speech and expression to those lowly priests whose socialist declarations it will then use to cover and hide the absolute anti-socialism of
the Roman Propaganda. When that day comes the Papal Encyclical against
socialism will be conveniently forgotten by the Papal historians, and
the socialist utterances, of the von Kettelers, the McGlynns, and
McGradys will be heralded forth and the communistic utterances of the
early fathers as proofs of Catholic sympathy with progressive ideas.
Thus it has been in the past. Thus it will be, at least attempted, in
the future. We are not concerned to champion or to deny the morality of
such a cause in anticipation, we are simply attempting to read the
lessons of the past into the future. And, we modestly submit, this
forecast has infinitely more of probability in it than the dreams of
those who tell us so glibly of a coming Armageddon between the forces of
socialism and Catholicism. Such dreams are not the product of modern
socialist philosophy, they are a survival from the obsolete philosophy
of the days preceding the first French Revolution.Connolly…never failed,
too, in his denunciation of the Church, to make clear he was a Catholic.
This was rather disquieting to me, an avowed sceptic. I could never
understand how it was possible to reconcile this with his profound
knowledge of historical materialism. One night, following a meeting in
Rutherglen, where the straight question was asked,
Thomas
Bell, Was he a
Catholic
? and the straight reply given, Yes
, I tackled him on
this. How is it possible
, I asked, to reconcile the
Catholicism of Rome with the materialist conception of history
?
Well
, he replied, it is like this. In Ireland all the
Protestants are Orangemen and howling jingoes. If the children go to the
Protestant schools they get taught to wave the Union Jack and worship
the English king. If they go to the Catholic Church they become rebels.
Which would you sooner have
?…. Connolly's
attitude towards religion was further seen in his dispute in America
with Daniel De Leon on the question of the Church and marriage. De Leon
never missed an opportunity to attack the Ultramontanism
of the
Catholic Church…. Connolly was opposed to dragging
this question into the press.
To the free-thinkers and rebels of those days—and the
In the light of this modern conception of the conditions of
historical progressa natural
process
, the mental vision of our forefathers
Hence we had in Ireland in
our Celtic legends a plentiful store of fairies, leprechauns and good
and evil spirits, and every thing on land or sea, on wind or water that
our fathers did not understand was readily attributed to the good or
perverse genius of some member or members of this fairy host. In their
turn the fairies were the descendants of the servants of the Unknown
God
whom the Celt of old worshipped in his Druidic Groves. Anyone
at all acquainted with the beliefs of the Irish peasant before the
advent of the National School to spoil
him of his innocence is
well aware that his Catholicity was almost inextricably mingled with a
belief in fairy lore and legend that testified that he was still in a
transition state of mentality between belief in the spirits of Druidism
and the angels of Catholicity.
He would have hotly repudiated
such an insinuation. But to the seeing eye the proofs were palpable and
undeniable, and this mental development of the Irish Celt towards a
clearer conception of the universe, this progress, for it was a
progress, from the conception of a world helplessly torn by the warring
of spirits to the conception of a world ruled by a Creator holding a
spirit world in subjection for a beneficent purpose, this development
was paralleled throughout the earth by all the advanced races in their
upward march to the conquest of truth. The point to be noted is this:
The different stages of development of the human mind in
its attitude towards the forces of Nature created different priesthoods
to interpret them, and the mental conceptions of mankind as interpreted
by those priesthoods became, when systematised, Religion. Religions are
simply expressions of the human conceptions of the natural world; these
religions have created the priesthoods. Only he who
Yet it is this utterly
unhistorical idea, rejected by historical science as it is also rejected
by the record of the countless thousands of priests of all religions who
have cheerfully gone to martyrdom for their beliefs—and martyrdom
is incredible in a conscious imposter—it is this belief that is
often brought in and made to do duty as a result of socialist thought by
those who ought to know better. It is a matter for congratulation that
Irish socialists are free of such excrescences on socialist belief.Socialism is an industrial and political question;
it is going to be settled in the workshops and at the ballot boxes of
this and every other country and is not going to be settled at the
altar. The education which fits a man for the altar does not give him
any mastery over economic knowledge. The priest who has even studied
for his priesthood at Rome usually could learn a lot about modern
industry from the Irish labourer whose childhood, manhood and old age
are spent toiling in workshop, mine or factory for a starvation
wage.
There are
quite a few people who believe that his Eminence stands for conceptions of human society, and holds ideas on intellectual development that
properly belong to the darkest of dark ages, and make him a greater
menace to free American institutions than the most violent Anarchist
that ever was barred out of the United States….
The time has long since gone by when Irish men and Irish women could be
kept from thinking by hurling priestly thunder at their heads. We may
still kneel to the Servant of God, but when he speaks as the Servant of
our Oppressors he must not wonder if he receives from slaves in revolt
the same measure as his earthly masters. It is well to let his Eminence,
Cardinal Logue know that he cannot act the despot and throttle the press
in Ireland, and act the patron of free institutions in America without
the slight difference of attitude causing some comment. It is well,
above all, to let all the clerical ranters (Protestant and Catholic)
against Socialism realise that it is not Socialism that is on trial
before the bar of advancing civilisation, but they and theirs…. A thousand welcomes then to Cardinal Logue, and more
power to the elbow of the Irish writers whose journal he could not
suppress.
Not the least of the services our comrade, Victor
Berger,
It must be confessed, however, that the question has not been faced at all squarely by the majority of the critics who have unburdened themselves upon the matter. We have had much astonishment expressed, a great deal of deprecation of the introduction of the question at the present time, and not a little sly fun poked at our comrade. But one would have thought that a question of such a character brought up for discussion by a comrade noted for his moderation—a moderation by some thought to be akin to compromise—would have induced in socialists a desire to seriously consider the elements of fact and probability behind and inspiring the question. What are these facts?
Briefly stated, the facts as they are known to us all are that all
over the United States the capitalist class is even now busily devising
ways and means by which the working class can be disfranchised. In
California it is being done by exacting an enormous sum for the right to
place a ticket upon the ballot; in Minnesota the same end is sought by
a new primary law; in the south by an educational (?) test to be imposed
only upon those who possess no property; in some States by imposing a
property qualification upon candidates; and all over by wholesale
counting out of socialist ballots, and wholesale counting in of
fraudulent votes. In addition to this we have
These are a few of the facts. Now what are the probabilities? One is that the capitalist class will not wait until we get a majority at the ballot box, but will precipitate a fight upon some fake issue whilst the mass of the workers are still undecided as to the claims of capitalism and socialism.
Another is that even if the capitalist class were
law-abiding enough, or had miscalculated public opinion enough, to wait
until the socialists had got a majority at the ballot box in some
presidential election, they would then refuse to vacate their offices,
or to recognise the election, and with the Senate and the military in
their hands would calmly proceed to seat those candidates for President,
etc., who had received the highest votes from the capitalistic
electorate. As to the first of these probabilities, the issue upon which
a socialist success at the ballot box can be averted from the capitalist class is already here, and I expect at any time to see it quietly
but effectually materialise. It is this: we have often seen the
capitalist class invoke the aid of the Supreme Court in order to save it
some petty annoyance by declaring unconstitutional some so-called labour
or other legislation. Now I can conceive of no reason why this same
Supreme Court cannot be invoked to declare unconstitutional any or all
electoral victories of the socialist party. Some may consider this
far-fetched. I do not consider it nearly as far-fetched as the decision
which applied the anti-trust laws solely to trade unions,combinations
in restraint of trade
, and this Act was at times invoked against
strike action.
I consider that if the capitalist
class appealed to the Supreme Court and interrogated it to declare
And if such an eventuality arose, and the ballot was, in comrade Berger's words, stricken out of our hands, it would be too late then to propound the query which our comrade propounds now, and ask our friends and supporters: what are you going to do about it?
But
even while admitting, nay, urging all this on behalf of the pertinency
of our comrade's query, it does not follow that I therefore endorse or
recommend his alternative. The rifle is, of course, a useful weapon
under certain circumstances, but these circumstances are little likely
to occur. This is an age of complicated machinery in war as in industry,
and confronted with machine guns, and artillery which kill at seven
miles distance, rifles are not likely to be of much material value in
assisting in the solution of the labour question in a proletarian
manner. It would do comrade Berger good to read a little of the
conquests of his countryman, Count Zeppelin, over the domain of the air,
and thus think of the futility of opposing even an armed working class
to such a power as the airship. Americans have been so enamoured of the
achievements of the Wright brothersdirigible balloon
seem scarcely applicable to his
creation. It is a balloon, and more. It is a floating ship, divided into
a large number of separate compartments, so that the piercing of one
even by a shell leaves the others intact and the machine still floating.
Nothing less than fire can menace it with immediate destruction. It
can carry seventeen tons and with that weight on board can be guided at
will, perform all sorts of figures and evolutions,
Is the outlook, then, hopeless? No! We still have the opportunity to forge a weapon capable of winning the fight for us against political usurpation and all the military powers of earth, sea or air. That weapon is to be forged in the furnace of the struggle in the workshop, mine, factory or railroad, and its name is industrial unionism.
A working class organised on the lines on which the
capitalist class has built its industrial plants to-day, regarding every
such plant as the true unit of organisation and society as a whole as
the sum total of those units, and ever patiently indoctrinated with the
idea that the mission of unionism is to take hold of the industrial
equipment of society, and erect itself into the real holding and
administrative force of the world; such a revolutionary working class
would have a power at its command greater than all the achievements of
science can put in the hands of the master class. An injunction
forbidding the workers of an industrial union to do a certain thing in
the interest of labour would be followed by every member of the union
doing that
And eventually, in case of a Supreme Court decision rendering illegal the political activities of the socialist party, or instructing the capitalist officials to refuse to vacate their offices after a national victory by that party, the industrially organised workers would give the usurping government a Roland for its Oliver by refusing to recognise its officers, to transport or feed its troops, to transmit its messages, to print its notices, or to chronicle its doings by working in any newspaper which upheld it. Finally, after having thus demonstrated the helplessness of capitalist officialdom in the face of united action by the producers (by attacking said officialdom with economic paralysis instead of rifle bullets) the industrially organised working class could proceed to take possession of the industries of the country after informing the military and other coercive forces of capitalism that they could procure the necessaries of life by surrendering themselves to the lawfully elected government and renouncing the usurpers at Washington. Otherwise they would have to try and feed and maintain themselves. In the face of such organisation the airships would be as helpless as pirates without a port of call, and military power a broken reed.
The discipline of the military forces before which comrade Berger's rifles would break
like glass would dissolve, and the
Ireland during the Land League, Paris during the strike of the postmen and
telegraphers, the south of France during the strike of the wine growers,
the strike of the peasants at Parma, Italy, all were miniature
demonstrations of the effectiveness of this method of warfare, all were
so many rehearsals in part for this great drama of social revolution,
all were object lessons teaching the workers how to extract the virtue
from the guns of the political masters.the divorce between the industrial and
political movements of labour
. Connolly was not to live to see the
airship outclassed by the aeroplane.
With this issue of
Socialism in Ireland needs a
representative in the press devoted to its cause, and unhampered by any
other affiliation. That representative we propose to be. It shall be our
aim to place our columns and our poor abilities at the service of all
the brave and unselfish men and women who are battling for social
righteousness against the forces of iniquity which control and poison
human life to-day. We shall not demand that the man or woman whose hand
or voice is raised in protest or rebellion against tyranny must be at
one with us upon the means to be taken to build the new social order;
let us but agree that the social order must be built anew to serve the
ends of righteousness, and built upon a recognition of our common
heirship and ownership, and, we believe, the incidents of the struggle
against the common enemy will, in itself, force the necessary tactics
upon the mind of all. Therefore we can wait, and we ask those socialists
who differ from us in our conception of what the tactics of the army of
revolution should be, to wait also. Let us have patience with one
another; let us remember the truth that Irishmen are ever ready to
forget, viz., that we must tolerate one another or else be compelled to
tolerate the common enemy. This does not mean that we have altered or
abandoned,
But we have come to the opinion that in the struggle for freedom the theoretical clearness of a few socialists is not as important as the aroused class instincts and consciousness of the mass of the workers. Therefore we are willing to work and co-operate heartily with any one who will aid us in arousing the slumbering giant of labour to a knowledge of its rights and duties. Whilst we are as firm as ever in our belief that the only hope for Ireland, as for the rest of the world, lies in a revolutionary reconstruction of society, and that the working class is the only one historically fitted for that great achievement, we are prepared to co-operate with all who will help forward the industrial and political organisation of labour, even should the aim they set for such organisation be far less ambitious than our own. We invite the co-operation of all who will work with us toward that end.
In
conclusion then, let us state the work that, in our opinion, lies before
the socialists of Ireland as the more immediately pressing, after the
inculcation of the principles of socialism. That work is the proper
organisation of the working class of Ireland as a coherent whole, under
one direction and in one
It would enable labour to dictate terms to the employing class, to raise wages and to give greater possibilities of life and happiness to all, to shorten hours and to give the parent more time to spend in the bosom of his family, and give the working boy and girl more time to self-improvement and study. It would create a force which could at any time settle the question of supporting Irish manufacture by refusing to handle all goods whose use or sale in Ireland tended to deprive Irish men and women of a chance to earn their living in their own country, and it would tend to create in the Irish working class the spirit of self-reliance which comes from grappling with problems affecting a whole class, as distinguished from the sectional, selfish spirit which is bred by our present system of independent trade unions.
It would do
more. The feeling of power, the consciousness of strength which would
follow upon this unification of the
It shall be our purpose in
At present we shall do no more than suggest the idea to the trade
unionists of Ireland, reserving a fuller outline of the principles of
organisation involved until a future date. It is to be hoped that those
who are to-day loyally working for the benefit of organised labour,
under the hampering conditions of old style trade unionism, will
seriously consider the great advantages which this new style would give
to their organisations, and bring the subject of a national organisation
of labour in Ireland up for discussion in their unions. And let them
remember
One other question we propose to
drop here as a seed in the minds of the toilers of Ireland, to germinate
and fructify until the time comes to harvest it. It is this; We have
often heard our fellow-workers in the ranks of organised labour in
Ireland complain about City Councils, Poor Law Guardians, Rural and
Urban Councils, Catholic and Protestant Churches, Railroads, Dock and
Harbour Boards, and other public bodies, as well as private capitalists,
importing into Ireland articles which could be produced as well in
Ireland, and the production of which on Irish soil would keep at home
many thousands who are now compelled to flee to the moral abyss of
American or British cities. Now, suppose you had a national organisation
of Irish workers controlling all the building and transport trades, as
well as the others, and suppose the executive of this union were issuing
an order to its members to refuse to handle
Some socialists will accuse us
of being chauvinistic. We are not. But we believe that the toilers of
each country should control the industries of their country and they
cannot do so if these industries have their location for manufacturing
purposes
In the second part of my book
intellectuals, nor yet by intriguing against and misrepresenting
impossibilists. The comrades who think that the socialist party is run by
compromisers, should not jump out of the organisation and leave the revolutionists in a still more helpless minority; and the comrades who pride themselves upon being practical socialist politicians should not too readily accuse those who differ with them of being potential disrupters. Viewing the situation from the stand-point of an industrialist I am convinced that both the industrialist and those estimable comrades who pander to the old style trade unions to such a marked degree as to leave themselves open to the suspicion of coquetting with the idea of a
labourparty, both, I say, have the one belief, both have arrived at the one conclusion from such different angles that they appear as opposing instead of aiding, auxiliary forces. That belief which both share in common is that the triumph of socialism is impossible without the aid of labour organised upon the economic field. It is their common possession of this one great principle of action which impels me to say that there is a greater identity of purpose and faith between those two opposing (?) wings of the socialist party than either can have with any of the intervening schools of thought. Both realise that the socialist party must rest upon the economic struggle and the forces of labour engaged therein, and that the socialism which is not an outgrowth and expression of that economic struggle is not worth a moment's serious consideration.
There,
then, we have found something upon which we agree, a ground common to
both, the first desideratum of any serious discussion. The point upon
which we disagree is:
Let it be remembered that we are not, as some good comrades imagine, debating whether it is possible for a member of the American Federation of Labour to become an industrialist, or for all its members, but we are to debate whether the organization of the American Federation of Labour is such as to permit of a modification of its structural formation to keep pace with the progress of industrialist ideas amongst its members. Whether the conversion of the membership of the American Federation of Labour to industrialism would mean the disruption of the Federation and the throwing of it aside as the up-to-date capitalist throws aside a machine, be it ever so costly, when a more perfectly functioning machine has been devised.
At this point it is necessary for the complete
understanding of our subject that we step aside for a moment to consider
the genesis and organisation of the American Federation of Labour and
the trade unions patterned after it, and this involves a glance at the
history of the labour movement in America. Perhaps of all the subjects
properly pertaining to Socialist activity this subject has been the
most neglected, the least analysed. And yet it is the most vital.
Studies of Marx and popularising (sic) of Marx, studies of science and
popularising of science, studies of religion and application of same
with socialist interpretations, all these we have without limit. But of
attempts to apply the methods of Marx and of science to an analysis of
the laws of growth and incidents of development of the organisations of
labour upon the economic field the literature of the movement is almost,
if not quite, absolutely barren. Our socialist writers seem in some
strange and, to me, incomprehensible manner to have detached themselves
from the everyday struggles of the toilers and to imagine they are
Perhaps some day there
will arise in America a socialist writer who in his writing will live up
to the spirit of the Communist Manifesto that the socialists are not
apart from the labour movement, are not a sect, but are simply that part
of the working class which pushes on all others, which most clearly
understands the line of march. Awaiting the advent of that writer permit
me to remind our readers that the Knights of Labour preceded the
American Federation of Labour, that the structural formation of the
Knights was that of a mass organisation, that they aimed to organise all
toilers into one union and made no distinction of craft,
The Knights of Labour as I have pointed out, organised all workers into one union, an excellent idea for teaching the toilers their ultimate class interests, but with the defect that it made no provision for the treating of special immediate craft interests by men and women with the requisite technical knowledge. The scheme was the scheme of an idealist, too large-hearted and noble-minded himself to appreciate the hold small interests can have upon men and women. It gave rise to jealousies. The printer grumbled at the jurisdiction of a body comprising tailors and shoemakers over his shop struggles, and the tailors and shoemakers fretted at the attempts of carpenters and brick-layers to understand the technicalities of their disputes with the bosses.
To save the Knights of Labour and
to save the American working class a pilgrimage in the desert of
reaction, it but required the advent of some practical student of
industry to propose that, instead of massing all workers together
irrespective of occupation, they should, keeping their organisation
intact and remaining bound in obedience to one supreme head,
Tentative steps in such a direction were already being taken when the American Federation of Labour came upon the scene. The promoters of this organisation seizing upon this one plank in the Knights of Labour organisation, specialised its work along that line, and, instead of hastening to save the unity of the working class on the lines above indicated, they made the growing realisation of the need of representation of craft differences the entering wedge for disrupting and destroying the earlier organisation of that class.
Each craft was organised as a distinct body having no obligation to strike or fight beside any other craft, and making its own contracts with the bosses heedless of what was happening between these bosses and their fellow-labourers of another craft in the same industry, building, shop or room. The craft was organised on a national basis, to be governed by the vote of its members throughout the nation, and with a membership card good only in that craft and of no use to a member who desired to leave one craft in order to follow another. The fiction of national unity was and is still paid homage to, as vice always pays homage to virtue, by annual congresses in which many resolutions are gravely debated, to be forgotten as soon as congress adjourns. But the unifying (?) qualities of this form of organisation are best revealed by the fact that the main function of the congress seems to be to provide the cynical master class with the, to them, pleasing spectacle of allied organisations fiercely fighting over questions of jurisdiction.
This policy of the American Federation of Labour coupled with the
unfortunate bomb incident of Chicago,Chicago Martyrs
were charged with
the crime, and hanged.treason
against the rightful heir
when it seeks to win its own again. It is obvious that the sway of the
American Federation of Labour in the American labour movement is but a
brief interregnum between the passing of the old revolutionary
organisation and the ascension into power of the new.
But, I fancy I hear some one say, granting that all that is true, may we not condemn the methods by which the American Federation of Labour destroyed, or helped to destroy, the Knights of Labour, and still believe that out of the American Federation of Labour we may now build up an industrial organisation such as we need, such as the Industrial Workers of the World aims to be?
This we can only answer by
clearly focussing in our mind the American Federation of Labour system
of organisation in actual practice. A carpenter is at work in a city. He
has a dispute with the bosses, or all his fellow carpenters have. They
will hold meetings to discuss the question of a strike, and finding the
problem too big for them they will pass it on to the headquarters, and
the headquarters pass it on to the general membership. The general
membership, from San Francisco to Rhode Island, and from Podunk to
Kalamazoo will have a vote and say upon the question of the terms upon
which the Chicago carpenters work, and if said carpenters are called out
The craft card is good to-day in all of them, but if any of them
chose to form industrial unions, and called upon him to join, he could
only do so on penalty of losing his craft card and his right to strike
benefits from his old organisation. And if he did join, his card of
membership in the one he joined would be of no value when he drifted to
any of the others. How can
If in addition to this organic difficulty, and it is
the most insuperable, we take into consideration the system of making
contracts or trade agreements on a craft basis pursued by old style
unions we will see that our unfortunate brothers in the American
Federation of Labour are tied hand and foot, handcuffed and hobbled,
to prevent their advance into industrialism. During the recent
shirt-waist makers' strike in New York when the question was mooted of a
similar strike in Philadelphia our comrade Rose Pastor Stokes, according
to our socialist press, was continually urging upon the shirt-waist
makers of Philadelphia the wisdom of striking before Christmas, and
during the busy season. No more sensible advice could have been given.
It was of the very essence of industrialist philosophy. Industrialism is
more than a method of organisation—it is a science of fighting.
It says to the worker: fight only at the time you select, never when the
boss wants a fight. Fight at the height of the busy season, and in the
slack season when the workers are in thousands upon the sidewalk
The foregoing will, I hope, give the reader some food
for consideration upon the problem under review. That problem is
intimately allied with the future of the socialist party in America. Our
party must become the political expression of the fight in the workshop,
and draw its inspiration therefrom. Everything which tends to strengthen
and discipline the hosts of labour tends irresistibly to swell the ranks
of the revolutionary movement, and everything which tends to divide and
disorganise the hosts of labour tends also to strengthen the forces of
capitalism.
As the economic struggle is the preparatory school and training ground for socialists it is our duty to help guide along right lines the effort of the workers to choose the correct kind of organisation to fight their battles in that conflict. According as they choose aright or wrongly, so will the development of class consciousness in their minds be hastened or retarded by their everyday experience in class struggles.
We have not any knowledge of any country in which the working class more readily rallies to an appeal to its class feeling than in Ireland. Whilst the knowledge of theoretical socialism is but meagrely distributed amongst the workers, that feeling or knowledge which the socialists call class-consciousness is deep-seated, wide-spread and potent in its influence. A striking manifestation of this fact was evinced in the action of the trade unions during the first elections under the Local Government Act of 1898. Previous to the passing of this Act the Irish workers had no vote in municipal elections, with the necessary result that local municipal government was completely in the hands of the Irish capitalist class, who kept our Irish cities pest-holes of disease and slovenliness, and made our Irish slums a horror and a byword among the cities of Europe. But in that year the aforementioned Act placed the municipal suffrage upon the same basis as the parliamentary. Immediately there sprang into existence all throughout Ireland organisations of workers aiming at wresting the municipal government from the hands of the capitalist class, and placing it in the hands of the working class. Those organisations were formed under the authority of the various Trade Councils and Land and Labour Associations, and were termed Labour Electoral Associations. They selected the constituencies, wards, to be fought solely according to the working class character of these wards, and without regard to the supposed political views of the other candidates. Loyalist and Home Ruler were equal to them; their standard was the standard of labour and under that standard the workers rallied.
