Like the countess, the Irish Labor party wants a workers' republic. But it
wants a republic first.
The Irish Labor party has been accused of accepting Russian roubles, of
hiding bags of bolshevik gold in the basement of Liberty Hall. Whether it
has taken Russian gold or not, it is frankly desirous of possessing the
Russian form of government. James Connolly, who is largely responsible for
the present Labor party in Ireland, was, like Lenin and Trotsky, a Marxian
socialist, and worked for government by the proletariat. The Irish Labor
party celebrated the Russian revolution by calling a "bolshevik" meeting
and cheering under a red flag in the assembly room of the Mansion House.
And in its last congress, it reaffirmed its "adherence to the principles of
freedom, democracy, and peace enunciated in the Russian revolution."
How strong are the revolutionaries? The Irish Labor party is new but it
already contains about 300,000 members.[1] It plans to include every worker
from the "white collar" to the "muffler" labor. And the laborers alone make
up seven-eighths of the population. For while there are just 252,000
members of the professional and commercial classes, there are 4,137,000 who
are in agricultural, industrial and indefinite classes[2]--most of the
farmers are held to be laborers because outside the great estates, holdings
average at thirty acres and are worked by the holders themselves.[3]
There's the revolutionary rub. The Irish farmers make up the largest body
of workers in Ireland. The Irish farmer sweated and bled for his land.
Would he yield it now for nationalization? I put the question up to William
O'Brien, the lame, never-smiling tailor who is secretary of the Irish Labor
party. He said that the farm hand should be taken into consideration.
The farm hand would profit by nationalization. At present he is condemned
to slavery. At a hiring fair--called a "slave market" by the labor
unions--he stands between the mooing cows and snorting pigs and offers his
services for sale for as little as $100 a year. He may wish to get more
money. But his employer is also very often his landlord. What happens? In
the spring of 1919, 35,000 farm hands went on strike. Lord Bellew of
Ballyragget and Lord Powerscourt of Enniskerry used the eviction threat to
get the men back to work, and in Rhode, evictions actually took place.
The small farmer on bad land would profit by re-distribution. Many such
live in the west and northwest of Ireland. Take a farmer of Donegal. There
there's stony, boggy land. Fires must be built about the stones so that the
soil will lose its grip upon them and they may be hauled away to help make
fences. Immovable boulders are frequent, so frequent that the soil cannot
be ploughed but must be spaded by hand. Seaweed for fertilizer must be
plucked from the rocks in the sea, carried up the mountain side and laid
black and thick in the sterile brown furrows. Near Dungloe in Donegal, one
holding of 600 acres was recently valued at $10.50, and another of 400 at
$3.70. So the Labor party is confident of bringing over the farmers to its
point of view.
On the whole, it is said, the way of the labor propagandist is easy, for
capital in Ireland is very weak. First, there is very little of it. In 1917
the total income tax of the British Isles was £300,000,000; Ireland with
one-tenth the population contributed only one-fortieth of the tax. In the
same year, the total excess profits tax was £290,000,000 and Ireland's
proportion was slightly less than for the income tax.[4] Second, what
capital there is, is not effectively organized. The first national
commercial association is just forming in Dublin.
Whether the future prove the numerical strength of labor or not, the
leaders are determined that labor will be organically strong. It is
developing a pyramid form of government. Irish labor fosters the "one big
union." In some towns all the labor, from teachers to dock-workers, have
already coalesced. These unions select their district heads. The district
heads are subsidiary to the general head in Dublin. When each union inside
the big union is ready to take over its industry, and their district and
general heads are ready to take over government there will be a general
strike for this end. The strike will be supported by the army--the
Citizens' Army of the workers.
"There you have," said James Connolly, who promoted the one big union, "not
only the most effective combination for industrial warfare, but also for
the social administration of the future."[5]
"Certainly we mean to take over industry by force if necessary," affirmed
Thomas Johnson, treasurer of the Irish Labor party. He is a big-browed man
with thick, pompadoured, gray hair, and the aspect of a live professor.
Some people call him the coming leader of Ireland. In answer to my
statement that it wouldn't be a very hard job to take over Irish industry,
he smiled and said: "That's why we welcome the entrance of outside capital
into Ireland. The more industry is developed, the less we will have to do
afterward."