To those of us who were privileged to be in the fight in
Ireland in those days the manner in which the Irish working half-emancipated slave
and stood by the men of their own class,
thus ending for ever the jobbing and grafting of the landed gentry at
the expense of the rural population. The upheaval of the Irish workers
was magnificent.
But with victory came demoralisation. We have
said that the Irish worker was thoroughly true to his own class, but
lacking in socialist knowledge. This alone offers an explanation of the
subsequent set-back to the labour cause in Ireland. The men elected all
over Ireland had been elected on an independent platform, and all during
the election most of them had steadily refused to merge their cause in
any other, and had kept their independence intact and unsullied.
As soon as the shrewd old party
politicians saw this they realised immediately that they could regain
their lost supremacy. The honest Irish working man—honest himself
and inclined
Yet so it was. The labour party was a party only in name; it came to signify only certain men who could be trusted to draw working class support to the side of certain capitalist factions. Unfortunately, the only candidate run by the Irish Socialist Republican Party in that year, Mr. E. W. Stewart, the only candidate in the interest of labour who really understood the political trickery of the capitalists, and the manner in which that trickery would manifest itself, and who by his knowledge and pugnacity might have saved the situation, was defeated by a very small majority.
In the years immediately following that
first result of the Irish workers on the field of local government the
hopeless incapacity to uphold the principle of independent political
action in which they had been elected, had its natural result in the
overwhelming defeat of every candidate who professed to stand on a
labour platform. The Irish capitalists had learned of the real weakness
of the labour movement which had at first so terrified their guilty
consciences, and the Irish workers had become disgusted at the poor
results shown by the men they had elected. Though they were perhaps not
able to frame it in so many words the Irish workers realised that a
working man member of a capitalist party is not necessarily any better
Now we propose to the toilers of Ireland that it is time to make an effort to retrieve the situation, and once more to raise the banner of a militant Irish labour movement upon the political field. The victories once achieved can be more than duplicated, the mistakes once made will serve as beacons of warning for the guidance of our future activities. What were the factors at work in 1899? They were: First, a Labour Electoral Association representing an aroused working class in hot rebellion against its social and political outlawry, but ignorant of the real causes of its subjection; second, a small Socialist Republican Party, not much more than two years old, but militant, enthusiastic and with a thorough knowledge of the causes of social and national slavery. These two factors operated independently—the socialists at all times supporting the labour men, the labour men not always supporting the socialists.
In the nature of things this could not well have been otherwise at that time. But what are the elements in the labour movement in Ireland to-day? They are a strong socialist movement, representing some of the best intellects in Ireland, an independent socialist feeling and education on socialist thought in every city of industrial activity in Ireland, and a general feeling of comradeship and sympathy between the trade unions and the socialists.
The times are ripe for a forward move! We
suggest, then, the formation of a political party in Ireland which shall
be composed of all bodies organised upon the basis of the principle of
labour; that in order to form such a party the Trade and Labour Council
of Dublin shall be invited by the socialists to take the lead in calling
a conference of labour and socialist organisations of the capital city;
that it be set forth in such
Our
own hope is to see all Irish economic organisations welded into one
great body directing the whole force of labour in Ireland upon any given
point at once. But the initiation of our political union need not wait
upon the realisation of our economic or industrial union. It can begin
now.
England
,
said the flamboyant orator of Irish capitalism, has sown dragon's
teeth and they have sprung up armed men
. Shall we not say that as
capitalism has sown poverty, disease and oppression among our Irish race
so it will see spring up a crop of working class revolutionists armed
with a holy hatred of all its institutions.
If we were asked what would be the attitude of such a party towards Sinn Fein, Home Rule, Parliamentary Parties, etc., we would reply that the attitude of such organisations towards the party would determine its attitude towards them. Such a party, resting upon the working class—which is the only class capable of embracing the whole human race—must necessarily make of itself and its class a touchstone by which all other bodies must be tested. It must grow to the dignity of affirming that labour is not on trial; it is civilisation that is on trial—and all the elements of civilisation in Ireland, as elsewhere, must stand or fall as they are true or not to the cause of labour.
For
nearly a century the question of Home Government has barred with triple
steel every door of progress. It has paralysed the energies of the
country, and diverted the currents of national activity into the
unfruitful channels of incessant political struggle. But, indeed, it
could not fail to be otherwise. For a hundred years the vast body of the
Irish people had neither sympathy with, nor confidence in, the executive
and administrative government of Ireland. That Government has no natural
root in the soil of Ireland. Bureaucratic government cannot soar on
ampler wings. Forty-two Boards, without co-relation or connection, and
almost without responsibility, control the destinies of Ireland.
The above extract from the manifesto of Ulster
Liberal Protestants, issued on For nearly a century the question of Home
Government has barred with triple steel every door of progress
. How
true this isour
Protestant institutions
to compensate for all manner of treachery
to the cause of labour.
I have pointed out before that the harmless Act to empower a public provision for the feeding of necessitous school children was kept out of Ireland with the connivance—if not directly at the desire—of the Home Rule Party. Let me add that the Ulster beaters of the Orange drum were equally guilty in that respect. Public meetings to demand the application of this Act to Ireland have already been held in Dublin and Cork. The Dublin Trades' Council has acted, a general committee composed of representatives from the Socialist Party of Ireland, the Daughters of Erin, and the Trades Council have held a public meeting in the Mansion House in furtherance of this object, and induced the Lord Mayor of the city to preside in person; and the Dublin Corporation have unanimously passed a resolution calling for this Act for Ireland. But Belfast and 'Derry have not moved, the Orange orators are too busy dancing imaginary war dances on the banks of the Boyne to trouble about the starving children of Belfast, or of the city by the Foyle.
The Corporation of Catholic Cork granted me the use of
But perhaps it will be argued that the prosperity of Belfast is so great that such an Act would be quite unnecessary, and did not Mr. McMordie rise in his place in the House of Commons and work in a free advertisement for workers in the linen trade of that city, by telling of the great demand for workers there, and of its great and abundant prosperity. I extract from the
Miss Galway then displayed samples of the work done in the home, and
gave figures regarding the rate of pay. She said for clipping cotton
pocket handkerchiefs with 120 clips on each a sum of 1
Since then, in answer to his unctuous self-congratulations in Parliament, Miss Galway has challenged Mr. M'Mordie, M.P., to take a walk with her to houses within fifteen minutes of the Belfast City Hall, and she would show him still more outrageous cases of sweating; but no acceptance is yet forthcoming.
But when election time rolls around, the smug
representative of orangeism will beat the big drum of saving the
union
before the working class voters, and with that discord in
their ears they will be deaf to the cry of the helpless victims of
capitalist oppression.
Oh, words of burning truth! For nearly
a century the question of Home Government has barred with triple steeel
every door of progress
!
The question of Home Government, the professional advocacy of it, and the professional opposition to it, is the greatest asset in the hands of reaction in Ireland, the never-failing decoy to lure the workers into the bogs of religious hatreds and social stagnation.
The Protestant workers of Belfast are essentially democratic in their instincts, but not a single Belfast loyalist M.P. voted for the Old Age Pensions' Act. The loyalist M.P.s knew that the beating of the orange drum would drown every protest within their constituencies.
The development of democracy in
Ireland has been smothered by the Union. Remove that barrier, throw the
Irish people back upon their own resources, make them realise that the
Believing that that day is approaching, the Socialist Party of Ireland seeks to prepare for it by laying now the foundations of that socialist movement, whose duty it will be to guide and direct the efforts of labour in Ireland, to find and fashion a proper channel of expression and instrument of emancipation.
That labour movement of the future, as well as the socialist movement of to-day must, indeed, draw inspiration from the successes of our comrades abroad, but must also shape its course to suit the conditions within our own shores.
The Socialist Party of Ireland recognises and most enthusiastically endorses the principle of internationalism, but it realises that that principle must be sought through the medium of universal brotherhood rather than by self-extinction of distinct nations within the political maw of over-grown Empires.
When once all the socialists in Ireland recognise this principle, and unite with us, they will have cause to wonder at the readiness with which the workers of Ireland will respond to the socialist appeal.
If all the socialists in Ireland who waste their time in cursing the unprogressiveness of the Irish workers, had only sufficient moral courage to declare themselves, they would be astonished at the multitude of their numbers, and would then realise that they were strong enough to ensure respect and toleration.
Until they do, we will be compelled to see Irish tory employers hiding their sweatshops behind orange flags, and Irish home rule landlords using the green sunburst of Erin to cloak their rack-renting in the festering slums of our Irish towns.
RESOLVED: That this meeting of workingmen and women of Belfast welcomes the project of the establishment of an Irish Parliament as opening the way for much needed social reform and the reunion of the Irish democracy hitherto divided upon antiquated sectarian lines, but considers that in the interests of democracy in this country more facilities should be offered for securing a full and proper representation of the people of Ireland; and we, therefore, demand that provision be made in the Bill for payment of members and election expenses, proportional representation, and the enfranchisement of women; and also that the proposed Senate be dropped from the Bill, as we consider that experience has proven double chambers of legislature to be useless and dangerous.
That a copy of this resolution be sent to the leaders of the various parties in Parliament, and also to the Parliamentary representatives of Belfast.
This resolution was drafted by James Connolly for submission to a mass meeting in St. Mary's Hall, Belfast, after the introduction of the Home Rule Bill in 1912.
In view of the fact that the National Health Insurance Act comes into working operation on January 13, and that one of the governing bodies to administer that Act will be an Insurance Commission partly elected by the City Council, it is felt, because of the well-known hostility to labour of our present representatives, that some steps should be taken to have a labour representative on the Council in order to try and prevent enemies of the working class being sent from that Council to the Insurance Commission. For this reason a General Meeting of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, very largely composed of residents in this Ward, unanimously decided to ask me to contest Dock Ward in the labour interest. The Belfast Trades and Labour Council also unanimously passed a resolution approving of this contest and recommending the labour candidate to the electors. As the Irish Trades Congress at its recent meeting in Clonmel also declared in favour of organised labour in Ireland taking steps to secure independent labour representation, I feel compelled to accept this duty, and therefore I ask your hearty support in our resolve to capture this seat, and thus let the voice of labour be heard in the City Council, in spite of the stupid, intolerant, and labour-hating gang who rule there.
I desire to be returned in
order to advocate, among other pauperise
the children, I answer that the
children of the working class have as much right to be maintained thus
as have the children of royalty. If it does not pauperise the one it
cannot pauperise the other.
The Corporation of Dublin and many other Public Boards in Ireland have declared for this measure; it is time Belfast City Council was interesting itself more about such matters and less about the perpetuation of the religious discords that make Belfast a byword among civilised nations.
My general attitude, if
elected, will be to insist upon the importance of the interests of
labour being studied; that wherever possible all Corporation work be
done by direct employment of labour; that the trade union clause be
enforced in all Corporation contracts; that a minimum wage of at least
6
As every citizen in Belfast is interested in the proper
administration of the Harbour, I favour the abolition of the present
undemocratic and unrepresentative Board and the establishment in its
place of a Harbour Board elected on the same franchise and at the same
time as the Aldermen of the
I stand as a labour candidate, totally independent of any political party. But as the personal views of a candidate cannot be ignored—and as mine are likely to be misrepresented—I judge it well to state mine here that I may at least be heard in my own defence.
Believing that the present system of society is based upon the robbery of the working class, and that capitalist property cannot exist without the plundering of labour, I desire to see capitalism abolished, and a democratic system of common or public ownership erected in its stead. This democratic system, which is called socialism, will, I believe, come as a result of the continuous increase of power of the working class. Only by this means can we secure the abolition of destitution, and all the misery, crime, and immorality which flow from that unnecessary evil. All the reform legislation of the present day is moving in that direction even now, but working class action on above lines will secure that direct, voluntary, conscious, and orderly co-operation by all for the good of all, will more quickly replace the blundering and often reluctant legislation of capitalist governments.
As a lifelong advocate of national independence for Ireland, I am in favour of Home Rule, and believe that Ireland should be ruled, governed, and owned by the people of Ireland.
I believe that men and women having to face the battle of life together, could face it better were all enjoying the same political rights.
Fellow workers: I leave my case in your hands.
As a trade union official, I stand for the class to which I belong. If
you are content to be represented by men belonging to some section of
the master class, then do not vote for me, but if you want your cause
represented from Dock Ward by one of your own class, who will battle for
your rights, who is
FELLOW-WORKERS,
Your condition, and the condition of the sweated women of all classes of labour in Belfast, has recently become the subject of discussion on all the political platforms of England, and of long articles in all the most widely read newspapers and magazines of both countries. Almost unanimously they agree in condemning the conditions under which you work, your miserable wages, the abominable system of fining which prevails, and the slaughtering speed at which you are driven. It is pointed out that the conditions of your toil are unnecessarily hard, that your low wages do not enable you to procure sufficiently nourishing food for yourselves or your children, and that as a result of your hard work, combined with low wages, you are the easy victims of disease, and that your children never get a decent chance in life, but are handicapped in the race of life before they are born.
All this is to-day admitted by every right-thinking man and woman in these Islands. Many Belfast Mills are slaughterhouses for the women and penitentiaries for the children. But while all the world is deploring your conditions, they also unite in deploring your slavish and servile nature in submitting to them; they unite in wondering of what material these Belfast women are made, who refuse to unite together and fight to better their conditions.
Irish men have proven themselves to be
heroes in fighting to abolish the tyranny of landlordism. Irish women
fought heroically in the same cause. Are the Irish working women of
Belfast not of the same race? Can they not unite to fight the slavery of
capitalism as courageously as their sisters on the
Especially do we appeal to the spinners, piecers, layers, and doffers. The slavery of the Spinning-room is the worst and least excusable of all. Spinning is a skilled trade, requiring a long apprenticeship, alert brains, and nimble fingers. Yet for all this skill, for all those weary years of learning, for all this toil in a super-heated atmosphere, with clothes drenched with water, and hands torn and lacerated as a consequence of the speeding up of the machinery, a qualified spinner in Belfast receives a wage less than some of our pious millowners would spend weekly upon a dog. And yet the Spinning-room is the key to the whole industry. A general stoppage in the Spinning-rooms of Belfast would stop all the linen industry, factories and warerooms alike, Reelers and spinners united control the situation. Disorganised as they are to-day, they are the helpless slaves of soulless employers. United as they might be, as they ought to be, as we are determined they shall be, they could lift themselves into the enjoyment of prosperity and well-paid healthful labour. As a first step to that end, we wish to propose a programme of industrial reform to be realised in the near future, and we invite all our toiling sisters to enrol in our Society—the Irish Textile Workers' Union—whose Belfast headquarters is at 50, York Street, in order that we may unitedly, and at a given moment, fight for its success.
We demand that the entire Linen Industry be put under the Sweated Industries Act, which gives power to a Trades Board, on which employees and employers are represented, to fix the minimum wages for the whole.
Under that Act the wages of women in the Clothing
Operatives Trade has been already fixed at a minimum wage of 3d. per
hour. Until the extension to the Linen Industry of that Act, we demand
and pledge ourselves as a Union to
We also demand from Government the appointment of a competent Woman Inspector for the Belfast District exclusively, in order that the inspection of our mills, factories, and warerooms may be a constant reality, instead of the occasional farce it is to-day.
United action can secure every point on this modest programme within less than a year. It depends upon you, the working women of Belfast. If you have courage enough, faith enough in yourselves and in each other, you can win. Most of this programme can be won by direct industrial action, by a General Strike for it if need be; the rest will be conceded by Government as soon as you show yourselves in earnest in your demands for it.
To make easy the work of organising, we are prepared to establish an office or Women's Club-room in each district, if the request for the same is made by a sufficient number of members. Take advantage of this offer, give in your name to us at this office, or to any of your collectors, and we will welcome you as sisters, and enrol you as comrades in the coming battle for juster conditions.
Should this manifesto come into the hand of any not themselves sufferers, but willing to help in the coming battle, if they communicate with us we shall be prepared to enrol them as auxiliaries, and welcome their help.
Sisters and Fellow-workers, talk this matter over, do
not be frightened by the timid counsels and fears of weaklings. Be
brave. Have confidence in yourselves. Talk about success, and you will
achieve success….
Many of our readers
are hardly aware of the fact that although Mr. William O'Brien,
M.P.,
For a long time the cities of Ireland, and Dublin in particular, remained callous and cold to the appeals of the League. They regarded it as a peasants' or as an agricultural movement, pure and simple, and would have nothing to do with it. But the politicians wanted the cities, and so a concerted attack was made upon Dublin.
Dublin, understand, was and is important politically in Ireland because even the peasantry, who in most countries are jealous of the capital, in Ireland do not trust a movement which cannot claim the intellectual adhesion of the capital.
Hence, the hosts of the United Irish League, backed up by all the financial resources of Mr. O'Brien, and the concerted powers of the Home Rule press, set out to make Dublin a tributary of the League, whether it would or not.
A
band was hired, also a gang of corner boys or loafers to cheer the
speaker, and if need be, break the head of any opponent. Then great
meetings
were announced in all the various districts. All United
Irish League gatherings are great meetings
when they are not
magnificent demonstrations
.
The same gang of corner boys
made up the meeting on each occasion. At Inchicore they were addressed
by the orators as the unconquered democracy of Inchicore
, at Wood
Quay they were the sterling working class of Wood Quay Ward
, at
Drumcondra, they were the patriot men of Drumcondra
, true and tried men of Arran
Quay
, and in the Harbour Division they responded enthusiastically as
the orators praised their record as citizen voters in that
.
And each day the newspapers described the same gang differently, and waxed eloquent in their leading columns upon the magnificent rally of the working class of Dublin to the ranks of the United Irish League.
And the readers down the country and the Irish in Great Britain swelled with exaltation as they read of the great reception the Dublin workers gave to the orators of the League. Indeed it was primarily for the benefit of the readers down the country and in Great Britain that the meetings were arranged.
But as the Dublin workers saw the corner boys marched back and forwards across their city to pose as the residents in the various wards and districts, and as they read in the papers the list of the committees in charge, and saw there the names principally of pawnbrokers, slum landlords, publicans, and sweaters, what wonder that they treated the whole affair with contempt.
Anybody who wants to defend
faith and fatherland very badly can get a job up north just now.
Carson's army is out on the warpath demanding the blood of the
Papists
, and Wee Joe Devlin
has been lecturing in
Belfast upon
The head of the Ancient
Order of Hibernians praising Isaac Hibs
, is to convert this tolerant people into a nation of
furious bigots and sectarian patriarchs. They stink in the nostrils of
every honest man and woman.
The Municipal Elections in Dublin never fail to provide mirth for the multitude. The fun has already begun in Merchants' Quay Ward, where Andrew Breslan, a working carpenter and nominee of the Dublin Labour Party, is being opposed by Mr. John Scully, High Sheriff of Dublin City. Scully is running in the interests of the United Irish League and high rents, slum tenements, rotten stair-cases, stinking yards, high death rates, low wages, Corporation jobbery and margarine wrapped up in butter paper.
Also several other things. Mr. Scully is a provision merchant: as such he is bound to furnish provisions upon the demand of his customers, and as High Sheriff he is bound to provide hangmen upon the demand of the British Government; or be a hangman himself if the supply of professional hangmen failed.
If Robert Emmet was to be hanged to-morrow, and the professional hangman went on strike, Mr. Scully is bound by his oath of office to do the job and hang the patriot.
Therefore to hear Mr. Scully and his spouters talk of fighting in
the sacred cause of patriotism
is one of these delightful pieces of
humour that only the Sham Squire or James Carey could properly
appreciate and enjoy.
If you vote against the Labour Candidates
this coming election, you will vote to declare yourselves in favour of
more doses of: disease-infested tenements; slaughter of the children
of the poor; high rents; low wages; increasing death rate;
In the field we are now fighting upon, the industrial field, labour was left to battle alone against every element represented in the above list; in the fight upon the municipal battle field the alliance of all those unclean elements is as real as upon the industrial, though not so open. The virtue of the industrial fight is that it brings all our enemies into the open; in the political fight the enemies are the same but they can easier hide their treachery.
It is for the workers to stand together and send the whole pack howling to the depths together.
Perhaps before this issue of
The fault of the Irish Transport and General
Worker's Union! What is it? Let us tell it in plain language. Its fault
is this, that it found the labourers of Ireland on their knees, and has
striven to raise them to the erect position of manhood; it found them
with all the vices of slavery in their souls, and it strove to eradicate
these vices and replace them with some of the virtues of free men; it
found them with no other weapons of defence than the arts of the liar,
the lickspittle, and the toady, and it combined them and taught them to
abhor those arts and rely proudly on the defensive power of combination;
it, in short, found a class in whom seven centuries of social outlawry
had added fresh degradations upon the burden it bore as the members of a
nation suffering from the cumulative effects of seven centuries of
national bondage, and out of this class, the degraded slaves of slaves
more degraded still—for what degradation is more abysmal than that
of those who prostitute their manhood on the altar of
profit-mongering?—out of this class of slaves the labourers of
Dublin, the Irish Transport and General Worker's Union has created an
army of intelligent self-reliant men,
Yes, indeed, if it is going to be a wedding,
let it be a wedding; and if it is going to be a wake, let it be a wake:
With all due respect to this Court, it is neither first nor last in
our thoughts to-day, nor at any other stage of the inquiry. The ultimate
tribunal to which we appeal is not this Court, much as we desire to
assist its operations, but rather the verdict of the class to which we
belong. We do not claim to be philanthropists labouring to preserve
social amenities for the sake of some nebulous, changing thing known as
Have these two sets of facts no relation? We believe that they stand
to one another in the relations of cause and effect, the long period of
stagnation in the labour ranks of Dublin was responsible for the growth
in your midst of labour and housing conditions scarcely to be equalled
outside Bombay or Constantinople. Now that the Irish Transport and
General Workers' Union and its officials have set out to arouse the
people; now that fierce, and it may be sometimes reckless, fighting has
inspired the suffering masses with a belief in their own ability to
achieve some kind of emancipation; now, in short, that the luxury,
comfort, and even the security of the propertied classes are menaced, we
see the quickening of a faint sense of social conscience in Dublin. But
until aroused by the shock of industrial war, the propertied classes of
Dublin have well deserved their unenviable notoriety, for, like the
typical Irish landlords of the past, They tell us that they recognise trade unions. For answer we say that
when they did so, it was wherever the necessity of a long apprenticeship
made it difficult to replace a worker if he went on strike, but whenever
no such apprenticeship existed to protect the worker the Dublin
employers made fierce and relentless war upon trade unions amongst the
unskilled labourers. Messrs. Tedcastle and M'Cormack is an instance
among shipping firms. The Tramway Company has seen at least two
attempts to organise its men. It fought and crushed the attempts, and
the workhouse, the insane asylum, and the emigrant ship received the
ruined lives of those who made the efforts. They complain that the Irish
Transport and General Workers' Union cannot be trusted to keep its
agreements. The majority of shipping firms in Dublin to-day the public
. We do not pretend to be animated by a fierce zeal
for public order, though we hope we shall never wantonly disturb it, nor
do we profess to be inspired by a single-minded desire to aid
capitalists to conduct their business at all costs. No, we are banded
together for the purpose of elevating our class, of organising that
class for the conquest of its rights. If the public, the forces of law
and order and the capitalist class are willing to co-operate with us
towards that end, well and good. If, on the other hand, the social and
political forces represented by these three terms unite to defeat and
subdue us and to thwart our just aspirations as we believe they have
done in this case, we shall still press onward believing that eventually
victory, and the verdict of history will be on our side. This mental
attitude of ours explains our position in this dispute. The learned
counsel for the employers says that for the past five years there have
been more strikes than there have been enforcing their rights with a
rod of iron and renouncing their duties with a front of brass
.
That the
Employers of the City and County of Dublin agree to withdraw the
circulars, posters and forms of agreement (known as the Employers
Agreement) presented to their employees, embodying conditions governing
their employment in the several firms as from
That the unions
affected agree as a condition of the withdrawal of such conditions and
forms of agreement governing employment in the firms affected, to
abstain from any form of sympathetic strike pending a Board of wages and
conditions of Employment being set up by
And the conference also agrees that in
restoring relations no member shall be refused employment on the grounds
of his or her association with the dispute, and that no stranger shall
be employed
All cases of old workers not re-employed on
Upon the conference meeting on Thursday
morning the workers were informed that the employers considered that the
conference was a resumption of the previous one which broke up on Sunday
morning
Several efforts were made to
obtain from the employers an indication of what they meant by the
phrases, that they will make a
, and that
they will take on as many of their former employees as they can make
room for
. The Employers' Committee was asked to state the firms that
could not give reinstatement, or the proportion in which reinstatement
could be given immediately, but no information could be elicited.
Reference was made to the statement of Mr. Murphy in the press that all
but five per cent. of the men could go back to work immediately, and the
Labour representatives asked was there any indication of the extent to
which immediate reinstatement could be made now. The answer returned
stated that it was not, and further that Mr. Murphy's statement only
referred to five per cent. of the men whose places were not filled up.
This meant that Mr. Murphy was determined that even five per cent. of
the men whose places were not yet filled would be victimised, and is a
fair indication of the vindictive spirit of the employers.
Finding it impossible to come to any agreement or to receive any
information the Labour representatives resolved to lay the whole
matter before the Joint National Conferences. The latter body after
fully considering the question in all its bearings resolved finally to
instruct the delegation to bring back to the employers for further
consideration the document presented on Thursday morning. This was done
on Saturday, and the document handed in by Mr. Larkin at the request of
the Delegation. Upon it being handed in the Chairman of the Employers
asked Mr. Henderson if Mr. Larkin was speaking on behalf of both Labour
bodies, and was assured by that gentleman that Mr. Larkin spoke with the
full and unanimous endorsement of the whole National Conference and all
its The Committee
observe that the proposals put forward through Mr. Larkin this morning
are the same as those presented on Thursday morning, and bring us back
to the position in which we then stood. The clauses submitted
again to-day by the Representatives of the workers require the full
reinstatement by the Employers of all the workers. This would involve
the victimisation of many who have been employed since the dispute
began. The Employers cannot agree to dismiss men who have proved
suitable, but subject to this condition are willing and anxious to
re-employ their old hands as far and as soon as possible. The
members of the Committee have laboured to try and effect a settlement so
much needed and desired, and regret that their labours in conjunction
with those of the Joint Board representatives and the Trades Council
Delegates have not succeeded in arriving at an agreement.
On
behalf of the representatives of the workers we wish to draw attention
to the fact that the employers insisted all through the negotiations
that the question of reinstatement should be left absolutely in the
hands of the employers, that we should trust entirely to their goodness
and generosity. Remember the fact that the employers had locked out
their workers, and had brought on this dispute in order to force upon us
an agreement contrary to individual liberty and one which no self-respecting
workman or body of workmen could possibly accept
. Remember this,
and remember also that the workers now out are out because they
protested against this insult to their self-respect, and resolved to
protect their individual liberty, and consider that we are asked to
surrender these men and women to the tender mercies of those who so
wantonly made war upon them. In view of this fact and the further fact
that our proposals now refused by the employers have been described by
such a broad-minded lover of peace as his Grace, Archbishop Walsh as
fair and reasonable—eminently reasonable
, and that these
proposals gave the employers every opportunity and sufficient time to
adjust their business. What other course was open to us than to
respectfully but firmly decline to surrender our brothers. We also
wish to draw the attention of the public to the fact that many of the
trade unions involved have had for some considerable time past
agreements with the employers stipulating for the exclusive employment
of trade union labour, and that all such agreements would be completely
destroyed by the acceptance of the employers' proposals. Thus they are
now trying to introduce the principle of nonunion labour in places where
such labour has not recently existed. In the building trades, for
instance, the rules call for three months' notice before such agreements
can be altered, yet the employers are now striving to undermine this
trade union position without any notice at all. And these are the men
who prate of breaches of agreement!
The workers' proposals gave
the employers full time, and only stipulated that within a certain
period another conference should be held to consider the question of the
workers still unemployed. No fairer proposal could be given. The
employers' proposal on the other hand demanded that the question of
Under these circumstances the fight must go on.
THOMAS MACPARTLIN,
To the readers of
The first question I asked was generally say, what are you in
for
, Then the rest of the conversation ran thus:
For
throwing stones at the police
. Well, I hope you did throw them
and hit
. No, by G
.
Pulled
is the Dublin word for arrested. It was
somewhat mortifying to me to know that I was the only person
apparently in prison who had really committed the crime for which I was
arrested. It gave me a sort of feeling that I was lowering the moral
tone of the prison by coming amongst such a crowd of blameless
citizens.
But the concluding part of our colloquy was a little more encouraging. It usually finished in this way:
Are you in
the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union
?
Of course
I am
.
Good. Well if they filled all the prisons in Ireland
they can't beat us, my boy
.
No, thank God, they can't;
we'll fight all the better when we get out
.
And there you
have the true spirit. Baton charges; prison
I heard of one case where a labourer was asked to sign the
agreement forswearing the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union,
and he told his employer, a small capitalist builder, that he refused to
sign. The employer, knowing the man's circumstances, reminded him that
he had a wife and six children who would be starving within a week.
The reply of this humble labourer rose to the heights of sublimity.
It is true, sir
, he said, they will starve; but I would rather
see them go out one by one in their coffins than that I should disgrace
them by signing that
. And with head erect he walked out to share
hunger and privation with his loved ones. Hunger and privation—and
honour.
Defeat, bah! How can such a people be defeated? His case
is typical of thousands more. Take the case of the United Builders
Labourers' Trade Union, for instance. This was a rival union to the
Irish Transport and General Workers' Union. Many sharp passages had
occurred between them, and the employers counted confidently upon their
co-operation in the struggle; Mr. William Martin Murphy especially
praising them and exulting in their supposed acquiescence in his plans.
Remember also that they were a dividing society, dividing their funds at
the end of each year, and therefore without any strike funds. When the
members of their union were asked to sign the agreement, promising never
to join or help the to help the I. T. & G. W. U. boys
. Long ere
these lines are written, they have experienced all the horrors of
starvation, but with grim resolve they have tightened their belts and
presented an unyielding front to the enemy.
It is a pleasure to me to recall that I was a member of their Union before I went to America, and that they twice ran me as their candidate for Dublin City Council before the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union was dreamed of.
What is true of that union is also true of most of
the tradesmen
Or think of the heroic women and
girls. Did they care to evade the issue, they might have remained at
work, for the first part of the agreement asks them to merely repudiate
the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, and as women they are
members of the Irish Women Workers' Union, not of the Irish Transport
and General Workers' Union. But the second part pledges them to refuse
to help
the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union—and
in every shop, factory and sweating hell-hole in Dublin, as the
agreement is presented, they march out with pinched faces, threadbare
clothes, and miserable footgear, but with high hopes, undaunted spirit,
and glorious resolve shining out of their eyes. Happy the men who will
secure such wives; thrice blessed the nation which has such girls as the
future mothers of the race! Ah, comrades, it is good to have lived in
Dublin in these days!
And then our friends write deprecatingly to
the British press of the dislocation of trade
involved in
sympathetic strikes, perpetual conflicts
in
which they would involve great trade unions. To those arguments, if we
can call them such, our answer is sufficient. It it this: If the
capitalist class knew that any outrages upon a worker, any attack upon
labour, would result in a prompt dislocation of trade, perhaps national
in its extent; that the unions were prepared to spend their last copper
if necessary rather than permit a brother or sister to be injured, then
the knowledge would not only ensure a long cessation from industrial
skirmishing such as the unions are harassed by to-day, it would not only
ensure peace to the unions, but what is of vastly more importance, it
would ensure to the individual worker a peace from slave-driving and
harassing at his work such as the largest unions are apparently unable
to guarantee under present methods.
Mark, when I say prepared
to spend their last copper if necessary
, I am not employing merely
a rhetorical flourish, I am using the words literally. As we believe
that in the socialist society of the future the entire resources of the
nation must stand behind every individual, guaranteeing him against
want, so to-day our unions must be prepared to fight with all their
resources to safeguard the rights of every individual member.
The adoption of such a principle, followed by a few years of fighting on such lines to convince the world of our earnestness, would not only transform the industrial arena, but would revolutionise politics. Each side would necessarily seek to grasp the power of the state to reinforce its position, and politics would thus become what they ought to be, a reflex of the industrial battle, and lose the power to masquerade as a neutral power detached from economic passions or motives.
At present I regret to say labour politicians seem to be
losing all reality as effective aids to our struggles on the industrial
battlefield, are becoming more and more absorbed in questions of
administration, or taxation, and only occasionally, as in the
The
parliamentary tail in Britain still
Nor yet would we see that awful spectacle we have seen lately of labour politicians writing to the capitalist press to denounce the methods of a union which, with 20,000 men and women locked out in one city, is facing an attempt of 400 employers to starve its members back into slavery.
And thou, Brutus, that you should play the enemy's game at such a crisis! Every drop of ink you spilled in such an act stopped a loaf of bread on its way to some starving family.
Our good friend the
the most extraordinary scene in this most extraordinary industrial conflict in this country.
We do not wonder at our British friends being surprised, nor at them being horrified, nor at them being scandalised and shocked at the treatment to which they have been subjected, and the vile aspersions cast upon their motives. For ourselves we anticipated it all, and have never been enthusiastic towards the scheme.
We realised that their children are about all the workers of Dublin have left to comfort them, that amidst the squalor and wretchedness of their surroundings the love of their little ones shines like a star of redemption, and that to part with their dear ones would be like wrenching their hearts asunder. We realised, further, what it is very difficult to make even the most friendly of the British realise, that Great Britain is still an alien country to Ireland, and that even the splendid comradeship and substantial aid of to-day can hardly expect to obliterate immediately the evil results upon our intercourse of long generations of oppression during the period when class rule stood in Ireland for Great Britain, and symbolised all Britain's relations with Ireland. And we also knew that some of the darkest memories of Ireland were associated with British attempts to stab the heart of Ireland through systematic abduction of the bodies and corruption of the minds of Irish children.
Therefore we felt instinctively
that the well-meant move of Mrs. Montefiore and her colleagues would
arouse in Ireland hostilities and suspicions they could not conceive of,
and would not believe were we to attempt the task of making the matter
clear. Hence, while placing no obstacle in the way of its fulfilment,
and feeling deeply a sense of gratitude towards the noble British men
and women of our class who have so unreservedly thrown open their homes
for the purpose of sheltering our stricken little ones, we have
nevertheless felt that the scheme was bound to be taken advantage of to
our detriment by all the hostile elements who surround us, but usually
fear to reveal their hostility. We know that people willing to wound,
and yet afraid to strike
, swarm everywhere on the flanks of the
labour movement in Ireland, and we also know that the men and women in
charge of that labour movement know how to keep these people disarmed
and ineffective; but that the men and women in the British labour
movement have none of that knowledge of our enemies nor of our methods
for neutralising their hostility.
But when we have said this we
have said all that our own position demands. Having said it, we must
protest in the name of the whole labour movement of this country against
the foul and libellous accusations brought against the noble-minded
ladies who have been in charge of the scheme. One scoundrel in clerical
garb is said to have stated on Wednesday that the children were being
brought to England by trickery, fraud and corruption for
proselytising purposes
. Nothing more venomous and unfounded was
ever spewed out of a lying mouth in Ireland since the
The utterances of his Grace the Archbishop on the question at issue deserve and no doubt will receive, the earnest consideration of every thoughtful man and woman in Ireland. Nobody wants to send the children away—the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union least of all desires such a sacrifice. But neither do we wish the children to starve. We love the children of Ireland, we are sacrificing our own ease and comfort in order that the future of these children may be sweeter and happier than the lot of their fathers and mothers. We know that progress cannot be made without sacrifice, and we do not shrink from the sacrifice involved in fighting for freedom now in order that future generations may build upon the results of our toil. But the master class of Dublin calmly and coldbloodedly calculate upon using the sufferings of the children to weaken the resistance of the parents. They wish to place us upon the horns of a dilemma. Either the parents should resist, and then the children will starve, or the parents will surrender, and the children will grow up in slavery, and live to despise the parents who bequeathed to them such an evil heritage.
Your Grace, we are resolved to
fight Death itself—the death some of us have already suffered, the
death your humble servant has in the same cause looked in the face
without flinching—it would be preferable to surrendering the
Dublin workers
But if your Grace is as solicitous about the poor bodies of those children as we know you to be about their souls, or even if you are but one tenth part as solicitous, may we suggest to you or your laymen that your duty is plain. See to it that the force of public opinion, that the power of the press, that all the engines at your command are brought to bear upon the inhuman monsters who control the means of employment in Dublin to make them realise their duties to the rest of the community. We have done our part, we have told the Lord Mayor, we have told Sir George Askwith, we have told the Dublin Industrial Peace Committee, that we are ready to negotiate. All of these admit that our position is reasonable, all of them have been spat upon with scorn by the employers, and all of them shrink in cowardice from taking the next logical step and concentrating public feeling and public financial support in favour of the workers, the only party to the dispute that all along has declared its readiness to bow to public opinion.
These people, we repeat, have shrunk in
cowardice from their manifest duty. Will you undertake it? It is your
duty equally with theirs. To you we repeat our offer: we are willing to
accept the mediation of any party whose functions will be strictly
limited to bringing the two parties together in a conference to thrash
out their differences. We are prepared to meet the representatives of
all the employers, or meet any individual employer, as we have done
satisfactorily in many cases already. This is our offer to you. And we
repeat to you what we have said to the others:
We have read
your Grace's character in vain if you shrink
It is a crime to deport Dublin children in order to feed, clothe and house them better than they were before. All the newspapers are against it.
It is
not a crime to import English scabs to take the bread out of the mouths
of Dublin men, women and children, and to reduce them to slavery.the attempt to use the national
traditions against the workers on strike…. All
alike, Unionist and Home Ruler, of all brands and varieties, unite in
declaring that it is a renunciation of our ancient Irish traditions and
an abuse of our ancient honour to receive
alms from England
. We
somewhat astonished a lady visitor a few days ago, by flatly denying
that we had ever received any help from England. We deny it again. The
difficulty with all these people…is that they
persist in confounding politics with geography. England
is a
political phrase meaning a certain government with certain history and
traditions. From that England the Irish people received in the past and
are receiving in the present nothing that it can withhold except
stripes, pains and penalties. But there is an England
which is a
mere geographical expression as indicating a certain island off the
Continent of Europe…. From that portion of the
earth's surface which is known as England we have received help, and to
that portion of its inhabitants which has contributed to that help we
owe a deep debt of gratitude. But from that political Government known
as England we have received nothing but persecution, and to it for our
own and our fathers' sake we owe nothing but our hatred—a debt we
will always most religiously strive to pay.
The newspapers are overjoyed about it. Fellow-workers! All the collection of hypocrites and sweaters who paraded our docks and railway stations a few days ago, and prostituted the name of religion to suit the base ends of those who for generations have grown fat by grinding the faces of the poor, are silent as the grave in face of the importation of British scabs. They poured insult, lies and calumny upon the British labour men and women who offered our children the shelter and comfort of their homes in the day of our trial; but they allow British blacklegs to enter Dublin without a word of protest! Will you allow this? If not, you must rally!
Rally and
fight as you never fought before. Begin,
No food tickets will be issued at Liberty Hall in future except to
casual labourers, who must sign their names each day between the hours
of 9.30 a.m. and 12 noon. Permanent men will receive food tickets from
their respective committee men, delegates or shop stewards, to whom they
must report in the morning, and who have the power to refuse if they
consider that the member applying has neglected to attend the mass
Fellow-workers—the employers are determined to starve you into
submission, and if you resist, to club you, jail you, and kill you. We
defy them! If they think they can carry on their industries without you,
we will, in the words of the Ulster Orangeman,
It is your duty to find the ways and means. Be men now, or be for ever slaves.
What is the truth about the Dublin dispute? What was the origin of the Dublin dispute? These are at present the most discussed questions in the labour world of these islands, and I have been invited by the editor of the
In the year 1911 the National Seamen's and Firemen's Union, as a last
desperate expedient to avoid extinction, resolved upon calling a general
strike in all the home ports. At that time the said Union
At all
events the call was in danger of falling upon vain ears, and was, in
fact, but little get even with
Larkin and his crew
.
The sympathetic strike having worked so well for the seamen and firemen, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union began to apply it ruthlessly in every labour dispute. A record of the victories it has won for other trade unions would surprise a good many of its critics. A few cases will indicate what, in the hands of Larkin and the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, it has won for some of the skilled trades.
When the coachmakers went on strike the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union took over all the labourers, paid them strike pay, and kept them out until the coachmakers won. The latter body are now repaying us by doing scab work while we are out.
The mill-sawyers existed for twenty years in Dublin without recognition. The sympathetic strike by our union won them recognition and an increase of pay.
The stationary engine drivers, the
cabinetmakers, the sheet metal workers, the carpenters, and, following
them all the building trades got an increase through our control of the
carting industry. As did also the girls and men employed in Jacob's
biscuit factory. In addition to this work for others we won for our own
members the following increases within the last two years: cross channel
dockers got, since the strike in the City of Dublin Steam Packet
Company, an increase of
As
Mr. Havelock Wilson, General Secretary, National Seamen's and Firemen's
Union, has mentioned the strike on the City of Dublin Steam Packet
Company as an instance of our erratic methods, it may be worth while to
note that as a result of that strike some of his sailors got an increase
of 5
In addition to the
cases enumerated I might also mention that the labourers on the Dublin
and South-Eastern Railway got increases of 6
All of these increases were the result of the sympathetic strike policy, first popularised by its success in winning the battle for the Seamen and Firemen—who are now asked to repudiate it.
These things
well understood explain the next act in the unfolding of the drama.
Desiring to make secure what had been gained, Mr. Larkin formulated a
scheme for a Conciliation Board. This was adopted by the Trades Council,
at least in essence, and eventually came before the Employers'
Executive, or whatever the governing committee of that body is named.
After a hot discussion it was put to the vote. Eighteen employers voted
to accept a Conciliation Board, three voted against. Of that three,
William Martin Murphy was one. On finding himself in the minority he
rose and vowed that in spite of them he would smash the Conciliation
Board
. Within three
The employers, mad with hatred of the power that had wrested from them the improved conditions, a few of which I have named, rallied round Murphy, and from being one in a minority of three he became the leader and organising spirit of a band of four hundred.
I have always told our friends in Great Britain that our fight in Ireland was neither inspired nor swayed by theories nor theorists. It grew and was hammered out of the hard necessities of our situation. Here, in this brief synopsis, you can trace its growth for yourselves. First a fierce desire to save our brothers of the sea, a desire leading to us risking our own existence in their cause. Developing from that an extension of the principle of sympathetic action until we took the fierce beast of capital by the throat all over Dublin, and loosened its hold on the vitals of thousands of our class. Then a rally of the forces of capital to recover their hold, and eventually a titanic struggle, in which the forces of labour in Britain openly, and the forces of capital secretly, became participants.
That is where we stand to-day. The struggle
forming our theories and shaping the policy, not only for us, but for
our class. To those who criticise us we can only reply: we fight as
conditions dictate; we meet new conditions with new policies. Those who
choose may keep old policies to meet new conditions. We cannot and
While are writing this the one question agitating all Dublin is whether this Christmas will see a relighting of the Fiery Cross or the ringing of Christmas bells of peace and rejoicing. Possibly no more grim commentary upon the so-called civilisation of to-day could be instanced than that fact. Here we have a great city held up by a war between two classes, and in that war the contending classes are represented, on the one hand, by those who control the wealth, the capital, the armed forces and all the means of coercion; whilst, on the other hand, all that is represented is toiling men and women, with no assets except their brains and hands, and no powers except the power and capacity to suffer for a principle they esteem more valuable than life itself.
But to the side of this latter class has been drawn gradually as if by a magnet all the intellect, the soul and the spirit of the nation, all those who have learned to esteem the higher things of life, to value the spirit more than the matter.
Publicists of all
kinds, philanthropists, literary men, lovers of their kind, poets,
brilliant writers, artists, have all been conquered by the valiant
heroism of the Dublin workers, have all been drawn within the ranks of
the friends of the fighters of labour—all have succumbed to the
magic charm of the unobtrusive men and women whose constancy amidst
sufferings has made this fight possible. Whoever signs the document of
settlement (if any is ever signed), whosoever is acclaimed as the great
one of the treaty of peace (if there ever is a treaty of peace) the real
heroes and conquerors are to be found in the slums, and in the prisons
where men, women and girls have
These thoughts come crowding upon us as
we write. We think also that, despite all the adhesion of all the
brilliant ones and all those in the highest odour of sanctity to the
cause of the workers, the settlement is still in the hands of those who
control economic power. Poets, artists, authors, humanitarians and
archbishops may plead and beg for the ringing of the bells of Christmas
for ever. The final word still rests with those who control the money
bags; and thus we learn, hard facts teaching us, that in this gross
travesty of civilisation under which we live to-day neither soul nor
brains is the equal of gold.
And so Dublin lies in the grip of the power of the purse; and on this fateful Friday the issue still hangs trembling. A few hours may determine whether the verdict will go forth for the joyous ringing of the Bells of Peace or for the militant call to all lovers of their kind to grasp and pass from hand to hand again the dread but inspiring Fiery Cross.
It is not necessary, I presume, to remind our readers of the beginnings of the Dublin struggle. Let us, just for convenience sake, take up the fight at the moment it became a subject of national action on the part of the British Labour movement.
A public meeting had been proclaimed in Dublin in a brazen illegal manner. For declaring that this proclamation was illegal, and advising their leaders to disregard it and stand to their rights, a number of leaders of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union had been arrested and imprisoned. A wholesale batoning of the people had followed, and Dublin was the scene of the most unparalleled police brutality.
An appeal was made to the British Trades Union
Congress, then happily sitting, and that body in the name of the
British working class nobly rose to the occasion, and pledged the credit
of the whole British labour movement to see their Dublin comrades
through the fight. As a result, the right of free speech was re-asserted
in Dublin, a supply of food was arranged for through the despatch of
specially chartered steamers, and a huge amount of money was raised to
enable the men and women of Dublin to keep the fight going. Never was
seen such enthusiasm in a labour fight. Trade unionists, socialists of
all kinds, anarchists, industrialists, syndicalists, all the varying and
hitherto discordant elements of the labour movement found a common
platform, were joined together in pursuit of a common object. Now,
permit me to underscore that point, and emphasise its great importance.
For long years we have been preaching to the labour movement the
necessity of concerted industrial action, telling it that the time was
rotten ripe for industrial unity, and declaring that as the interests of
We found that to a large extent these ideas were taking root in the
minds of the workers, but that to a still larger extent the tacit
acceptance of our ideas failed to evoke concerted action built upon
these lines. The forces of our enemies were united and wielded with all
the precision and relentlessness with which the general staff of an army
would wield the battalions and brigades which formed the component parts
of that army, but the battalions and brigades of the army of labour when
engaged in battle had no efficient general staff to guide and direct the
whole army to the salvation of its individual units; and, worse still,
had none of that
The dramatic
suddenness with which the Dublin fight was thrust upon public attention,
the tragic occurrences of the first
There are times in history when we realise that it is easier to convert a multitude than it ordinarily is to convert an individual; when indeed ideas seem to seize upon the masses as contra-distinguished by ordinary times when individuals slowly seize ideas. The propagandist toils on for decades in seeming failure and ignominy, when suddenly some great event takes place in accord with the principles he has been advocating, and immediately he finds that the seed he has been sowing is springing up in plants that are covering the earth. To the idea of working class unity, to the seed of industrial solidarity, Dublin was the great event that enabled it to seize the minds of the masses, the germinating force that gave power to the seed to fructify and cover these islands.
I say in all solemnity and
seriousness that in its attitude towards Dublin the working class
movement of Great Britain reached its highest point of moral
grandeur—attained for a moment to a realisation of that sublime
unity towards which the best in us must continually aspire. Could that
feeling but have been crystallised into organic expression, could we but
have had real statesmen amongst us who, recognising the wonderful leap
forward of our class, would have hastened to burn behind us the boats
that might make easy a retreat to the old ground of isolation and
division, could we have found labour leaders capable enough to declare
that now that the working class had found its collective soul it should
hasten to express itself as befitted that soul and not be fettered by
the rules, regulations
For the first days and weeks of the struggle, the working classes of Great Britain attained to the height of moral grandeur expressed in that idea, all labour stood behind Dublin, and Dublin rejoiced. Dublin suffered and agonised, but rejoiced that even in its suffering it was the medium for the apostolate of a rejuvenating idea. How often have I heard the responsive cheers to the question whether they would be prepared to stand by others as these others had stood by them!
And now? Dublin is isolated. We asked our friends of the
transport trade unions to isolate the capitalist class of Dublin, and we
asked the other unions to back them up. But no, they said we would
rather help you by giving you funds. We argued that a strike is an
attempt to stop the capitalist from carrying on his business, that the
success or failure of the strike depends entirely upon the success or
non-success of the capitalist to do without the strikers. If the
capitalist is able to carry on his business without the strikers, then
the strike is lost, even if the strikers receive more in strike pay than
they formerly did in wages. We said that if scabs are working a ship and
union men discharge in another port the boat so loaded, then those union
men are strike breakers, since they help the capitalist in question to
carry on his business. That if union seamen man a boat discharged by
scabs, these union seamen or firemen are by the same reason
strike-breakers, as also are the railwaymen
We asked for no more than the logical development
of that idea of working class unity, that the working class of Britain
should help us to prevent the Dublin capitalists carrying on their
business without us. We asked for the isolation of the capitalists of
Dublin, and for answer the leaders of the British labour movement
proceeded calmly to isolate the working class of Dublin. As an answer to
those who supported our request for the isolation of Dublin we were told
that a much better plan would be to increase the subsidies to enable us
to increase strike pay. As soon as this argument had served its purpose,
the subsidies fell off, and the Dublin Fund
grew smaller and
smaller as if by a pre-arranged plan. We had rejected the last terms
offered by the employers on the strength of this talk of increased
supplies, and as soon as that last attempt at settlement thus fell
through, the supplies gradually froze up instead of being increased as
we had been promised.The Dublin fighters received their defeat, met their Waterloo, at the London Conference of
In addition to this the National Union of
Railwaymen, whilst in attendance at the Special Conference in London on
But why go on? Sufficient to say that
the working class unity of the first days of the Dublin fight was
sacrificed in the interests of sectional officialism. The officials
failed to grasp the opportunity offered to them to make a permanent
reality of the union of working class forces brought into being by the
spectacle of rebellion, martyrdom and misery exhibited by the workers of
Dublin. All England and Scotland rose to it; working class officialdom
and working class rank and file alike responded to the call of
inspiration; it would have raised us
And so we Irish workers must go down into Hell, bow our backs to the lash of the slave driver, let our hearts be seared by the iron of his hatred, and instead of the sacramental wafer of brotherhood and common sacrifice, eat the dust of defeat and betrayal.
Dublin is isolated.How I would like to swell the joyful chorus! How my proletarian heart would thump against its enclosing ribs if it were possible for me truthfully to assure all and sundry that the labour world recognised the identity of interests of the workers the world over, and recognising, acted loyally upon that principle. But, alas, and alack-a-day! How can I write it when I know that in the labour ranks in the May Day processions of many of the seaport towns of Great Britain there will be represented unions that at this moment and for three months back are and have been openly and deliberately assisting the capitalist to smash a militant union and starve its members for their
loyalty to working class principles? May Day is the feast of labour, but
the betrayed Irish Transport and General Workers' Union is the Banquo's
ghost that arises to disturb the feastings and feasters.
Some time ago I reprinted in
This, by the way, is the only agreement yet signed by members of that union. In those firms which still insist upon the former Employers' Agreement banning the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union the strike or lock-out is still in active operation.
But the question arises: what reason is to be derived from our experience of the sympathetic strike in Dublin? What lesson can be learned from a cool and reasoned study of our struggle?
Let me repeat the essence of the article alluded to as an explanation of the nature of the sympathetic strike. It pointed out that we in Dublin had realised that the capitalist cannot be successfully fought upon the industrial field unless we recognise that all classes of workers should recognise their common interests, that such recognition implied that an employer engaged in a struggle with his workpeople should be made taboo or tainted, that no other workers should co-operate in helping to keep his business growing, that no goods coming from his works should be handled by organised workers, and no goods going to his works should be conveyed by organised workers. That he should, in effect, be put outside the pale of civilisation, and communication with him should be regarded as being as deadly a crime as correspondence with an enemy in war time. I tried to illustrate this by citing examples of social warfare conducted on similar lines in the past by various societies and classes.
It
may then be asked: how far has the Dublin experience
We ought, I
think, to learn that the first duty of the militant worker to-day is to
work for industrial unionism in some form. To work for the abolition
or merging of all these unions that now divide our energies instead of
concentrating them—and for the abolition of all those executives
whose measure of tainted
goods
is vitally necessary for the salvation of labour upon the
industrial field, but its enforcement is not possible as long as
labour is split up by unions whose executives look upon fellow workers
in conflict with dread as possible sources of depletion of their
treasuries. Be it remembered that it is scarcely humanly possible that
these executives should act otherwise if the consciousness of class
solidarity has not entered into the minds and hearts of their
membership; but if and when it has so entered, then a bigoted
conservatism based upon old traditional methods of action becomes a
crime against the progress of the species.
This is to my mind the lesson of Dublin. Industrial unionism, the amalgamation of all forces of labour into one union, capable of concentrating all forces upon any one issue or in any one fight, can alone fight industrially as the present development and organisation of capital requires that labour should fight. This will not be accomplished in a day, nor in a year, but should be definitely aimed at, no matter how long may be the period of its accomplishment.
The organisation of all workers in any one industry into a union covering that entire industry, and the linking up of all such unions under one head is a different thing from the mere amalgamation of certain unions. But whilst not necessarily antagonistic, it is certainly more in the line of industrial development, and more effective in the day of conflict.
The name also helps to retrieve the workers' movement from the unnatural alliance with mere anti-politicalism so unfortunately and unnecessarily introduced as a fresh dividing issue at this juncture when all our minds ought to be set upon unity.
A year ago at the meeting
of the Maynooth Union a paper was read on Syndicalism
which
attracted widespread attention at the time because of the sympathetic
attitude towards organised Labour taken up by the reverend author of the
paper in question, and because the same sympathetic note was struck by
most of the speakers who took part in the discussion following the
reading of the paper. We were amongst the number of writers to the press
who commented upon this phenomenon, and in our press, the
To the labouring world of Ireland, despite all the theoretical objections or cavillings upon points of theory which the occasion gave rise to, this discussion came as a welcome revelation that the new spirit is also at work among the clergy. We recognise, of course, that this is the voice of the younger priests speaking to us; it is the voice of the new generation of ecclesiastics answering the call of the new spirit that moves among men. As such we welcome it…. Think of the many bright indications of progress we have already seen in this year—viz., declarations of the Irish Trades Union Congress in favour of an Irish Labour Party, Labour victory in North Dock Ward, Dublin, union of Irish Socialist forces upon an Irish basis, and now the report of this annual meeting at Maynooth, showing that there, too, the forces of labour are making their influence felt for the good of Ireland. The world indeed does move, and Ireland also is gathering its strength for the glorious future.
As representing the union most actively involved in that dispute, we take it that it will be thought no impertinence or undue self-importance on our part if we avail ourselves now of the opportunity to comment upon the Pastoral from the standpoint of labour, and to place before our readers the construction we place upon the events with which that Pastoral deals. We are workers. And we speak for the class to which we belong.
As workers then
And finally, in order to prepare a way of escape out of the strife
that might follow upon hot-headedness on the part of employers or upon
our own part, we proposed in the Dublin Trades Council and in our own
press the establishment of Conciliation Boards for the prevention, or
if that failed, for the settlement of labour disputes. In other words,
our activity has been entirely upon the lines indicated in the Pastoral
as being the proper lines to follow in our position. If, then, our
activity did not bring peace but a sword the fault lies with those who
prefer to take the sword rather than suffer the loss of any portion of
the profits and domination they lusted for, and had so long enjoyed at
the cost of the suffering and damnation of so many thousands of our
class. From beginning to end of the dispute—if it can be said to
have ended—we have offered to meet and to discuss with our
opponents; from beginning
It is of little practical value in this rough work-a-day world of ours to enunciate principles, however sublime, and to refuse to take into account the very imperfect human material with which those principles have to deal. We had and have to deal with a set of employers the most heartless and the most ignorantly selfish in Christendom—employers too lazy to adapt themselves to modern methods of business and seeking by fiendish undercutting of wages to meet the legitimate competition of employers elsewhere who do use modern methods and adopt modern business ideas. In any large centre elsewhere the manager who persisted in using the antiquated methods and the slipshod lack of system that characterises the Dublin employers as a whole would be fired out of his job quicker than he could draw his first week's salary. But up to the present the constantly available supply of cheap labour has prevented the development of up-to-date methods of business in Dublin, and when the Irish Transport and General Workers' Trade Union began to push up the rate of wages and to destroy the supply of cheap labour, instead of the Dublin employers moving with the times and changing their wasteful methods accordingly their only thought was to destroy the union, and to remain in the unprogressive, slovenly, unenterprising state which now and in the past has excited the laughter of every observant visitor.
In any other city an attempt to raise the wages of tramway-men from
the low standard at which they were in Dublin would not have caused a
lock-out. The wages would have
But in Dublin such a thing was impossible. An increase of wages was
not met by a development of enterprise, no, but the suggestion of an
increase was met with an outburst of eighteenth century barbarity and a
perfect carnival of ferocity towards labour. This attitude of Mr.
William Martin Murphy is typical of the whole class in Dublin to which
he belongs. Like the Bourbons they learn nothing and they forget
nothing
. The whole world is advancing around them, labour is
everywhere stirring out of the depths of subjection and advancing upward
to the heights of citizenship and towards the responsibilities of
freedom. But all this shaking up of old systems of thought, all this
stirring into life of the dormant germs of social consciousness
amongst our long oppressed people leaves them absolutely untouched. As
the tiger reared upon flesh can never lose his craving for that food, so
the Dublin employer reared as employer upon the flesh and blood of cheap
labour can never wholly relinquish, and in most cases cannot even
partially relinquish, his lust after cheapness in the labour he
exploits. The highest industrial authorities in the world declare that
cheap labour never pays in the end; the Dublin employers declare that
unless they can have a plentiful supply of cheap and helpless labour,
civilisation's hopes in Ireland are for ever doomed. The ineffective
pigmies of capitalist Dublin oppose their ridiculous theories to the
world-wide experience of the giants of international capitalism.
In face of this the beautiful theories of the Lenten Pastorals seem
rather weak and ineffective. The whole record of the Dublin master class
has been marked by a contemptuous and cynical disregard for every
principle of social conduct set forth by his Holiness Pope Pius X, or
his Holiness Pope Leo XIII. Not an independent professional man, not an
unselfish literary man or woman of genius, not a clergyman of any
denomination, not an important public servant who investigated the
merits of the dispute all during our long agony, failed to acknowledge
finally the justice of our cause or to be won to admiration by the
patient suffering and steadfast adherence to an ideal exhibited by the
Dublin workers. Be it remembered that even his Grace the Archbishop of
Dublin publicly expressed his agreement with the proposals for a
settlement which we put forward. On the first occasion the employers met
his prayer for peace by importing British scabs; on the second, when he
blessed our peace proposals on the eve of Christmas, they contemptuously
refused even to look at them. Again we ask,
Let it be at once understood that the strictures upon socialism and syndicalism embodied in the Pastorals leave us unmoved. As complete systems of thought these two principles do not exist, whatever some extremists may say or imagine. As lines of action they do exist, and their influence is wholly beneficial. It is only when taken as offering a completely worked-out system of thought capable of dictating human conduct in all possible phases, and hence governing human morals accordingly, that either of them came under the strictures of theologians with any degree of justification. But in their present stage in the labour movement, viz., as indicating lines of activity in the industrial and political world—the only stage in which they are ever likely to be popular or useful in Ireland—the most consistent socialist or syndicalist may be as Catholic as the Pope if he is so minded.
And it may help the learned authors of the Lenten
Pastoral to a becoming frame of mind that the recent exposure of the Our minds travel back to the early days of the Irish Land League, the
attitude of the clergy of Ireland towards that uprising of the poor,
and the great change in their attitude when that movement became a
dominant force in the struggle between landlord and tenant. In the early
days the higher clergy had practically nothing but condemnation for the
agitation and vehement denunciation of the agitators, and needless to
say the denunciations indulged in by bishops were so often zealously
improved upon by the lurid oratory of parish priests and curates who
wished to become parish priests…. Whatever the
reason, the fact is undoubted that the Land League went through two
phases in the attitude of the clergy…. If the
Irish labour movement is destined to go through the same phases no one
will more heartily accept it than we shall. Always, however, remembering
that the labour movement rests upon and draws its inspiration from the
struggle in the shop, and that, therefore, the men and women in the shop
must be the controlling and directing forces of the labour movement…. Only the slave who feels the gall of his slavery is
competent to guide and direct the modern anti-slavery movement. The
labour movement must remain a movement of the working class, by and for
the working class. Those quickenings of the sense of social justice, of
which the proceedings at the Maynooth Union were but an indication, owe
their origin to the fierce strivings and rebellious upheavals of the men
and women who toil; their strikes, their fights, their teaching, their
ideals, it was that stirred the consciousness and moved the hearts of
our pastors.
Reading of the May Day celebrations of the past week brought back to my mind in a very vivid fashion a realisation of the changes that have taken place in socialist propaganda since the inauguration of Labour Day in these countries.
In the earlier period the question of an
eight hour working day was to a large extent a test question on all the
May Day Committees, as indeed it also was in the Trade Union Congresses
of that time. Those who were old-time trade unionists and adherents of
the liberal or tory parties stood out for May Day resolutions, demanding
simply an eight hour working day
, whilst those who were of the
newer school and were inclined to socialistic ideas quite as vehemently
demanded that the wording of the resolution should call for a
legislative
or legal eight hour day
. One could indeed
tell roughly what proportion the antagonistic school of socialists or
non-socialists bore upon any such committee by a study of the wording of
the resolution, and tracing the emphasis or lack of emphasis given to
the call for legislative action.
The same fight was being fought out in all the Trade Unions, Trade Councils, and Trade Congresses. The question of legislative action to restrict or otherwise regulate the hours of labour divided the sheep from the goats all over the country. Many men, now active propagandists of the socialist cause, were first launched upon that path by finding themselves as supporters of legislative restriction denounced as socialists by the old school of individualist trade unionists, and being thus thrown into the arms of socialists developed a sympathetic attitude towards their general teaching.
The more recent recruits to the socialist ranks can
scarcely legal
eight hours working
day was hailed by the socialist propagandists of that period as a great
socialist victory. Yet so it was. In the ordinary outdoor and indoor
socialist propaganda, the same mental attitude was dominant. If it were
now possible to examine the socialist speeches of that period we would
find that an inordinately large proportion of time was given up in them
to a belittling of industrial action and to what was practically an
exaggeration of the ease and facility with which the working class could
achieve its rights at the ballot-box.
This belittling of
industrial action and denial of its possibilities formed the main theme
of the speeches of so many socialist orators that it is more than
possible that thousands of good earnest trade unionists were estranged
from a friendly examination of the socialist cause by what they felt to
be something like insidious attacks upon working-class organisation. The
socialist movement at the time was in a nebulous, chaotic state, not
only with regard to its organised expression, but also with regard to
its growing tactics, and the tendency was for all its speakers to
exploit that which for the time being secured the largest audience.
Perhaps that is the tendency still. But what I am endeavouring to convey
is that consideration of the means towards the end, the tactics to be
followed in realising the consummation aimed at formed but a small part
of socialist study. Beyond a general affirmation of a belief in
common ownership
, and in political action as the means of
realising that common ownership, few speakers dared to venture. In
consequence, the demand for political action became the creed of the
socialist, and in the endeavour to make the propaganda serve the general
purpose of advancing the demand for political action, that demand
constantly tended to overshadow the general principle of the socialist
movement
With that victory the propaganda seemed to undergo a radical change. Whether it was because the workers had built too high hopes upon the advent of such a limited number of labour men into the House of Commons, or because the men elected were destitute of the courage and initiative necessary for their position, or from both causes combined, or from neither, I do not presume to say; but certain it is that there was for a long period a falling off of enthusiasm for the political side of socialism. Perhaps it would be better to say that there began to dawn a belief that socialism had really another side, and that a man's belief in the efficacy of legislation was not a real test of the sincerity of his socialist convictions. Then there came the industrial upheaval of 1911, with its series of brilliant victories won by labour upon the industrial battlefield, and the growth of an opinion among socialists totally adverse to political action. For a considerable period this anti-political idea made headway, and we saw its influence making itself felt all over the socialist world. It is the very antithesis of the opinion I have described as being considered formerly as a true standard by which a socialist might be judged, yet no one would to-day argue that because a man held such ideas he could not therefore be rightly classed as a socialist. In the older days we would have at once branded such a man as an anarchist, to-day we are not so sure of his classification. That in itself is a wonderful change in the attitude of the socialist towards political action.
Because of
the slight reverses sustained at a uniform high level of excitement
and victory, there is now in many quarters a recrudescence of the older
attitude towards industrial battlings.
Now having observed this movement around the clock, and observed it from the standpoint of one caught amongst the wheels, I am inclined to ask all and sundry amongst our comrades if there is any necessity for this presumption of antagonism between the industrialist and the political advocate of socialism. I cannot see any. I believe that such supposed necessity only exists in the minds of the mere theorists or doctrinaires. The practical fighter in the work-a-day world makes no such distinction. He fights, and he votes; he votes and he fights. He may not always, he does not always, vote right; nor yet does he always fight when and as he should. But I do not see that his failure to vote right is to be construed into a reason for advising him not to vote at all; nor yet why a failure to strike properly should be used as a gibe at the strike weapon, and a reason for advising him to place his whole reliance upon votes.
I am glad of the experience of the past few years. I am glad that the extremely doctrinaire political attitude towards strikes received a check, and that that check came straight out of the practical experience of the workers in ship, shore, shop and railway. I am glad that the equally doctrinaire attitude of the anti-political people has failed to sweep the working class off its feet. And I trust that out of this experience will be born wisdom, and that such wisdom will enable us to develop a working class action which will combine the political and industrial activities of the workers on militant and aggressive lines.
The development of the power of the modern state should teach us that the mere right to vote will not protect the workers unless they have a strong economic organisation behind them; that the nationalisation or municipalisation of industries but changes the form of the workers' servitude whilst leaving its essence unimpaired; and that in the long run the class in control of the economic forces of the nation will be able to dominate and direct its political powers.
On the other hand, that very development also teaches us that until
the workers have perfected their economic power sufficiently to control
the economic forces
My reading of history tells me
that in all great social changes the revolutionary class always fails
of success until it is able to do the work of the class it seeks to
destroy, and to do it more efficiently. And when it has so perfected
itself that it is able to perform this work, neither gods nor men can
stop its onward march to victory. In other words, a new social order
cannot supplant the old until it has its own organisation ready to
take its place. Within the social order of capitalism I can see no
possibility of building up a new economic organisation fit for the work
of superseding the old on socialist lines, except that new order be
built upon the lines of the industries that capitalism itself has
perfected. Therefore I am heart and soul an industrial unionist. But
because I know that the capitalist class is alert and unscrupulous in
its use of power, I do not propose to leave it the uncontested use of
the powers of the state. And because I realise that human nature is a
wonderful thing, that the soul of man gives expression to strange and
complex phenomena, and that no man knows what powers or possibilities
for good or evil lie in humanity, I try to preserve my receptivity
towards
What is to be the position of labour in the first Irish Parliament? To judge by the written opinion of many of our friends we would be inclined to believe that the representation of labour in that Parliament would be a certainty, and that it would not be a mere nominal representation, but rather on a large, and as one writer has said, a dominating scale. If this were so, then we might truly felicitate the labour movement in Ireland upon its marvellous progress, and felicitate the Irish working class upon the keenness of their insight and the alertness of their intelligence.
Writing as one who has a close inside knowledge of the Irish labour movement, and also as one who does believe in the keen political insight of the Irish workers as a whole, I yet feel constrained to warn the readers of
There are many reasons why this is an
uncertainty. One of the greatest is the financial reason. Most people
are of the opinion that the Irish Parliament will at least not be a
retrograde institution, or elected upon a franchise or after a method
held elsewhere in these islands to be antiquated. That any forward
step taken elsewhere will at least be presumed for the benefit of the
Irish democracy. It is therefore somewhat of a shock to many to learn
that under the new Home Rule Constitution, no provision is made for
payment of members of Parliament but it is left to be dealt with by
the new Irish legislature. Thus in the first Irish Parliament the
members will be unpaid, and as the chief concern of that Parliament will
be that of finding
The present Home Rule party had
and have no desire to see labour in the Irish Parliament represented by
an independent party of workers. Representing as they do the capitalist
class, the publicans, and the gombeen men or money-lenders of rural
Ireland as well as the lowest class of slum landlords in the cities,
they dread as they dread retribution, the advent of men or women with
ideas of regeneration and social emancipation for Ireland. They do not
want anything that might help the victims of their friends and relatives
to put a legislative curb to their slave-driving and sweating. Of course
that is not the reason they alleged. Oh, no! They alleged that they
considered that the Irish Parliament should have control over its own
finance, and they objected to the English Parliament limiting its powers
in advance
. And of course the British labour party swallowed this
yarn, oblivious of the fact that the English Parliament was limiting the
powers of the Irish Parliament in a score of ridiculous and even fatally
harmful ways with the full consent of their Home Rule colleagues, and
that it was only when it came to increasing the power of the Irish
democracy that the Home Rule party objected to the interference of the
English Parliament.
An indication by the British labour party
that they meant to insist upon payment of members being incorporated in
the
In every Home Rule speech the precedent of the British colonies is cited as an argument in favour of the measure, but the democratic spirit in which the colonial constitutions are framed was deliberately shut out by the framers of the Home Rule Bill. Whereas the colonial constitutions aim at giving power to the democracy, the Home Rule constitution aims at restricting the power of the democracy. And now there are to be still further attempts at restriction and divisions, in order to please the Bourbons of Ulster, who learn nothing and forget nothing.
Added to this hampering restriction upon the Irish democracy's choice of elected members, there is the fact that there is yet no fund available with which Irish labour constituencies can be contested. Resolutions are all very well, and class feeling is an excellent thing, but in the electoral world neither of these can manifest themselves without the sinews of war. Now if there is one thing the Irish labour movement is at present wanting in, it is finance for electoral contests. The Dublin labour party fight all municipal and other local contests, as does every other district of nationalist Ireland where the new influence is making itself felt, but to do even that is a severe strain upon their resources.
That they could with their present limited resources grapple with the infinitely greater cost of Parliamentary elections is almost unthinkable. In the north the trade unions are for the most part content to play the orange game, and are as bodies merely passive allies of the capitalist-landlord faction in warring upon the progressive movement.
Thus the imminence of
the Home Rule elections brings into greater prominence the need for
some kind of action being taken in Ireland and elsewhere
Without the invigorating presence of an alert and independent labour party in its midst the Irish House of Commons will be for years a most reactionary and anti-democratic assembly, setting a bad example to Tories and reactionists everywhere. It will be obsessed with the idea of placating the reactionary elements in Ulster, and thus of justifying itself against their aspersions. What this means you can best understand when you realise that Ulster is the most capitalist part of Ireland, that the game will be to represent every bit of labour legislation which menaces capitalist profits as an attack upon the industries of Ulster, and that the fear of this cry will cause the new Irish Government, and every non-labour element in Parliament, to oppose all social legislation. Only a strong and determined labour group, with a true revolutionary outlook, will be able to withstand this cry, force forward progressive legislation and combat reactionary measures.
The dice are heavily loaded against us in Ireland. They are loaded by the evil traditions of the past, by the cowardice of many working class elements in the north especially, by the awful poverty of the country, by the ignorant obstinacy of the capitalist class, by sectarian animosities, by unscrupulous politicians, by a lying press.
We can only hope to carry our flag to victory by securing the aid of all those workers everywhere who desire to see an effective force carrying the green flag of an Irish regiment whilst unconditionally under the red flag of the proletarian army.
Whilst the Bill is not
altogether satisfactory to us, we must be prepared to take advantage of
it and secure representation for our class in the new Parliament. In any Parliament to be elected in Ireland
Labour must be represented as a separate and independent entity, having
no connection with any other Party.
The ignominious defeat of the attempt to establish a peculiarly pernicious form of Syndicalism on Irish soil.
This, one must admit, is a good start for an impartial
history, and the same spirit is in evidence all through the book. In
this attempt to present a literary justification for the employers the
author does not scruple to distort facts, and even to state deliberate
untruths.
One such case will serve as a sample. In the early part
of 1913 the Belfast Branch of the Irish Transport and General Workers
Union secured an agreement with several shipping firms in that city
bringing the wages of their labourers up to the level of the men
employed by the same firms on the docks at Dublin. One of the firms so
affected was the Clyde Shipping Company. After a short time the union
officials found that hold
up
the boat. This was at first done, but after a few hours delay
the boat was worked by the Dublin members, their officials having
brought pressure to bear on the Belfast secretary to allow the cargo to
be discharged in order to keep the contract they had made in Dublin with
the Clyde company. Thus, as it afterwards transpired, the Dublin
officials practically sacrificed their own members in Belfast, and
worked a boat against which their own members were on strike, in order
to keep their agreement with the Clyde Shipping Company, and in hopes
that the matter would be settled by friendly discussion. It was settled
by friendly discussion, but the spectacle of the Dublin members out of
loyalty to an agreement working a boat struck by their fellow members in
Belfast was so unexpected and bewildering that some two hundred members
were lost to the union in the latter city as a consequence.
Now
here is how this Some men who were working on a vessel called the
impartial
author tells the story. Page 108:
Now observe all the misstatements in those three sentences.
First: The wrong name of the vessel; showing a most slipshod inaccuracy of investigation.
Second: The statement that the Dublin men were receiving lower wages than the Belfast men, whereas the fact was that the Belfast men had only recently joined the union in an endeavour to raise their wages to the level of Dublin.
Third: The allegation that the union in the northern port which had established the wages alleged to be higher than those of Dublin was a union inimical to Mr. Larkin. In reality it was, and is, a branch of the union of which Mr. Larkin was and is General Secretary.
Thus in the small compass of nine printed lines we find one mistake and two deliberate lies. Observe that it is entirely unthinkable that this so-called investigator could of his own initiative have invented those lies. They must have been supplied to him by the employers, and, like the good investigator that he was, he never bothered himself to check their account by any such simple expedient as a trip to Liberty Hall, or a question put personally to any of the dockers involved in that dispute. The inference is that he did not do it, because he did not dare to do it. He was brought over here by the employers to do the employers' work, and it must be said of him that he faithfully, if clumsily, tried to earn his money.
As we have said, the story of that incident is a sample of the
treatment meted out to the labourer by the author in every chapter in
the book. One feels like congratulating the real literary men of Dublin
that the employers could not trust one of them to be sufficiently blind
to facts as to present a case that would suit the employers. A stranger,
without any knowledge
The achievement of the employers is written of as if the book was dealing with the struggle of a puny David against a mighty Goliath, the employers being David and Jim Larkin the giant Goliath. No epic story of heroism that was ever written could surpass in admiring sentences the description of the employers' battle against the working men and women as this hack writer tells it.
Told by a labour writer, or even told by one of those literary men who, although not of the manual labour ranks stood so grandly by the workers during that titanic struggle, the story would indeed read like an epic, but it would be an epic of which the heroes and heroines were the humble men and women who went out in the street to suffer and starve rather than surrender their right to combine as they chose for the uplifting of their class. Some day that story will be written from that standpoint, meanwhile let us briefly cast up the elements out of which that story will be composed.
It
must tell how four hundred Dublin employers covenanted together, and
pledged each other by solemn vows, and by still more binding financial
pledges, that there would be no more resumption of work in Dublin until
the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union was wiped off the map.
How they
When that story is written by a man or woman with
an honest heart, and with a sympathetic insight into the travail of the
poor, it will be a record of which Ireland may well be proud. It will
tell of how the old women and young girls, long crushed and enslaved,
dared to risk all, even life itself, in the struggle to make life more
tolerable, more free of the grinding tyranny of the soulless Dublin
employers. It will tell of how, like an inspiration, there came to those
Irish women and girls the thought that no free nation could be reared
which
And that story will tell how, despite the wealth and the power of the masters, despite jails and batons, despite starvation and death, victory was within sight for the Dublin workers, and only eluded their grasp because of the failure of a part of their allies to remain keyed up to the battle pitch. Because others outside their ranks were not able to realise the grandeur of the opportunity, the sublimity of the issues at stake.
The battle was a drawn battle. The employers, despite
their Napoleonic plan of campaign, and their more than Napoleonic
ruthlessness and unscrupulous use of foul means were unable to carry on
their business without men and women who remained loyal to their union.
The workers were unable to force the employers to a formal recognition
of the union, and to
But the working class has lost none of its aggressiveness, none of its confidence, none of its hope in the ultimate triumph. No traitor amongst the ranks of that class has permanently gained, even materially, by his or her treachery. The flag of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union still flies proudly in the van of the Irish working class, and that working class still marches proudly and defiantly at the head of the gathering hosts who stand for a regenerated nation, resting upon a people industrially free.
Ah, yes, that story of the Dublin dispute of 1913-14 is meet subject for an epic poem with which some Irish genius of the future can win an immortality as great as did the humble fighters who in it fought the battle of labour.
Do you wish proof of the value of organisation to the workers, or proof of how impossible it is to destroy organisation if its members are loyal! I can give you that proof from the records of our own union.
Let me give you a little bit of history—history of very recent date. You remember the great lock-out in Dublin in 1913-14; you remember how the Dublin employers smarting under the defeats inflicted upon their individual efforts to keep their workers in slavery, at last resolved to combine in one gigantic effort to restore the irresponsible reign of the slave drivers such as existed in Dublin before the advent of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union. You will remember how four hundred employers banded themselves together to destroy us, and pledged their sacred word of honour that they would wipe that union off the map; that when the fight was over no man or woman affiliated to us, or friendly to us, would ever be employed in Dublin. You also remember how they did more than pledge their honour—the honour of some of them would not fetch much as a pledge—but they also deposited each a sum of money in proportion to the number of employees each normally employed, and that money deposited in the Bank in the name of their association was to be forfeited, if the depositor came to terms with the union before his fellows.
Thus strung together in bonds of gold and self-interest, you might think they were well equipped for beating a lot of poor workingmen and women with no weapons but their hands, and no resources but their willingness to suffer for the right. But they were taking no chances. They laid their plans with the wisdom of the serpent, and the unscrupulousness of the father of all evil.
Before the lock-out was declared they went to the British Government
in Ireland, to its heads in Dublin Castle, and they said to that
Government, now, look here, we are going to make war upon the Irish
Transport and General Workers' Union, but we believe that we cannot
succeed as we should wish, while peaceful picketing is allowed. We know
it is allowed in England, in Scotland, and in Wales, but we don't want
it allowed in Ireland
. And the Government said: all right,
gentlemen, the law allowing peaceful picketing is only a scrap of paper;
we will tear it up while the fight is on
. The employers said again:
good, but these Labour men and women will hold together while they
are able to hold public meetings, and hear their speakers encouraging
them. Could His Majesty's Government not manage to suppress public
meetings, whilst the fight is on
? And the Government answered:
Suppress public meetings? Why, of course: the law which permits
public meetings in Ireland is just another scrap of paper, and has been
torn up many a time, and oft; we will tear it up again, so as to help
you in the good work of crushing the Labour movement
.
And you know, the British Government kept its promise to the employers. All through that long and bitter struggle, the elementary rights won by Trade Unionists by a century of sacrifices were denied to us in Dublin, although freely exercised at the same time in England.
The locked-out worker who attempted to speak to a scab in order to persuade him or her not to betray the class they belonged to, was mercilessly set upon by uniformed bullies, and hauled off to prison, until the prison was full to overflowing with helpless members of our class. Women and young girls by the score; good, virtuous, beautiful Irish girls and women were clubbed and insulted, and thrown into prison by policemen and magistrates, not one of whom were fit to clean the shoes of the least of these, our sisters.
Our right of public meeting was ruthlessly suppressed in the streets of our city, the whole press of the country was shamelessly engaged in poisoning the minds of the people against us, every scoundrel who chose was armed to shoot and murder the workers who stood by their Union.
Two men, James Nolan and John Byrne, were clubbed to death in the street; one, Byrne of Kingstown, suffered unnameable torture in the police cell, and died immediately upon release, one young girl, Alice Brady, while walking quietly homewards with her strike allowance of food, was shot by a scab with a revolver placed in his hands by an employer, and within twenty-four hours after the murder, that scab was walking the streets of Dublin a free man. Our murdered sister lies cold to-day in her grave in Glasnevin—as true a martyr for freedom as any who ever died in Ireland. But she did not die in vain, and none who die for freedom ever die in vain.
Well, did the unholy conspiracy against Labour achieve its object? Was the union crushed? Did our flag come down?
Let me tell you our position to-day, and tell it by an illustration.
We recently put in a demand for an increase of wages in Dublin, for all classes of labour in our union. That demand was eventually met by the employers, and at a Conference between the representatives of the Union and the Employers were prepared to settle matters through the Union, and that whatever terms were then agreed upon would determine the rates for the quays and elsewhere, wherever our men were employed. Here are a few of the advances thus agreed upon, as well as the advances arranged with other firms not represented at the Conference, but dealing directly with the Union Officials.
These comprise the larger firms, many smaller firms also made advances as a result of action of the Union, and in every case the advance made was in proportion to the manner in which the men had stuck to their Union.
The firms whose employees had fallen away gave poor increases or none at all; the firms whose members had remained loyal to the Union, paid greater increases, and so the men reaped the fruits of their loyalty, whilst those who were faint of heart were punished by the employers for lack of faith in their Union and their class. So it shall ever be.
At a special meeting, held on
When labour strikes against Nugent in this contest it will have its arm nerved by remembrance of the poisonous lies and slanders poured upon it during the great lock-out. It will remember the thousands of homes into which Nugent brought hunger and misery by the active assistance and encouragement given to the employers. It will think of all the poor victimised girls and women whose places were taken by the scabs procured by Nugent's agents. It will reflect that when it was sought to reduce the working class of Dublin to the vilest slavery, to break up their unity and disorganise their forces, it was John Dillon Nugent that stood forth as their bitterest foe and the most valued supporter of those who sought to enslave them.
All who stand for the best and
holiest interests of Ireland at this crisis in her history, whatever be
their attitude towards the British Parliament, should now join with
labour in its rally against this man whose malign influence wherever it
has spread has tended to sow the seeds of discord and hatred amongst
Irishmen, and to prevent national unity for truly national purposes.
He has set Irishman against Irishman, brothers against brothers, has
broken up family ties and the ties of community,
Away with him! Send him back to his intrigues, to his
slandering, to the associates of his secret plots to poison Irish life
and hound down Irish patriots, away with him and
Under the conditions at present ruling in Ireland many of us would have preferred to let pass unnoticed the election of a member to represent College Green in the British Parliament. We would have preferred that course: First, because we deprecate any action turning the eyes of Irishmen towards England in the present International crisis. Ireland as a Nation has her own destiny to achieve, and there is no law of nature which makes it necessary that that destiny must forever be worked out in terms of British Acts of Parliament; Second, we would have preferred to let it pass unnoticed and unheeded because we believe that this Parliament cannot last very long.
But the selection of John Dillon Nugent as the candidate of the United Irish League, makes that silence impossible. This selection is a studied insult to every progressive movement in the country. John Dillon Nugent is the active figure behind all that is foulest and most loathsome in Irish Life.
He it is who has stood out as the malevolent enemy of trade unionism on every occasion, small and great, where he could exercise his influence. He has attempted to organise in Ireland, as in the case of the Railwaymen, sectarian trade unions to divide and disrupt the people of the South as Carson and his gang have done in the North. He has worked to aid the enemies of organised labour, and to defeat every effort of the Irish Workers to win for themselves a decent standard of life, and recognition of their rights as a class.
He has poisoned the political life of the Nation, and struck in the
dark at every influence and every man making for a
He has been instrumental in making the
Home Rule Party cringe and surrender before every assault of the enemies
of Ireland, and has stood behind every attack upon those whom the
British Government could neither bribe nor terrorise. From Cork to
Enniscorthy, from Dublin to Kerry his sinister figure lurked in the
background, setting
and directing wherever Irish patriots were
struck at.
He has worked to make it impossible to serve an Irish Public Board or Corporation in even the humblest capacity, if the public servant was not ready to be at his beck and call, socially and politically.
An enemy of Labour, a fomenter of sectarian strife, a betrayer of all National causes, a source of weakness and paralysis in all National Movements. This is the man you are asked to elect as your representative. Will you do it? We ask you to rise and resent the insult. Let it not be said in this great crisis, when all that is best and noblest in your natures should be rallying in response to the call of your country, that you consented to dishonour all Irishmen have ever held dear, by electing as your representative anywhere, the only man who most successfully embodies and typifies in his person all that is most despicable, hateful and corrupting in Irish public life—John Dillon Nugent.
(Signed on behalf of the Dublin Trades Council and Labour League):
The College Green Election is
over, and John Dillon Nugent sits as representative of that Division
in the British Parliament. What more can be said on the matter? The
electors of that constituency made it pretty clear to all who think,
that they deeply resented the attempt of the United Irish League and its
wirepullers to foist upon the Division so deeply detested a man as Mr.
Nugent. But they also demonstrated that against a well oiled and
smoothly working machine a mere sullen, sulky protest is not sufficient.
There were more abstentions in the College Green election on
It is an object lesson in the value of organisation, and also of the great danger of such an organisation to public liberties when it is in the hands of thoroughly unscrupulous men.
The Labour candidate did not win
because the electors were not sufficiently imbued with labour principles
to rally to his aid, and until the electors are so imbued the seat does
not properly belong to labour. On the other hand, although Nugent had at
his command all the secret forces of the Ancient Order of Hibernians
(Board of Erin)
And it may be taken as certain that at
the first occasion labour will again marshal its forces for the fray. As
the popular saying has it the seat is only lent
to Mr. Nugent.
On this occasion our opponent was in the field a week ahead of us in his
own person, whilst his organisations were busy getting their forces in
order long before the death of Mr. J. P. Nannetti. Between the actual
nomination of Mr. Thomas Farren and the day of the election there were
only three clear days; between the legal nomination of Mr. Farren and
the election there were only two days and a half. Handicapped in this
way, and hard pressed for money all the time
What is the real relation between Dublin strikes and Dublin trade? How have they, how do they mutually affect each other?
There have been many industries destroyed in Dublin whose loss it is the habit of certain writers and speakers to attribute to strikes and labour agitators. How far is that attitude of mind justified' These are some of the questions that need careful consideration—and answer.
One answer to them can be
found by a glance at the rate of wages paid in Ireland as compared to
what is paid in Great Britain for the same class of work. It will be
found that Irish workers are invariably paid far below the British rate,
except when the pressure of trade unionism has forced the wages upward
to an equality. This discrimination against equality of treatment for
Irish workers is universal in Ireland whether the employer is a private
individual, or a public authority, such as a Corporation or an Urban
District Council, and ranges all the way from the wages of a tramp navvy
to the salary
of a national school teacher.
Now observe well what that fact implies. It means that Irish employers deliberately refuse to pay Irish workers as well as British employers pay British workers, and that they do this even when no competition exists. That is fact, number one.
Fact number two is just as important. It
consists in the fact that whenever a period of unrest occurs, when the
workers in these islands feel and respond to the strivings for a better
existence the Irish employers stand forth in the fight as shining
examples of obstinacy and pig-headedness. Whilst the British employers,
or their agents in Ireland recognise that in the work-a-day world of
business there can be no such thing as complete victory,
In such cases the British capitalists urge the Irish employer on to the fight, cheer him madly to his face, wink at each other behind his back, and grab his trade whilst he is fighting.
Then when the fight is over the Irish employer
looks around for his trade, finds it being done by his British rivals,
and starts bewailing the wicked agitator
. Look around the
history of many important Irish industries that have disappeared in the
course of the past hundred years, and searching below the superficial
crust of shallow-minded writers you will everywhere find the same
tale.
Lots of important industries have disappeared from Ireland because Irish employers were encouraged to refuse to treat their workers in a humane and reasonable fashion, and so lost their trade to British competitors who gloried in their fight, and exulted in their downfall.
In every big industrial dispute in Ireland the firms controlled by British capital are always the first to accept a reasonable settlement, the Irish firms are always the last. The British firm wants to get back to profit-making, the Irish firm thinks mainly of humiliating and crushing the workers who dared to defy them.
The explanation is first that the British firms are rather pleased to
see their Irish competitors run their heads against a stone wall, and
their business to bankruptcy; and second, that British capital is
grown up and has assumed the responsibility of the adult, but Irish
capital is still immature, and has all the hobble-de-troy, not big enough to be a man, and too big to be a
boy
.
Great indeed is the responsibility of the journalist or publicist of any description who urges on the Irish employer to fight against a set of conditions to which his British competitors have long ago adapted their business.
The Irish workers are gradually accustoming themselves to a self-imposed discipline in the interest of all; they are learning that it is treason to the trade union for any gang or group or individual to strike if the striking endangers the interest of the whole.
What or who will teach the Irish employer
that his power is a trust to be administered for the good of all, not a
whip to be used like a child to gratify his foolish whims?The work of serving the public is not undertaken by a public authority but is left to the haphazard enterprise of individuals spurred by the desire of gain. People are not fed, clothed, or warmed because the feeding, housing, clothing or warming is a public duty, but because certain individuals think they can make a profit by so doing. If at any time these
individuals think that they are not making enough profit by performing
these functions, then they cease rendering this public service, and the
whole life of the community is thrown out of gear…. Some day the world will wake up sufficiently to recognise that the capitalist conducting business on his own account is just as much a nuisance, and as bunglingly inefficient at the job, as were the soldier chiefs of the past making war on their own account. And when the world does recognise the fact it will reduce private business enterprises to the same level as private armies and private wars. The nation will take over the work of organising the industries of peace as it has taken out of private hands the owning of armies and the
conducting of wars for private profit.
We regret that
we are not able to give in our paper a complete report of the splendid
speech delivered under the auspices of the Dublin Trades Council on
At one part of his address the reverend lecturer justly attributed the present position of the Church in France to the fact that Catholics in that country had wasted their time in dreaming of the impossible restoration of a monarchy instead of grappling with the practical work of social regeneration under the new conditions established by the republic. It is safe to say that such meetings as that of Tuesday are safer guarantees for Ireland against the growth here of anti-clericalism of the French type than would be all the pamphlets of the Catholic Truth Society, without such friendly discussions between the clergy and the laity. They are a sign that the lesson of France has not been lost, that the Church recognises that if she does not move with the people the people will move without her.
It is generally
recognised in Dublin that the editor of this paper represents the most
militant, and what is called the most
To be brief, here is our position as we defined it in the name of the Irish labour movement: We accept the family as the true type of human society. We say that as in that family the resources of the entire household are at the service of each; as in the family the strong does not prey upon and oppress the weak; as in the family the least gifted mentally and the weakest physically share equally the common store of all with the most gifted and the physically strongest; as in the family the true economy consists in utilising and conserving the heritage of all for the good of all, so in like manner the nation should act and be administered. Every man, woman, and child of the nation must be considered as an heir of all the property of the nation, and the entire resources of the nation should stand behind all individuals guaranteeing them against want, and multiplying their individual powers with all the powers of the organised nation.
To
attain that end we seek to organise every person who works for wages,
that the workers themselves may determine the conditions of labour. We
hold that the sympathetic strike is the affirmation of the Christian
principle that we are all members one of another, whilst those who
oppose the sympathetic strike and uphold sectionalism in trade union am I my brother's
keeper
? We say, yes, we are all the keepers of our brothers and
sisters, and responsible for them
.
From the organisation of labour as such we propose to proceed to organise upon the co-operative principle that we may control the commodities we ourselves use and consume. Upon such a basis we can build a true demand for Irish made goods from which all elements of sweating have been removed.
Recognising that the proper utilisation of the nation's energies requires control of political power, we propose to conquer that political power through a working class political party; and recognising that the full development of national powers requires complete national freedom we are frankly and unreservedly prepared for whatever struggle may be necessary to conquer for Ireland her place among the nations of the earth.
That is the programme of the militant Irish labour movement. We are rejoiced to find amongst the clergy so many whose hearts also throb responsive to those ideals.
Nothing is more conducive to the spread of a movement than the
discussions arising out of the efforts of a capable opponent to refute
its principles. Out of such discussions arise clearness of thought, and
the consequent realisation on the part of both sides to the controversy
of the necessity of considering the movement under discussion in the
light of its
The 1910
Lenten Discourses
Most of our readers are aware that the first Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, in 1169, an invasion characterised by every kind of treachery, outrage, and indiscriminate massacre of the Irish, took place under the authority of a bull issued by his Holiness, Pope Adrian IV. Doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of the bull, but it is certain that neither Adrian nor any of his successors in the Papal chair ever repudiated it.
Every Irish man and woman, most enlightened
Englishmen, and practically every foreign nation to-day wish that the
Irish had succeeded in preserving their independence against the English
king, Henry II, but at a Synod of the Catholic Church, held in Dublin in
1177, according to Rev. P. J. Carew,
set forth Henry's right to the sovereignty of Ireland in virtue of the Pope's authority, and inculcated the necessity of obeying him. The English were not yet eight years in Ireland, the greater part of the country was still closed to them, but already the Irish were being excommunicated for refusing to become slaves.under pain of excommunication
In Ireland, as in all Catholic countries, a church was a
sanctuary in which even the greatest criminal could take refuge and be
free from arrest, as the civil authority could not follow upon the
consecrated ground. At the Synod of 1177
In the
year 1319, Edward Bruce, brother of Robert the Bruce of Scotland, was
invited into Ireland by the Irish chiefs and people to help them in
their patriotic war for independence. He accepted the invitation, was
joined by vast numbers of the people in arms, and together the Irish and
Scotch forces swept the English out of Ulster and Connacht. The English
king appealed for help to Pope John XXII, and
The battle of the Boyne, fought
Judge
Maguire of San Francisco, California, writing of this period before the
Reformation, says truly: Under all their Catholic
majesties, from Henry II to Henry VIII (nearly four hundred years) the
Irish people, with the exception of five families, were outlaws. They
were murdered at will, like dogs, by their English Catholic neighbours
in Ireland, and there was no law to punish the murderers. Yet during
all of this unparalleled reign of terror, history fails to show a single
instance in which the power of the Catholic Church was ever exerted or
suggested by the Pope for the protection of her faithful Irish
children.
The Irish people as a whole are
proud of the fact that, according to the reported testimony of General
Lee of the American army, more than half of the continental soldiers
during the War of the Revolution were from Ireland, yet during that War
of Independence, Bishop Troy, the Catholic Bishop of Ossory, ordered the
Catholics of his diocese to observe a day's fast and to
humble himself in prayer that they might avert the
Quite
recently, in 1909, Professor Monaghan, speaking before the Federation of
Catholic Societies in America, declared with the approval of the bishop
and clergy that the Catholic hierarchy of the United States would, if
need be, sell the sacred vessels off the altar in defence
In 1798 an insurrection in favour of an
Irish Republic took place in Ireland, assuming most formidable
proportions in County Wexford. The insurrection had been planned by
the Society of United Irishmen, many of whose leaders were Protestants
and Freethinkers. The Catholic hierarchy and most of the priesthood
denounced the society and inculcated loyalty to the Government. The more
intelligent of the Catholic masses disregarded these clerical denunciations. In the memoirs of his life, Miles Byrne, a staunch Catholic
patriot and revolutionist, who took part in the insurrection, says:
The priests did everything in their power to stop the progress of the
Association of United Irishmen, particularly poor Father John Redmond,
who refused to hear the confession of any of the United Irish, and
turned them away from his knees
was a worthy, simple,
pious man, and one of those Roman Catholic priests who used the greatest
exertions and exhortations to oblige the people to give up their pikes
and firearms of every description
. The wisdom of the people and the
foolishness of the clergy were amply demonstrated by the fact that the
soldiers burned Father Murphy's house over his head, and compelled him
to take the field as an insurgent. A heroic fight and a glorious
martyrdom atoned for his mistake, but the soldier-like qualities he
showed in the field were rendered nugatory by the fact that as a priest
he had been instrumental in disarming many hundreds of the men whom he
afterwards commanded. As an insurgent officer he discovered that his
greatest hope day in the men who had disregarded his commands as a
priest, and retained the arms with which to fight for freedom.
Dr. Troy, when Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, was, according
If in confession any plot against the existing Government was disclosed to the priest, he (the priest) would be bound to give information to the Government that such plot was in agitation, taking care that nothing could in any way lead to a suspicion of the person from whom, or the means in which, the information had been obtained. Chief Secretary Wickham, who reports this conversation with the archbishop, goes on to say,
I then asked him whether such confession so made to the priest, particularly in the case of a crime against the State, was considered as a full atonement so as to entitle the penitent to absolution without a disclosure of such crime being first made to the police or to the Government of the country. To this the Doctor answered very distinctly that he did not consider the confession to the priest alone, under such circumstances, a sufficient atonement,.and that either the priest ought to insist on such confession to the State or to the police being made , or to enjoin the making of such disclosure subsequent to absolution in like manner as penance is enjoined under similar circumstances
There is little doubt in our mind but that Dr. Troy misrepresented Catholic doctrine, but it is noteworthy that a parish priest at Mallow, Co. Cork, ordered a member of the United Irishmen, who had sought him in the confessional, to give information to the authorities of a plot of the Royal Meath Militia to seize the artillery at that point and turn it over to the revolutionists. This priest, Father Thomas Barry, afterwards drew a pension of £100 per year from the Government for his information; his action was, and is, abhorred by the vast mass of the Irish Catholics, but was in strict accord with his duty as laid down by Archbishop Troy.
All impartial historians recognise
that the Legislative Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland was
passed
Yet we are
informed by Mr. Plowden, a Catholic historian that, a very great
preponderance in favour of the Union existed in the Catholic Body,
. On
Every year the members of the Irish race
scattered throughout the earth celebrate the memory of Robert Emmet, and
cherish him in their hearts as the highest ideal of patriot and martyr;
but on the occasion of his martyrdom the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin
and Armagh presented an address to the Lord Lieutenant, representative
of the British Government in Ireland, denouncing Emmet in the strongest
possible terms. That this action was in conformity with the position of
the whole Catholic Hierarchy was evidenced in 1808, when all the
Catholic bishops of Ireland met in Synod on
That the Roman Catholic prelates pledge themselves to adhere to the rules by which they have beenhitherto uniformly guided , viz., to recommend to his Holiness (for appointment as Irish Roman Catholic bishops)only such persons as are of unimpeachable loyalty .
After Daniel O'Connell and the Catholics of Ireland
had wrested Catholic Emancipation from the British Government they
initiated a demand for a repeal of the Union. Their service to Catholic
Emancipation was a proof positive of their Catholic orthodoxy, but at
the urgent request of the British take his religion
from Rome, but not his politics
, and the Catholic opinion of our day
emphatically endorses his attitude and condemns the action of the
Pope.
In 1847 the Catholics among the Young Irelanders prepared a
memorial to be presented to the annual assembly of the Bishops,
defending themselves from the charge of infidelity. The Archbishop of
Tuam declared he would retire if they were admitted.
During the
great Irish famine of
Their antagonism was fatal to the movement—more surely and infallibly fatal to it than all the powers of the British Crown.
The Irish
revolutionary movement known popularly as the Fenian Brotherhood was
denounced by all the Catholic Hierarchy and most of the clergy, Bishop
Moriarty of County Kerry saying that Hell was not hot enough nor
eternity long enough to punish such miscreants
. The Fenians were
represented as being enemies of religion and of morality, yet the
In January, 1871, the Catholic Bishop of Derry denounced the Home Rule movement of Isaac Butt. To-day priests and people agree that the movement led by Isaac Butt was the mildest, most inoffensive movement ever known in Ireland.
The Irish Land League, which averted in 1879 a repetition of the famine horrors of 1847, which broke the back of Irish landlordism, and abolished the worst evils of British rule, was denounced by Archbishop M'Cabe in September, 1879, October, 1880 and October, 1881.
In 1882 the Ladies' Land
League, an association of Irish ladies organised for the patriotic and
benevolent purpose of raising funds for the relief of distress, of
inquiring into cases of eviction, and affording relief to evicted
tenants, was denounced by Archbishop M'Cabe as immodest and
wicked
. After this attack upon the character of patriotic Irish
womanhood, Archbishop M'Cabe was created a Cardinal.
On
In 1883
Dr. M'Glynn, a Catholic priest in America, was suspend this priest
M'Glynn for preaching in favour of the Irish revolution
. The
telegram was signed by Cardinal Simeoni. Afterwards Father M'Glynn was
subjected to the sentence of complete excommunication for preaching
revolutionary doctrines upon the land question, but after some years the
Vatican acknowledged its error, and revoked the sentence without
requiring the victim to change his principles.
In all the
examples covered by this brief and very incomplete retrospective glance
into history the instances of the reformer and revolutionists have been
right, the political theories of the Vatican and the clergy
unquestionably wrong. The verdict of history as unquestionably endorses
the former as it condemns the latter. And intelligent Catholics
everywhere accept that verdict. In so far as true religion has triumphed
in the hearts of men
The
capitalist class rose upon the ruins of feudal Catholicism; in the
countries where it gained power its first act was to decree the
confiscation of the estates of the Church. Yet to-day that robber class,
conceived in sin and begotten in iniquity, asks the Church to defend it,
and from the Vatican downwards the clergy respond to the call. Just as
the British Government in Ireland on You
are taking a step in the right direction. You must not take the Catholic
clergy into your pay, but you can take the Catholic clergy under your
care…. Are not lectures at Maynooth cheaper than
State prosecutions? Are not professors less costly than Crown
Solicitors? Is not a large standing army and a great constabulary force
more expensive than the moral police with which by the priesthood of
Ireland you can be thriftily and efficaciously supplied?
It is not to be wondered at that the
spirit of restless revolt which has gained such predominating influence
over the nations of the world should have passed beyond the arena of
politics to assert itself in the domain of practical economy. The
causes likely to create a conflict are unmistakable. They are the
marvellous discoveries of science, the colossal development of industry,
the changed relations between workmen and masters, the enormous wealth
of the few and the abject misery of the many, the more defiant
self-reliance and the more scientific organisation of the workers, and
finally a widespread depravity in moral principle and practice. The
momentous seriousness of the coming crisis fills every thoughtful mind
with anxiety and dread. Wise men discuss it; practical men propose
schemes; platforms, Parliaments, clubs, kings, all think and talk of it.
Nor is there any subject which so completely engrosses the attention of
the world
In our
analysis of the discourses against Socialism which formed the burden of
the Lenten Lectures of Father Kane, S.J., we propose to cite at all
times the text we are criticising, and we regret it is not practicable
within our space to quote in full the entire series of lectures, and can
only trust that our readers before making up their minds upon the
question will procure a verbatim report of these discourses in order
that they may satisfy themselves upon the correctness of our quotations.
As far as it is possible, without destroying the unity of our argument,
we shall follow the plan of the lecture itself, and attempt to answer
each objection as it was formulated. But when an objection is merely
stated, and no attempt made to follow it by a reasoned argument
sustaining the objection we shall not waste our readers' time or our own
by wandering off in an attempt to answer. One point stated by our
reverend opponent, and then immediately forgotten or systematically
ignored, requires to be restated here as the veritable anchor from which
the argument should not be allowed to drift. Had our opponent clung to
that anchor it would not have been possible for him to introduce so much
extraneous matter, so much senseless speculation and foolish slander
as he did introduce in the course of his long-drawn-out criticism. That
point, as stated by Father Kane, is:
Thus,
at the outset of his lectures, in his first discourse, the reverend
gentleman makes it clear that Socialists are bound as Socialists only to
the acceptance of one great principle—
Says our critic: We now come to examine
its principles. One fundamental principle of Socialism is that labour
alone is the cause of value, and that labour alone can give any title to
ownership. This was first formulated by Saint Simon, and is generally
adopted by Socialists. This principle is false. It is founded on an
incomplete explanation of the origin of value. We will put it to the
test later on. At present we need only remark that a thing may be of
real use and therefore of real value to a man who has a right to use it,
even independently of any labour spent upon it. Fruit in a forest would
have real value for a hungry man, even though no human labour had been
given to its growing. Another principle, one invented by Karl Marx, is
what he calls the materialistic conception of history. It is an
application of the wild philosophic dreams of the German,
We are indebted to our critic
for his statement of the importance of this doctrine of the
materialistic conception of history, although we are amused at his
characterisation of the doctrine itself. In the beginning of his
description, ever mindful of the necessity of prejudicing his hearers,
he describes it as an application of the wild philosophic dreams
of nothing but mud and the
forces of mud
.
Let us examine briefly the true context of
this doctrine. While remembering that there are many good Socialists who
do not hold it, and that a belief in it is tools
in its
broadest possible sense to include all the social forces of
wealth-production. It teaches that since the break-up of common
ownership and the clan community all human history has turned around the
struggle of contending classes in society—one class striving to
retain possession, first of the persons of the other class and hold them
as chattel-slaves, and then of the tools of the other class and hold
them as wage-slaves; that all the politics of the world resolved
themselves in the last analysis into a struggle for the
On the first point, viz., the influence of our material surroundings upon our mental processes and conceptions, a few words should be sufficient to establish its substantial truth in the minds of all those who do not fear the light.
Down on the western coast of Ireland the fishermen use, or
did until quite recently, as their sole means of sea-going, a little
boat made simply of a framework covered with animal hides or tarpaulin,
and known as a coracle. At one time in the history of the world such
boats represented the sole means of ocean travel. Now, is it not as
plain as that two and two make four that the outlook upon life, the
conceptions of Man's relation to nature, the theories of international
relations, of life which characterise the age of the
Good Queen Bess
, engaged in slave trading and made a
good profit in the venture; but no Catholic historian or pamphleteer of
the period ever attacked her for that offence, although attacks for
other causes were made in plenty. How is it that the point of view as to
the morality of slavery has changed? It cannot be that religion is
changed, for we are told that religion is the same yesterday, to-day and
for ever. If it is not because it has been discovered that it is cheaper
to hire men and discharge them when the job is done, than it was to buy
men and be compelled to feed them all the time, working or idle, sick or
well, for what reason has the change in our conceptions come? Stated
brutally, the fact is that slavery is immoral because it is dearer than
wage labour. And so with all our other intellectual processes. They
change with the change in our environment, particularly our economic or
social environment.
A negro slave in the Southern States of
America was told by his owner to go up and fasten the shingles on the
top of the roof of his master's dwelling. Boss
, said he to the
slaveowner, if I go up there and fall down and get killed you will
lose that 500 dollars you paid for me; but if you send up that Irish
labourer and he falls down and breaks his neck you won't even have to
bury him, and can get another labourer to-morrow for two dollars a
day
. The Irish labourer was sent up. Moral: Slavery is immoral
because slaves cost too much.
As man has progressed in his
conquest of the secrets of Nature, he has been compelled to accept as
eminently natural that from which his forefathers shrank as a
manifestation of the power of the supernatural; as the progress of
commerce has taken wealth, and the power that goes with wealth, out of
the exclusive ownership of kings and put it in the possession of
capitalists and merchants, political power has acquired a new basis, and
diplomatic relations, from being the expression of the lust for family
Our critic proceeds:
The third principle of Socialism is the theory of Karl
Marx, by which he tries to prove that all capital is robbery. He calls
it the theory of Surplus Value. Value is the worth of a thing. Now, the
worth of a thing may be in that it satisfies some need, as a piece of
bread or a blanket; or the worth of a thing may be in that you can
barter it for something else, as if you have more bread than you want,
but have not a blanket, you may give some of your bread to a man who has
no bread but can spare a blanket. The first kind of value is use value,
or own worth. The second kind of value is exchange value, or market
worth. Instead of mere direct barter, money is used in civilized nations
as an equivalent and standard for exchange value. Now, Karl Marx asserts
that exchange value, i.e. the worth of a thing as it may be bought or
sold, arises only from the labour spent on it. He goes on to say that a
workman only gets his wages according to the market value of his
labour—that is to say, he is only paid for his time and
toil—whereas the value of his labour, i.e. the worth which results
from his labour, may be far in excess of the wages which he gets. Marx
calls this value or worth which results from labour over and above the
wages of labour, which is equivalent to the labourer's support, Marx
calls this overworth surplus value. He states that while it goes to the
pocket of the employer, it is really the property of the workman,
because it is the result of his labour. This surplus value is really
capital, and is used by the employer to create more surplus
value—that is to say, more capital. Let me put this in another
way: while the value of a thing for a man's own use may depend on the
thing itself, the value of a thing in the market arises only from the
labour spent on it. But the labour spent on it may also have its market
value in winning its wage, or it may also have its use value in
producing greater value than its wage. But this use value arises from
labour as well as the exchange value, and, therefore, Now, as to the Socialist system.
In the official declaration of the English Socialists we read—The
object of Socialism is the establishment of a system of society,
based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and
instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by, and in the
interest of, the whole community
.
There is little to refute here that will not have readily occurred to the mind of the intelligent reader. In fact, the haste with which Father Kane left this branch of the subject evinced his knowledge of its dangerous nature. The exposition of the true nature of capital, viz., that it is stored-up, unpaid labour, forms the very basis of the Socialist criticism of modern society, and its method of wealth production; it is the fundamental idea of modern Marxist Socialism, and yet in a discourse covering four columns of small type in the
A
bottle of good wine will have more exchange value
.
Does the reverend father not know that if good wine can be produced as
cheaply as bad wine, and in as great quantity, then good wine will come
down to the same price as the inferior article? And if good wine could
be produced as cheaply as porter it would be sold at the same price as
porter is now—heavenly thought! It is the labour embodied in the
respective articles, including the labour of keeping in storage,
paying rental for vaults, etc., that determines their exchange value.
Wine kept in vaults for years commands higher prices than new wine,
but could chemists give new wine the same flavour as is possessed by
stored-up wine, then the new would bring down the price of the old to a
price governed by the amount of labour embodied in the new.
A
pair of boots carved out of wood with long and careful labour will fetch
less in the market than a simple pair of brogues
. How illuminating!
But what governs the price of the brogues? Why, the amount of labour
socially necessary to produce them. The amount of labour necessary to
produce an article under average social conditions governs its
exchange value. Boots carved out of wood with long and careful
labour
are not produced under average social conditions; in
discussing the economic question we discuss governing conditions, not
exceptions. Hence the exchange value of boots such as those instanced by
Father Kane is as problematical as the moral value of his
hair-splitting. If you do not believe labour cost governs the exchange
value of a commodity, ask a Dublin master builder to tell you what
factors he takes into account when he is asked to give an estimate for
building an altar. If he is a Catholic he will cast up his estimate with
the same items as if he were a Protestant—that is to say, he will
count the cost of labour, including the cost of labour embodied in the
raw material, and he will base his estimate upon that cost. Ask any
manufacturer, whether employing two men or two
The learned gentleman
winds up his lecture with a sneer at Socialist proposals, and an
unwilling admission of the terrible logic of our position in future
politics. He says: The means and method of the Socialist
have now to be considered. Here we have to consider their destructive
and constructive methods—what and how they are to knock down, what
and how they are to build up. Here, however, we meet with an endless
difference of Socialist opinions. As to the knocking down process, some
Socialists are very enterprising, and appear to quite fall in with the
anarchist programme of the dagger, the firebrand and the bomb. Others
prefer to work through parliament by legal voting and by legal measures.
Most of them appear from their speeches and writings to be very little
troubled with scruples as to the right or wrong of means to be employed.
Some fashionable and aesthetic dabblers in Socialism, amongst whom are
men of culture, education and wealth—as, for instance, are some
prominent members of the Fabian Society—would work very quietly
and very gently; they would even contemplate offering some compensation
to the owners whose property they stole, but more probably when the real
crash came they would gracefully retire with their culture, their
education and their money. A man who makes £25,000 a year by
amusing the public is not the sort of man who is likely, when the time
comes, to willingly give up all that he owns for the honour of sweeping
a street crossing as a Socialist. That is only the superficial
It is
surely not necessary to point out that according to the Socialist
doctrine the capitalist class are themselves doing much of the
constructive work; they, pushed by their economic necessities,
concentrate industries, eliminate useless labour and abolish useless
plants, and prepare industry for its handling by officials elected by
the workers therein. On the other hand, the army of labour, more
enlightened, better organised and more scientifically led
, banded
into industrial unions patterned after the industry in which they are
employed, will have prepared the workers to take possession of the
productive and distributive forces on the day the incapable capitalist
class are forced to surrender to a proletariat
.
The Rights of Man is a doctrine popularised by
the bourgeois (capitalist) philosophers of the eighteenth century, and
has no mob
, as he elegantly terms the common people for whom his
Master died upon the Cross. We do not propose to follow the reverend
gentlemen in all his excursions away from the subject, but shall content
ourselves with citing and refuting those passages which have a real and
permanent bearing upon the question at issue.
He begins:
Man's right to live is also the right to take the means
wherewith to live. Hence he can make use of such material means as are
necessary in order that he should live. But he cannot make use of
certain necessary means if others may use them also. Hence his right to
use these means is at the same time a right to exclude others from their
use. If a man has a right to eat a definite piece of bread, he has a
right that no one else shall eat it. We will set this truth in another
light. The right of private ownership may be considered either in the
abstract, or as it is realised in concrete form. That right in the
abstract means that by the very law of nature there is inherent in man a
right to take hold of and apply for his own support those material means
of livelihood which are not already in the right possession of another
man. What those particular means are is not decided in the concrete by
Nature's law. Nature gives the right to acquire, and by acquiring to
own. But some partial fact is required in order to apply that abstract
law to a concrete thing. The fact is naturally the occupying The Socialists,
working on the poor man's envy of the rich, endeavour to destroy private
property, and maintain that personal property should become the common
property of all. They are emphatically unjust, because they would rob
the lawful possessor…. If one man hires out to
another his strength or his industry, he does this in order to receive
in return the means of livelihood, with the intention of acquiring a
real right, not merely to his wage, but also to the free disposal of it.
Should he invest this wage in land it is only his wage in another
form…. It is precisely in this power of
disposal that ownership consists, whether it be question of land or
other property. Socialists…strike at the liberty
of every wage-earner, for they deprive him of the liberty of disposing
of his wages. Every man has, by the law of Nature, the right to possess
property of his own…. It must be within his
right to own things, not merely for the use of the moment, not merely
things that perish in their use, but such things whose usefulness is
permanent and stable…. Man is prior to the state,
and he holds his natural rights prior to any right of the State…. When man spends the keenness of
his mind and the strength of his body in winning the fruits of Nature,
he thereby makes his own that spot of Nature's field which he tills,
that spot on which he sets the seal of his own personality. It cannot
but be just that that spot should be his own, free from outside
intrusion.
If one of the
boys at the National Schools could not reason more logically than that
he would remain in the dunce's seat all his schooldays. Imagine a priest
who defends landlordism as Father Kane and the Pope does saying, Man's right to live is also the right to take the means wherewith to
live. His right to use these means is at the same time a right to
exclude others from their use.The
man who has tilled a field through the winter and spring has a right to
hold as his own the harvest which he has earned
, and imagining that
he is putting forward an argument against Socialism. Socialists do not
propose to interfere with any man's right to hold what he has
earned
; but they do emphatically insist that such a man, peasant or
worker, shall not be compelled to give up the greater part, or any, of
what he has earned
, to an idle class whose members toil not,
neither do they spin
, but who have attained their hold upon the
nation's property by ruthless force, spoliation and fraud.
That is to say,
that a man has the right to take the means wherewith to live, and he has
also the right to prevent other men taking the means wherewith to live.
The one right cancels the other. When the supply of a thing is limited,
and that thing is necessary, absolutely necessary, to existence, as is
land, water, and the means of producing wealth, does it not follow that
to allow those things to be made private property enable the owners of
them to deny Man the right to live
, except he agrees to surrender
the greater portion of the fruits of his toil to the owners?
natural rights
of which the reverend gentleman discoursed
so eloquently mean for 23,000 families in Dublin the right to live in
one room per family—living, sleeping, eating and drinking and
dying in the narrow compass of the four walls of one room.
When man spends the keenness of his mind and the strength of his
body in winning the fruits of Nature he thereby makes his own that spot
of Nature's field which he tills
, so says his Holiness, as quoted by
Father Kane. It follows then that the Irish peasantry, like the
peasantry of Europe in general, are and were the real owners of the
soil, and that the feudal aristocracy, the landlord class, whose
proudest boast it was, and is, that they have never soiled their hands
by labour, are and were thieves exacting by force tribute from the
lawful owners of the soil. Yet those thieves have ever been supported by
the hierarchy in their possession of property against the peasants who
had made it their own by spending the keenness of their mind and the
strength of their body
in tilling it.
The working class of
the world, by their keenness of mind and their strength of body, have
made everything in the world their own—its land, its factories,
its ships, its railroads, its houses, everything on earth and sea has
been consecrated
Father Kane, in this portion of his address, came to curse Socialism,
but his arguments serve to bless it. Let me bring from
another world—the old Pagan world—the greatest philosopher
of pure reason, as witness to the truth of the same principle.
Aristotle wrote: Socialism wears a goodly face and affects an air of
philanthropy. The moment it speaks it is eagerly listened to. It speaks
of a marvellous love that shall grow out from it between man and man.
This impression is emphasised when the speaker rails against the
shortcomings of existing institutions, giving as the reason for all our
shortcomings the fact that we are not Socialists. These evils of human
life are not, however, owing to the absence of Socialism, but to the
always inevitable presence of human frailty
.
This is a puzzle. The word Socialism, and the Socialist principles,
were unheard of until the beginning of the nineteenth century; and
Aristotle flourished in the year 384 B.C. Hence to quote Aristotle as
writing about Socialism is like saying that Owen Roe O'Neill sent a
telegram to the Catholic Confederation at Kilkenny in 1647, or that
George Washington misfortune makes strange
bedfellows
.
Father Kane says: We will go
back to the old Greek philosopher, Aristotle, the philosopher compared
to whom our
In a criticism of Draper's
Owing to the use which the Arabians had made of the name of Aristotle, his name had become a word of offence to Christians, so much so that even Roger Bacon said that his works should be burnt; and further on,
St. Thomas (Aquinas) took up the philosophy of Aristotle and, purifying it of its Pagan errors, he established Christian truth out of the reasoning of the Greek philosopher. So that, according to Father Kane, Aristotle
founded his philosophy on fact, and worked it out through common sense, and according to Dr. O'Riordan this philosophy of fact and common sense was subversive of Christianity until it was
purified of its Pagan errors. Well, we Socialists, while second to none in our admiration for the encyclopaedic knowledge of Aristotle, will carry the purifying process begun by St. Thomas Aquinas a step further. We will purify Aristotle's philosophy of the teaching he derived from the slave-world in which he lived,
We do not propose to follow the reverend gentleman in his wonderful
attempt to discredit the Marxist position on value; that has been dealt
with sufficiently already in the passage upon value in exchange, in
the criticism of the first discourse, and the attempt to elaborate his
position by our opponent in his second discourse is about as
enlightening as an attempt to square the circle generally is. It is
summed up in his declaration that It is contrary to Divine Law even to covet our
neighbour's field. The Church of Christ has always approved, both in Christian democracy, by the very fact
that it is Christian, must be based upon the principles of Divine Faith
in its endeavours for the betterment of the masses. Hence to Christian
democracy justice is sacred. It must maintain that the right of
acquiring and possessing property cannot be gainsaid, and it must
safeguard the various distinctions and degrees which are indispensable
in every well-ordered commonwealth. It is clear, therefore, that there
is nothing common between Social and Christian democracy. They differ
from each other as much as the sect of Socialism differs from the Church
of Christ.Labour alone cannot create use
value, therefore Labour alone cannot constitute exchange value
.
Which is equivalent to saying that appetite and desire are the real
arbiters in civilised life and under normal conditions of the basis on
which articles exchange among human beings. The appetite and desire of
human beings for water and for bicycles will illustrate to the simplest
mind the absurdity of our opponents' position. Water under normal
conditions in a modern community will not fetch a half-penny the
bucketful, but bicycles retail easily at £7 and £8 apiece.
Yet our desire and appetite for water is based upon a human necessity so
imperative that we would die without its satisfaction, but countless
millions go through life without even straddling a bicycle. What makes
so cheap the article without which we would die? The small amount of
labour necessary to convey it from the mountains to our doors, of
course. And what makes so costly the article that is not a necessity at
all? The comparatively great amount of labour embodied in its
production, of course. Then, what fixes the exchange value of an article
in the normal, modern market? Its cost in labour, certainly.
Dear, oh dear!
What heretics we must be! And yet we are in good company. Saints and
Pontiffs of the Catholic Church have gone before us on this road, and
the wildest sayings of modern Socialist agitators are soft and conservative beside some of the doctrines which ere now have been put forth as
sound Catholic teachings. Read: The use of all things
that are found in this world ought to be common to all men. Only the
most manifest iniquity makes one say to the other,
.—St. Clement.This belongs to
me, that to you
. What thing do you call
.—St. Basil the Great.yours
? What thing are you able to say is yours? From whom have
you received it? You speak and act like one who upon an occasion going
early to the theatre, and possessing himself without obstacle of the
seats destined for the remainder of the public, pretends to oppose their
entrance in due time, and to prohibit them seating themselves,
arrogating to his own sole use property that is really destined to
common use. And it is precisely in this manner act the
richTherefore if
one wishes to make himself the master of every wealth, to possess it and
to exclude his brothers even to the third or fourth part (generation),
such a wretch is no more a brother but an inhuman tyrant, a cruel
barbarian, or rather a ferocious beast of which the mouth is always open
to devour for his personal use the food of the other
companions
.—St. Gregory. Nic.Nature furnishes its
wealth to all men in common. God beneficently has created all things
that their enjoyment be common to all living beings, and that the earth
become the common possession of all.
.—St. Ambrose.The earth of which they
are born is common to all, and therefore the fruit that the earth brings
forth belongs without distinction to all
.—St. Gregory the
Great.The rich man is a thief
.—St. Chrysostom.
Our reverend critic proceeds: To
enchain men with fetters of equality would be to degrade the wise, the
good, the energetic, the noble amongst them, to the depths of the men
who are nearest to the brute. Freedom must have fair play. Man must be
free to make and mould his own life according to his own talent, his own
opportunity, his own energy, his own ambition, his own merit, and his
own will, according to the circumstances in which Providence has placed
him. But you say is it not a pity that, owing to the mere accident of
birth, a brainless and worthless creature should wear a ducal crown,
while a man of mind and character is sweeping the crossing of a street?
Yes, to merely human view it is a pity, just as it is a pity that one
girl should be born beautiful while another girl is born ugly; just as
it is a pity that one man should be born weak-minded and weak-kneed
while another man is born with a treasure-trove of talent and with a
golden mine of sterling character; just as
The first part of this is clap-trap: the second is rank blasphemy.
The clap-trap consists in the pretence that the Socialist idea of
equality involves the idea that men should be reduced to one moral or
intellectual level. Trade unionists are generally and rightfully in
favour of a minimum wage—a wage below which no worker shall be
depressed. Unscrupulous employers and ignorant journalists and
politicians dealing with this demand strive to make the thoughtless
believe that a minimum wage will prevent higher wages being paid for
extra skill. In other words, they speak as if it were a maximum wage
that was demanded. So with the Socialist idea of equality. Like the
trade unionist our demand is for a level
The second part is, we repeat,
rankly blasphemous. The reverend gentleman, unable to answer the obvious
question hand of God
in shaping the faces, forms,
minds and characters of His creatures, and the historical and social
conditions which have created dukes and crossing-sweepers, brainless
aristocrats and intelligent slum-dwellers, morally poisonous kings and
Christian-minded hod-carriers, vile ladies idling in mansions and
clean-souled women slaving over the washtub. The attempt is an insult to
our intelligence. We, as individuals, are not personally responsible
for our faces, forms or minds; these are the result of forces over which
we had and have no control. But the gross injustices of our social
system we are responsible for, in the degree in which we help or
acquiesce in their perpetuation. In the degree in which we support them
to-day we become participators in the crimes upon which they were built.
And what were those crimes? Need we remind our readers of the origin of
private property in Ireland? It had its root in the adulterous treason
of an Irish chief; it was founded upon the betrayal of liberty, and
enforced by the wholesale slaughter and enslavement of the Irish people.
Must we remind our readers that if they seek for the origin of
aristocratic property in Ireland they must seek for it not in the will
of a beneficent Deity, as this bold blasphemer alleges, nor in titles
won by honest labour on the soil, but in the records of English
marauders in the stories of poisonings and treacheries told in the state
papers of the English ruling class, in the light of the burning homes of
Munster in the wake of the armies of Inchiquin,nothing save carcases and ashes
, in the piteous tale of the
imprisoned jurors of ConnaughtCommission to inquire into
defective titles
in Connaught. As all lands in Ireland under the
ancient Celtic system were common property it followed that all Irish
titles were defective under the feudal law of England. Much land fell
into the hands of the English adventurers under this Commission
,
and when the Irish juries refused to be bribed or terrorised into
returning verdicts to suit the Commissioners they were promptly
imprisoned and their property confiscated.
Or shall it be necessary to
recall to our readers the grim fact that the origin of great estates in
England is found in the court records, which tell us that in the reign
of Good Queen BessIf we kill them all
we shall have no one to live upon
; that in Scotland 15,000 people
were evicted off one estate in the nineteenth century—the
Sutherland clearances; that in fact in every European country the title
deeds to aristocratic property have been written in the blood of the
poor, and that the tree of capitalism has been watered with the tears of
the toilers in every age and clime and country.
Next, wonder of
wonders, our clerical friend becomes solicitous for a free press and
free speech. He declares: In Socialism there could be no
healthy public opinion, no public opinion at all except that
manufactured by officialdom The Will
of the People
, and The Will of the People
would be nothing
more than the whim of the tyrant mob, the most blind and ruthless tyrant
of all, because blindly led by blind leaders. Brave men fear no foe, and
free men will brook no fetter. You will have thought, in your boyhood,
with hot tears, of the deeds of heroes who fought and fell in defence of
the freedom of their fatherland. That enthusiasm of your boyhood will
have become toned down with maturer years in its outward expression, but
mature years will have made it more strong and staunch for ever, more
ready to break forth with all the energy of your life and with all the
sacrifice of your death in defiance of slavery. You may have rough times
to face; you may have rough paths to tread, you may have hard
taskmasters to urge you toil, and hard paymasters to stint your wage;
you may have hard circumstances to limit your life within a narrow
field; but after all your life is your own, and your home is your own,
and your wage is your own, and you are free. Freedom is your birthright.
Even our dilapidated modern nations allow to a man his
birthright—freedom. You would fight for your birthright, freedom,
against any man, against any nation, against the world; and if you could
not live for your freedom, you would die for it. You would not sell your
birthright, freedom, to Satan; and I do not think that you are likely to
surrender your birthright, freedom, to the Socialist. Stand back! We
are free men.
After you have done laughing at this hysterical
outburst we will proceed to calmly discuss its central propositions. To
take the latter part first, it is very amusing to hear a man, to whom a
comfortable living is assured, assure us that we ought to tell the
Socialist that we will take our chance in the struggle of
life
.
He speaks of our birthright, freedom
, which is
allowed us even by dilapidated modern nations, and that we ought not to
surrender it to the Socialists. In Ireland 87 per cent. of the working
class earn less than 20
How can a person, or a class, be free when its means of life are in the grasp of another? How can the working class be free when the sole chance of existence of its individual members depends upon their ability to make a profit for others?
The argument about the freedom of the press—a strange argument from such a source—is too absurd to need serious consideration. Truly, all means of printing will be the common property of all, and if any opposition party, any new philosophy, doctrine, science, or even hair-brained scheme has enough followers to pay society for the labour of printing its publications, society will have no more right nor desire to refuse the service than a government of the present day has to refuse the use of its libraries to the political enemies who desire to use those sources of knowledge to its undoing. It will be as possible to hire a printing machine from the community as it will be to hire a hall. Under Socialism the will of the people will be supreme, all officials will be elected from below and hold their position solely during good behaviour, and as the interests of private property, which according to St. Clement are the sole origin of contention among men, will no longer exist, there will be little use of law-making machinery, and no means whereby officialdom can corrupt the people.
This
will be the rule of the people at last realised. But says Father Kane,
at last showing the cloven foot, the will of the people would be
nothing more than the whim of the tyrant mob, the most blind and
ruthless tyrant of all, because blindly led by blind leaders
. Spoken
like a good Tory and staunch friend of despotism! What is the political
and social record of the mob in history as against the record of the
other classes? There made in God's image
murdered his fellow-man for daring to
worship God in a way different from that of the majority; it was then
that governments answered their critics by the torture, when racks and
thumbscrews pulled apart the limbs of men and women, when political and
religious opponents of the state had their naked feet and legs placed in
tin boots of boiling oil, their heads crushed between the jaws of a
vice, their bodies stretched across a wheel while their bones were
broken by blows of an iron bar, water forced down their throats until
their stomachs distended and burst, and when little children toiled in
mine and factory for twelve, fourteen and sixteen hours per day. But at
last, with the development of manufacturing, came the gathering together
of the mob, and consequent knowledge of its numbers and power, and
with the gathering together also came the possibility of acquiring
education. Then the the most blind and ruthless tyrant of all
,
with one sweep of its grimy, toil-worn hand, swept the stocks, the
thumbscrew, the wheel, the boots of burning oil, the torturer's vice and
the stake into the oblivion of history, and they who to-day would seek
to view those arguments of kings, nobles, and ecclesiastics must seek
them in the lumber room of the museum.
In this civilising,
humanising work the mob had at all times to meet and master the hatred
and opposition of kings and nobles; and there is not in history a
record of any movement for abolishing torture, preventing war, establishing popular suffrage, or shortening the hours of labour led by the
hierarchy. Against all this achievement of the mob its enemies have
but one instance of abuse of power—the French reign of
terror—and they suppress the fact that this classic instance of
mob fury lasted but eight months, whereas the cold-blooded cruelty of
the ruling classes which provoked it had endured for a
All hail, then, to the mob, the incarnation of progress!
The old pagan idea that the state is everything and owns everything, so as to leave the individual man without any right except such as is conceded to him by the state—that
The intelligent reader
will note that the reverend critic is entirely incapable of grasping
the conception of a state in which the people should rule instead of
being creatures of an irresponsible power, as the people were under the
pagan powers of Rome, to whom he is referring. He says, It
(Socialism) would change our home into a mere lodging-house where are
fed and sheltered the
.
Thus it is that he cannot clear his mind of the monarchical conception
of the state; a state which should be a social instrument in the hands
of its men and women, where state powers would be wielded as a means
This attempt to develop this theory of the state plunges
him into a mass of contradictions. Read: The first and most fundamental principle of ethics is that whereas
amongst lesser creatures physical force or animal instinct impels each
thing to act as is befitting its nature, to act in the actual
circumstances, so as to achieve the right order of its kind and the
right end of its existence, man, not flung forward by unreasoning power,
but led by reason's light, contemplates the order of relations that are
around him, and weighing their relative necessity or importance, acts so
that his action shall be in keeping with his own nature and in harmony
with the right conditions in which his life is cast. Now, right and duty
are the moral aspects of these fact-relations, and have their moral
force according to the deeper order and more fundamental necessity of
these fact-relations which are the cause of their existence and the
measure of their power. The reason for man's personal rights is in his
actual existence. Hence, such rights are paramount above all. The reason
of the family is in the insufficiency of man alone to secure the right
development of human nature. The reason of civil society is in the
insufficiency of the family alone to attain that fuller perfection of
human nature which is the heritage of its birth, but which it can only
reach through the help of many homesteads united into one common weal.
Hence, civil society is only intended by nature to be the helper of the
family, not its master; to be its safeguard, not its destroyer; to be in
a right true sense its servant, but in no sense its owner. Hence, those
Socialistic theories which would hand over the family and the individual
to the supreme command of the state are false to reason and rebel
against right. Rather it is the interest of the state itself to
recognise that its welfare and its security rest upon the right,
independence, and deep-rooted stability of the families of which it is
the flower and the fruit. A state that is tossed about in its
social and political existence by the fluctuating tide of transient
individual opinions, ambitions, actions, cannot have that healthy,
hardy, deathless spirit which
Surely here is a
Daniel come to judgment! We had to read this passage over several times
to satisfy ourselves that it was not a quotation from a Socialist
writer, instead of what it purports to be—a part of the discourse of the reverend gentleman himself. For it is the reasoning upon
which is built that materialist interpretation of history the lecturer
has so eloquently denounced. If the reader will turn to the first
lecture he will see that the doctrine of Marx, as explained by Father
Kane, teaches that the economic conditions in which man moves, governs
or determines his conceptions of right and wrong, his social, ethical
and religious opinions. Father Kane there denounced this doctrine in his
most violent language. Now, in the part just quoted, he himself affirms
the same doctrine. He says: The first and most
If this is not an affirmation of
the Socialist doctrine that our conceptions of right and wrong, and
the political and governmental systems built upon them, have the
cause of their existence and the measure of their power
in the
fact-relation
of man and his fellow-man and not in any divine or
philosophical system of mere thought, then language fails to convey any
meaning. The remainder of the quotation quite as effectually cuts the
ground from under the lecturer's A state that is tossed about in its social and political
existence by the fluctuating tide of transient individual opinions,
ambitions, actions, cannot have that healthy, hardy, deathless spirit
which vivifies into the same life not merely the chance companions of a
day, but the successive generations of a nation
. Is not this a
lifelike picture of the capitalist state and its endeavour to build a
system of society which seeks a healthy national existence and social
conscience in transient individual opinions, ambitions, and
actions
, instead of in an ordered co-operation of all for the common
good of all? The whole passage we have quoted is essentially Socialist,
and opposed to that capitalism its author defends. If the doctrine of
economic determinism is heresy, then Father Kane was preaching heresy
from the pulpit.
As if conscious of his slip our critic
immediately makes haste to divert attention by a lurid description of
the Socialist doctrine of divorce
. Socialists as such have no
doctrine of divorce, but a little inconsistency like that does nor deter
our opponents.
There is no Socialist government in the world
to-day, but almost every civilised nation has divorce laws, and the
least Socialist nations and classes have the most divorces; America and
its capitalist class, for example. Our clerical friends proceed upon the
maxim of their sister profession, the lawyers—When you have a
bad case abuse your opponent's attorney
, and hence the constant
attempt to slander Socialists upon this point. Now, what is the real
truth on this matter? It is easily stated. Socialists are bound to agree
upon one fundamental, and upon that only. That fundamental is, in the
language of Father Kane, that all wealth-producing power, and all
that pertains to it, belongs to the ownership and control of the
State
. Hence, upon all other subjects there is, and will be, the
widest possible diversity of opinion. Divorce is one of those
non-essential, non-fundamental points upon which order themselves
reverently before their superiors
, with him as a type? The capitalist.
The divorce evil of to-day arises not out of Socialist
teaching, but out of that capitalist system, whose morals and philosophy
are based upon the idea of individualism, and the cash nexus as the sole
bond in society. Such teaching destroys the sanctity of the marriage
bond, and makes of love and the marriage bed things to be bought and
sold. Can it be wondered at that such teaching as that which exalts the
Certain
Socialists, horrified at this rising stream of immorality, have sought
to find a remedy in the proposal that marriage be regarded as a private
matter over which the state shall have no authority. They do so as
individuals, and many equally good Socialists believe that such an
idea is flatly opposed to the Socialist philosophy; but in itself the
proposal carries Divorce in the Socialist sense means that woman would be willing to
stoop to be the mistress of one man after another.
A more unscrupulous slander upon womanhood was
never uttered or penned. Remember that this was said in Ireland, and do
you not wonder that some Irishwomen—some persons of the same sex
as the slanderer's mother—did not get up and hurl the lie back in
his teeth, and tell him that it was not law which kept them virtuous,
that if all marriage laws were abolished to-morrow, it would not make
women willing to stoop to be the mistress of one man after
another
? Aye, verily, the uncleanness lies not in this alleged
Socialist proposal, but in the minds of those who so interpret it. The
inability of Father Kane to appreciate the innate morality of womanhood,
and the superiority of the morals of the women of the real people to
that of the class he is defending, recalls to mind the fact that the
Council of the Church held at Mâcon in the sixth century gravely
debated the question as to whether woman had or had not a soul, and that
the affirmation that she had was only carried by a small majority. Many
of the early Fathers of the Church were, indeed, so bitter in their
denunciation of women and of marriage that their opinions read like the
expressions of madmen when examined in the cold light of the twentieth
century. Origen said: Marriage is unholy and unclean—a means of
sensual lust
. St. Jerome declared: Marriage is at the least a vice; all that we can do is to excuse and justify it
; and Tertullian, in his hatred of women, thundered forth boldly that which Father Kane dared only insinuate: Woman
, he preaches, thou oughtest always to walk in mourning
and rags, thine eyes filled with
. Thus throughout the centuries persists
the idea of the churchmen that women can only be kept virtuous by
law.
In his further quotation Father Kane is equally
disingenuous. Thus: Listen now to one of the great
German Socialist authorities, Bebel, who, in his famous book,
Every child that comes into the world, whether male or female, is a
welcome addition to society; for society beholds in every child the
continuation of itself and its own further development. It, therefore,
perceives from the very outset that its duty, according to its power, is
to provide for the new-born child…. It is evident
that the mother herself must nurse the child as long as possible and
necessary…. When the child waxes stronger, the
other children await it for common amusement under public direction.
Behold their plan: All boys and girls, as soon as they are weaned, are to be taken from their parents and brought up, boys and girls together, first in State nurseries, and then, boys and girls together, in state boarding schools, but brought up without any religion whatever. Thus the child would grow up a stranger to its father and mother, without the hallowed influence of a happy home.
The reader will observe there is nothing whatever
in the words quoted from Bebel which justifies the statement that the
child is to be taken from the parents, or brought up a stranger to its
father and mother, or without the influence of a home. There is simply
the statement that it is the duty of the state to provide for the care,
education, and physical and mental development of the child. All the
rest is merely read into the statement by the perverted malevolence of
our critic. And yet this same critic had declared, as already quoted in
this chapter, the reason of civil society is in the
. But when he comes across the Socialist proposal to supplement
and help out that insufficiency
he forthwith makes it the
occasion for the foulest slanders.
Most scientific Socialists
appear to follow Karl Marx in his theory that economic forces alone
determine the evolution of all else in the world. In other words, to put
the matter in a broad, blunt way, they assert that financial or
business or trade conditions determine and decide the inevitable course
and development of all other matters—intellectual, moral, social,
and religious. Marx says: The sum total of the
conditions of wealth production constitutes the economic structure of
society, the real basis on which is raised an ethical and political
superstructure to which correspond certain forms of social consciousness…. It is not the mind of man which
determines his life in society, but it is this material economic life
that determines his mind. The world has beheld
one fact which gives the lie to all that flimsy theory. Christ brought
into the world so deep and wide and lasting a change that there has been
no other ever like it. That change was hostile to economic causes; it
came from outside the business world. But it determined a new world of
thought and conduct, and through these moral causes it changed the
social and economic lives of men. It brought into the civilised world
the duty and honour of labour, the breaking of the fetters of the slave,
the lifting up of woman to be man's helpmate and equal, not his mere
plaything or his property, the recognition of the rights of the poor to
the ownership of the super-abundance of the wealthy.
Such a statement as that Christ brought into the
world a change hostile to economic causes could only be made by a
lecturer who presumed either upon lack of historical knowledge on the
part of his audience, or upon the fact that as he spoke canting, fed
classes
—refused to acknowledge His message and intrigued to
bring about His crucifixion, whereas it was the common people
who heard Him gladly
in Judea, as it was the slaves and
labourers who formed the bulk of His believers throughout the Gentile
world until the fury of the persecutions had passed. Roman and Jewish
historians alike speak contemptuously of early Christianity as a
religion of slaves and labourers. These early Christians had been
socially enslaved. Christ and His disciples spoke to them of redemption,
of freedom. They interpreted, rightly or wrongly, the words to mean an
earthly redemption, a freedom here and now as a prelude possibly to the
freedom hereafter; and hence they joined with enthusiasm the sect hated
by their oppressors. We have had a similar experience in Ireland. The
passionate adherence of the Irish to Catholicity in Reformation times
was no doubt largely due to the fact that the English Government had
embraced Protestantism.
For the last portion of the part quoted
it should not be necessary to point out to anyone other than Father Kane
that of all those things which he asserts Christianity has Universal
ownership by the state of all means of wealth production is one cardinal
doctrine of Socialism. The Erfurt platform lays down: Now consider the colossal magnitude of such a
scheme. The taking of a census entails a strange amount of time and
trouble. Try to imagine what it would mean to ascertain the wants,
needs, desires, helps or difficulties of every man, woman and child in a
nation, not merely in one branch, but in every possible branch of human
life; all possible food stuffs, all possible dress stuffs, all possible
lodging accommodation, all possible means of transit, travel or
communication. Then imagine what it would mean that all this should be
catered for; that all the possible labour should be applied in the right
time, place and manner; that all the possible materials and brought
into the world
most are not here yet. The duty and honour of
labour
. The greatest honours of church and state are reserved for
those classes whose members do not labour, and highest honours of all
for those who claim that their ancestors have not laboured for a hundred
generations. The lifting up of
. She has not
yet attained to that elevation in fact, and the Socialists are the only
ones who claim it for her in their programmes, whereas his Holiness the
Pope has recently denounced her for seeking the right to vote. The
rights of the poor to the superabundance of the wealthy
is so far
from being recognised that a starving man would be sent for seven years
to prison for stealing a loaf of bread, and a rich man sent to the House
of Lords for stealing a nation's liberty. Private
property in the means of production has become incompatible with their
proper utilisation and full development
. The platform of the
Socialists of the United States lays down: The aim of Socialism is
the organisation of the working classes for the purpose of transforming
the present system of private ownership of the means of production into
collective ownership by the entire people
. The International
Socialist Convention at Paris, 1900, lays down as an essential condition
of membership the admission of the essential principles of Socialism;
amongst them, the socialisation of the means of production and
distribution
.
With a childishness born of a training in a profession not
concerned with this world
, the reverend gentleman does not realise
that the task of ascertaining and catering for the wants, needs,
desires
, etc., of the nation is done every day by the common
everyday men and women he sees around him—done in a blundering,
imperfect manner it is true, but still it is done. And what is done
imperfectly by the competing forces of capitalism to-day can be done
more perfectly by the organised forces of industry under Socialism.
Government under Socialism will be largely a matter of statistics. The
chief administrative body of the nation will be a collection of
representatives from the various industries and professions. From the
industries they represent these administrators will learn of the demand
for the articles they manufacture; the industries will learn from the
storekeepers of the national stores and warehouses what articles arc
demanded by the general public who purchase at these stores, and the
cumulative total of the reports given by storekeepers and industries
will tell the chief administrative body (Congress, if you will) how much
to produce, and where to place it to meet the demand. Likewise the
reports brought to the representatives from their industrial union as to
the relative equipment and power of their factories in each district
will enable them to place their orders in the places most suited to fill
them, and to supervise and push forward
Father Kane says:
They suppose that they could avoid class distinctions,
but unless the state should lapse into barbarism it must have its
specialists, its great engineers, its great doctors, its great
scientists, its great writers, its great statisticians, its great
inventors, its great administrators, and, above all, its great
officials. All these men should have their lives devoted to their
profession with material comfort and studious ease, with high incentive
to their talents' use, and with right reward for their labour done.
Observe the phrase, At present the two great Socialist organisations in the
United States are at war. Amongst other choice epithets bandied between
themwith high incentive to
their talents' use
, and its implied meaning, with great
fellow
, it is always a paid servant of Christ who gets
up to denounce the idea, and to insist that progress will cease unless
men gifted by God get the right to plunder their fellow-men. And yet
Christ said, Give, hoping for nothing in return
. Fortunately,
history knows and teaches us better than the churchmen. It teaches us
that the greatest engineers, doctors, scientists, writers,
statisticians, and inventors
reaped nothing but their labour for
their pains, that for the most part they died in poverty, and that the
highest incentive they ever possessed was the inward desire to give
outward expression to the divine passion to createspecialists
desire?
scabs
. Amongst German Socialists there are signs of a
cleavage, which must inevitably split in twain any Socialist state. A
fierce jealousy between the educated and the proletarians; between on
the one hand, writers or speakers of good family, mostly the madcaps of
atheistic universities, and, on the other hand, the mere workmen, who
are suspicious of any leaders who do not belong to the labour class.
This is easily understood, for Socialism must logically work out into a
solid class
In previous portions of his tirade the reverend
lecturer has must
inevitably split in twain the Socialist state
, but he carefully
avoids explaining how the existence of two or more parties will destroy
Socialism any more than it destroys capitalism. There are two, and more
than two, purely capitalist parties in every nation in the civilised
world. The fact that Socialists are as a rule men and women of strong
individuality who fiercely contest for their rights, while it makes
occasional unseemly squabbles in the Socialist ranks to-day, is the
best guarantee that they are not likely to be working for a system which
will crush their individuality or destroy their personal or political
liberty. Also if splits in the party, harsh words among the members, and
even hatreds could destroy the movement it would have died long ago,
instead of growing stronger and more rapidly every day. And surely when
we remember how fiercely hatreds have developed within the Christian
fold—how the Dominicans have fought the Jesuits and the Jesuits
have denounced the Dominicans, how the Lutherans have burned the Calvinists and the Calvinists have burned the Lutherans—we have no
right to demand from an organisation of mere earthly origin more than
was shown by organisations claiming Divine inspiration. Quarrels among
Socialists, forsooth! Have we not had quarrels among Catholics? For
sixty-eight years the Christian world saw two Popes directing and
claiming its allegiance. The Pope at Avignon, supported by half of the
bishops and clergy of the world, excommunicated the Pope at Rome and all
his supporters; and his Holiness at Rome hurled back his curse in
return. In 1046 Henry III of Germany entered Italy and found three Popes
in Rome—all claiming the allegiance of the Catholic world, and
denouncing
In India Jesuit missionaries adopted the life and
practices of the Brahmins in 1609 in order to make converts, and in
their desire to conciliate that caste disobedient, contumacious, captious, and
reprobate persons
. Melchior Cano, Bishop of the Canary Islands,
banished the Jesuits from his diocese for teaching false doctrines, and
for the same reason St. Charles Borromeo expelled them from the diocese
of Milan, as did also his successor, Cardinal Frederick Borromeo. We do
not presume to say which side was right in these controversies, but we
submit that if Popes and Jesuits could be wrong, then on a point of
doctrine they can be wrong now on Socialism—a point of economics
and politics.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century a
Jesuit missionary, Chinese
Rites
. Nine different Popes condemned these Chinese Rites
,
but the
The reader who has studied the facts set
forth in our little excursion into Irish history in the introduction
will appraise at its full value our reverend opponent's disquisition
upon patriotism in the next passage: There is a
patriotism that is false. It is a mere morbid, hysterical idolatry of a
fetish, with an unreasoning rancorous hatred of those people who are not
of its own ilk. But there is a patriotism that is true. It is a
thoughtful, manly worship for the nation of which one is the son; it is
a chivalrous allegiance to her honour, a disinterested service of her
fortune, a prayerful veneration for her name, a devotedness unto death
to her life. The Socialist will say that that is sentiment. No wonder,
then, that the Socialist is the enemy of his country. The French
Socialists are the worst enemies of France. The German Socialists are
the worst enemies of Germany. The English Socialists are the worst
enemies of the power, the greatness, and the empire of England. But our
sentiment is the heartbeat of men true to their country, their Socialism
is the heartburn of traitors to their Fatherland. If it be sentiment
that a child should love its mother, that a man should love his home,
then it is sentiment that a citizen should love his country, that a
patriot should love his nature. But if this be sentiment, then I say
that is the power which makes a nation. Ah! there is something in your
inmost nature that affirms the truth and re-echoes the enthusiasm of
what the poet sang:
The Socialist doctrine teaches that all men are
brothers, that the same red blood of a common humanity flows in the
veins of all races, creeds, colours and nations, that the interests of
labour are everywhere identical, and that wars are an abomination. Is
not this also good Catholic doctrine—the our
native land is in pawn to
landlords and capitalists.
When the reverend lecturer hurls at
the Socialists the taunt that they are the worst enemies of their own
country, whatever that country be, he is only repeating against us the
accusation made more truly in times past against the order of which he
is such an ornament. The Jesuits have been expelled from every Catholic
country in Europe, and the grounds on which they have been expelled were
everywhere the same, viz., that they were the worst enemies of their
country, and were constantly intriguing against the government and
national welfare, that their teaching made bad subjects, and all their
influence was against the welfare of the state—just what they
allege against Socialists to-day. They were expelled from Venice during
the first half of the seventeenth century, from Portugal in 1759, from
the French dominions in 1764 and 1767, from Spain in 1767, from Naples,
Parma and Modena about the same time. Maria Theresa of Austria and
Emperor Joseph, her son, also expelled them. The kings of Spain,
Portugal and France united in an ultimatum to the Pope threatening to
withdraw their countries from fealty to Rome and to create a schism
unless the Pope suppressed them, and finally in a Brief issued in all the States of Christendom
.
They have been expelled over and over again from almost every Catholic country in Europe. In 1601 the secular priests of England issued a pamphlet entitled,
, in which they laid the blame of the Penal Laws against Catholics upon the Jesuits. The author of this work, William Watson, afterwards died a martyr for the Catholic faith. The Papal Brief,Important Considerations
Is it not, then, a joke to see Socialists accused of being unpatriotic, and accused by a Jesuit?
In his fifth lecture our reverend critic
simply refurbishes and places upon exhibition all the individual
opinions of individual Socialists he can find antagonistic to religion,
and
Sufficient to remind our readers that, even according
to the oft-repeated assertion of Father Kane, Socialism means a state of
society in which the will of the people should be supreme, that
therefore Marx and Bebel and Liebknecht and Vandervelde and Blatchford
were not and are not working for the establishment of a system in
which they would be able to force their theories about religion upon the
people, but for a system in which the people would be free to accept
only that of which their conscience approved. In the light of that
central truth how absurd seems the following passage: Now, in Socialism there are principles which no real Catholic can
hold. First, Socialists hold that private ownership is in itself wrong;
that, no Catholic can admit. Secondly, Socialists maintain that the
child is the property of the state as against the father's right;
that, no Catholic can admit. Thirdly, Socialists recognise divorce as a
breaking of the marriage bond; that, no Catholic can admit. Fourth,
Socialists limit and confine religion to mere personal private worship;
that, no Catholic can admit.
We have seen that
saints and Popes denounced private ownership of the means of life. We
challenge the reverend father to produce from any Socialist congress
or party a
Recently there died in Europe a king—King
Leopold of Belgium—whose private life was so disgracefully
immoral that it was the scandal of Europe. A married man with a grown-up
family, he kept a Parisian actress as his mistress, and led so
scandalous a life that the females of his family refused to follow his
body to the grave. Yet when he died the whole official Catholic world
went into mourning for him. He was more of a representative of the
institution of monarchy than any private individual can ever be of
Socialism; but the Rev. Father Kane or his Holiness the Pope did not
therefore deliver sermons against the wickedness of supporting kings.
And what is true in these two striking examples is also true of kings,
nobles, and capitalists all the world over. In the United States the
divorce rate for 100,000 of the population rose from 23 in 1880 to 73 in
1900. Between 1887 and 1906 the total number of divorces was 945,625.
Is there any logical connection
between Socialism and atheism? This question has two aspects; first,
does atheism logically lead to Socialism? and, secondly, does Socialism
logically lead to atheism? As regards the first question it is very
evident that a wealthy atheist is little likely to be a genuine
Socialist. For him his wealth and pleasure will be the only objects of
his worship, and he will not sacrifice them in order to secure the
honour of being a Socialist labourer. But with the atheist who is
penniless it is quite another matter. For him there is no moral law,
because there is no law without a lawgiver, and there is no lawgiver but
God; hence, there is no right that can restrain him from taking all the
wealth on which he can lay his hands, and Socialism supplies him with
the means of doing this. A beggar atheist is a Socialist, unless he be a
fool. The answer to the second question is not so clear. Does Socialism
logically lead to atheism?
When he makes
the damaging admission he does in the point we have put in italic type,
our reverend friend knocks the feet from under his own case; and when he
goes on to wriggle still further in an attempt to cloud the issue he
reveals that his purpose is not to discuss Socialism so much as to
traduce it. He admits that logically there is no connection between
Socialism and atheism, and yet his whole discourse was a long-drawn-out
attempt to prove such a connection. In what other walk of life would a
man be tolerated who indulged in such senseless hair-splitting as the
foregoing, or in such vilification as the following? What will you then have in your Socialist paradise? A herd of human
cattle, some of them intelligent, educated, cultured, a very suspected
lot in the Socialistic state, most of them, practically all of them, a
Godless, unprincipled, immoral crowd. In our Christian commonwealths
there are many criminals, but they are the exception. They are an
offence against our principles and rebels against our right. Under
Socialism criminals would be the authorised spokesmen of your principles
and the ruthless henchmen of your lawlessness. Again and again,
without God there is no morality, and without morality there is only
left the God of the Socialist—irreligion, immorality, degradation
of the man and suicide of the nation.
Note the
words, Under Socialism criminals would be the authorised spokesmen of
your principles
. He has repeatedly asserted that under Socialism the
will of the people would rule, and now he asserts that the people would
choose criminals as their spokesmen. Yet such a thing as a Socialist
criminal is practically unknown in the records of the police courts of
the world. Can any sane man believe that if the means of wealth
production and kindred powers
were common property the people
would be so debased by the enjoyment made in the image of God
for the sake
of more profits for a few, that the nation which should refuse to allow
this would be powerless in the moral order
, and hastening on to
decay? Yet it is this monstrous farrago of nonsense Rev. Father Kane
attempts to establish in his fifth lecture.
Socialists will not shrink from resorting to brute force. A Socialist
ring will not scruple when there is a question of finally superseding
the old order of society to snatch up anarchist weapons—the
dagger, the torch, the bomb. Listen to the candid utterances of the
great founder of Socialism, Karl Marx, with his henchman, Engels,
declared in their manifesto Again, at the Congress
of The Hague, Karl Marx, as the mouthpiece of Socialists, officially
declared: that their purpose can be obtained only
by a violent subversion of the existing order. Let the ruling classes
tremble at the Communist revolution
.In most countries of Europe violence must be the lever of
our social reform. This violent upheaval must be universal. A proof of
this was witnessed in the Commune of Paris, which only failed because in
other capitals—Berlin and Madrid—a simultaneous
revolutionary movement did not break out in connection with the
. Again, Bebel,
one of the greatest leaders of Socialist thought, dared to say in the
German Reichstag: The Commune in Paris was only a slight skirmish in
the war which the proletariat is prepared to wage against all
palaces
. Again, Bebel said elsewhere this Socialistic change cannot
be brought about by sprinkling rose-water
. At the Socialist
Convention at Ghent in 1877 one of their leaders said: When our day
comes, rifle and cannon will face about to mow down the foes of the
Socialist people
. At a public meeting during the recent elections in
England an M.P. supporter of the Liberal Government is reported to have
said: I honour the man or woman who throws a bomb
.
That some Socialists believe that force may be
used to inaugurate the new social order only indicates their conviction
that the criminal capitalist and ruling classes will not peacefully
abide by the verdict of the ballot, but will strive by violence to
perpetuate their robber rule in spite of the declared will of the
majority of the people. In this conviction such Socialists are
strengthened by the record of all the revolutions of the world's
history. It is a well-established fact that from the earliest revolutionary outbreak known down to the Commune of Paris, or Red Sunday in
Russia, the first blood has been shed, the first blow struck, by the
possessing conservative classes. And we are not so childish as to
imagine that the capitalist class of the future will shrink from the
shedding of the blood of the workers in order to retain their ill-gotten
gains. They shed more blood, destroy more working class lives every
year, by the criminal carelessness with which they conduct industry and
drive us to nerve-racking speed, than is lost in the average
international war. In the United States there are killed on the
railroads in one year more men than died in the Boer War on both sides.
When the capitalists kill us so rapidly for the sake of a few pence
extra profit it would be suicidal to expect
And if the capitalists do abide the
issue of the ballot and allow this battle to be fought out on lines of
peaceful political and economic action, gladly we will do likewise. But
if not— But the real point is this: it is not
merely the Rothschilds or other millionaires who are to be robbed; it
is nor merely the fashionable people who live in palaces and drive in
motor cars who are to be robbed, but the shopkeepers are also to be
robbed; it is not merely the great big shopkeepers who are to be robbed,
but every small business house will be robbed. The professional
classes, the barristers and the doctors will be robbed. The small
farmer, the small cottager will be evicted. The cabman's horse and cab
will be taken from him. The poor woman who sells apples in the street
will have her basket seized upon. These are all ways of making money,
and the Socialist says that nobody has any right to make money except
the Socialist state. Do you think that men would stand this? Do you
think that a tenant who has bought out his land will
This argument is brought in after telling
a silly story about a Socialist who wanted Rothschild to divide up, and
the story is told despite the fact that the reverend and pious lecturer
has frequently explained that Socialism has nothing to do with dividing
up. In fact Socialists want to stop dividing up with the
irresponsible easy-going loafers
, called aristocrats and
capitalists, in the idealised workhouses
, known as palaces and
mansions. All those poor workers whom he mentions—the small
farmer, the cottager, the cabman, the apple-woman, the doctor—all
are compelled to divide up with the capitalist, speculator and landlord,
and Socialism proposes to them that instead of wearing life out working
night and day as in the case of the doctor, or shivering and suffering
as in the case of the farmer, the cottager, the cabman, and the
apple-woman, they shall help to establish a system of society where the
functions they now perform shall be performed better through more
perfect organisation, with equipment supplied by the community, and
where they shall be honoured co-workers with all their fellow-workers,
with an old age guaranteed against the want and privation they know
awaits them under the present order. And they are hearkening to this
Socialist promise of relief from their present social purgatory.
Father Kane next proceeds to quote Socialists to prove the
beneficence of medieval Catholicism. He says: The
contrast is reproduced under a different aspect when we compare the
Church of Christ with the Church of Luther, King Harry and Queen Bess.
Whoever studies Socialism will It is high
time that the nonsense that has been foisted on to the public by men
interested in suppressing the facts should be exposed. It is not true
that the Church of our ancestors was the organised fraud which it suits
fanatics to represent it. The monasteries and priests did far more for
elementary education than is at all known…. As
to university education, where would Oxford be to-day but for the
munificence of bishops, monks, and nuns? Fourteen of her finest colleges
were founded by churchmen or abbots for the benefit of the children of
the people. The Reformation converted these colleges into luxurious
preserves for the sons of the aristocracy. He
tells us how the Reformation converted the lands of the monasteries into
the properties of rack-renting landlords. Abbots and priors were the
best landlords in England. While the Church had powerAn
English Socialist, Hyndman, whose profound historical and economic
learning cannot be questioned even by his adversaries, has understood
and admirably expressed the many benefits society has derived from the
Church of the Middle Ages
. Hyndman wrote: sturdy beggars
,
or stalwart vagabonds
, as they were called, thronged the road.
They had been able to earn their bread under the old Church of Christ,
but under the new church of King Hal and his merry men, these sturdy
beggars
were a nuisance. In 1547 a law was passed that these
sturdy beggars
should be branded with hot irons and handed
over as slaves to the person who denounced them, or if again caught they
were to be hanged. Under good Queen Bess unlicensed beggars over
fourteen were flogged and branded on the left ear unless someone would
take them into service for two years. If they begged again, all over
eighteen were executed unless someone was willing to take them into
service for two years; caught a third time, death was the penalty,
without reprieve. Hollingshead asserts that in the reign of the good
King Henry VIIIvirgin queen
, the good, sweet Queen Bess, found a
woman's way of following her father's mood. She had her stalwart
vagabonds
strung up in batches, like flitches of bacon along the
rafters, in order to teach the people the godly way in which they should
walk—the way of her Reformation of the Church of Christ. The
Church of Christ has always protected the poor.
This long extract should be enlightening and illuminating to our
readers. It shows that the Socialists have been uniformly fair in their
treatment of the attitude of the Catholic Church of the past towards the
poor, that they have defended that Church from the attacks of
unscrupulous Protestant historians, upon that point, so that our
reverend friend has to admit that a correct knowledge of the contrast
between the attitude of the Church and that of the Protestant reformers
can be best
Now listen to the peroration of our critic: Nothing will do but Socialism. Not so! not so!
The Church of Christ teaches both men and masters that for their own
sake they should be friends not foes, that their mutual interests are
inseparably interwoven, and that they are bound together not merely by
the duties or rights of justice, but by a sacred bond of kindliness,
which is the same virtue that moves a man to fondly love his home and
nobly love his fatherland. Still, still!—that misery! that most
sad poverty, that despairing wretchedness of utter want! Surely! surely
were the kind Christ here, Whose heart was moved to tender pity for the
hungering crowd; surely He would give them food. He is not here, but in
His stead He has placed you, Christian men and women, that you may do
His blessed work. Have pity! have pity on the poor. We cannot stand idly
by with folded arms while so many starve, nor can we suffer, while we
have wealth to spare, that such multitudes who are brothers and sisters
of our human blood should eke out in lingering death a life that is not
worth the living. There is no need, no excuse for Socialism. But there
is sore need of social reform. The state is indeed bound to enforce such
remedial measures as are needed, and of these, whatever be our politics
or party, we must all approve. But in our own way and in our own measure
we should recognise in actual practice that Christians should be like
the great Christ Who had pity on the poor.
And
so he concludes—with an appeal for pity for the poor. After all
his long discourse, after again and again admitting the tyranny, the
extortions, the frauds, the injustices perpetrated in our midst every
day by those who control and own our means of existence, he has no
remedy to offer but pity! After all his brave appeal to individuality,
to national honour, to the heroic spirit in poor men and women, he
shrinks from appealing to that individuality, to that national honour,
to that heroic spirit in the poor and asking them so to manifest
themselves as to rescue their lives from the control of the forces mere sound and fury signifying
nothing
.
Is not this attitude symbolic of the attitude of the Church for hundreds of years? Ever counselling humility, but sitting in the seats of the mighty; ever patching up the diseased and broken wrecks of an unjust social system, but blessing the system which made the wrecks and spread the disease; ever running divine discontent and pity into the ground as the lightning rod runs and dissipates lightning, instead of gathering it and directing it for social righteousness as the electric battery generates and directs electricity for social use.
The day has passed for patching up the capitalist
system; it must go. And in the work of abolishing it the Catholic and
the Protestant, the Catholic and the Jew, the Catholic and the
Freethinker, the Catholic and the Buddhist, the Catholic and the
Mahometan will co-operate together, knowing no rivalry but the rivalry
of endeavour toward an end beneficial to all. For, as we have said
elsewhere, Socialism is neither Protestant nor Catholic, Christian nor
Freethinker, Buddhist, Mahometan, nor Jew; it is only