LABOUR IN IRELAND.*
ALTHOUGH James Connolly acted for many years in connexion with the extreme Socialistic Party in Scotland, the United States, and Belfast, it was not until the Dublin strikes of 1913 that he attracted much attention from the English public ; and even then he was overshadowed in the popular judgment by the more spectacular " Jim " Larkin. When the strikes collapsed he passed again out of general notice except in Dublin, where it was known that the nominal second-in-command of the Irish Transport Workers' Union was the real contriving head and driving-force of the move- ment. The coming of the war, however, dismissed all lesser issues into obscurity, and Connolly was almost forgotten outside his own organization when the Sinn Fein Rebellion broke out in Easter Week of 1918, and he appeared as " Commandant-General of tho Dublin Division " and was described by Pearse, the " President of the Provisional Government," as " the guiding brain of our resist- ance." What was he doing in that galley ? How came the prac- tical, calculating Labour leader to ally himself with fanatics, poets, and dreamers in so futile an attempt at revolution ? The present volume affords material for at least a partial answer. It is made up of reprints of two of his works, Labour in Irish History and The Re-Conquest of Ireland, which, taken together, give a fairly full exposition of the gospel according to " Liberty Hall."
The first and more elaborate of the two is based on the thesis
that the key to the secret of Irish history is the exploitation of the poor by the rich. In the author's view; all parties, irrespective of religious creed—Cromwellians, Jacobites, Orangemen, Volunteers, Young Irelanders, Nationalists, and Unionists—have been led by capitalists or their representatives to the betrayal of the demo- cracy. With the exception of Wolfe Tone and John Mitchel, there was hardly a leader in Ireland who had any true sympathy with the majority of his fellow-countrymen. " Sarsfield and his followers did not become Irish patriots because of their fight against King William's government any more than an Irish Whig out of office becomes a patriot because of his hatred to the Tories who are in." William of Orange and his satellites were actuated by the same class feeling : rich Roman Catholics received from rich Protestants an amount of respect and forbearance which the latter would not extend to their Protestant tenantry. The prosperity of Ireland towards the end of the eighteenth century was neither due to Grattan's Parliament nor shared by the proletariat : Grattan himself cared more for the interests of property than for human rights. Flood was a hater of the Roman Catholics and an enemy of the oppressed peasantry. Daniel O'Connell was an unscrupulous opponent of Trade Unionism who helped the Government to hunt down Emmet's followers. Smith O'Brien was a landlord " vehe- mently solicitous for the rights of his class, and allowing his solicitude for those rights to stand between the millions of the Irish race and their hopes of life and freedom." In all the centuries the only constant and admirable fact was the tendency of the peasantry to resist oppression by secret or open violence.
The second part of the volume depicts, in the darkest colours, the condition of the working class in Dublin and Belfast at the present day : the misery of their homes, the economic slavery of their womenkind, and the high rate of mortality amongst their children. It appears that the only remedy for this intolerable state of affairs is the nationalization of wealth for the benefit of the community ; to attain which the working classes must first get all political power into their own hands. To this end they are to organize themselves into a comprehensive Union embracing every variety of labour, and in the meantime they are to adopt the co-operative system to enable them to dispense with the services of Capital.
Given the point of view, the book is ably and not intemperately written. The author fairly admits difficulties in his theory—such, for example, as the inefficiency of local administration in Dublin, where the machinery of government is controlled by a democratic body democratically elected. His bias appears more in his selection and suppression of facts than in his presentment of them ; he thinks he does well to be angry. But if you write history remember- ing only the severities used to restore law and order, and forgetting or justifying the outrages which prevoked them ; approving of force when used against the rich, and condemning it when used against the poor ; assuming as st matter of comae that a man Of
• Labour in Infiniti.. 13y Tames Connolly. Dublin and Loneon : Maltese! and Co, net.1• property always and necessarily acts from the basest of interested motives—you may produce a very vivid picture, but it will not bear much relation to the events and men it professes to portray.
Beneath all his businesslike manner and ability, Connolly had, in fact, the unrestrained temperament of the fanatic. " He believed in violence as a method as sincerely as any old-fashioned warrior." Opposition made him " see red " ; he suppressed malcontents in his own ranks as ruthlessly and arbitrarily as did any of the capital. istic tyrants whom ho holds up to contempt. His mission in Dublin had failed as it had failed in Belfast ; his Labour Union was crum- bling to pieces before his eyes ; and he threw in his lot with the men who were bent on striking a blow against the social system he hated. No one knows now whether he fought without hope of averting his own downfall, or in the illusion of victory which he communicated for a while to his followers. Perhaps, indeed, his power may have been less than was imagined, and at the last the more headstrong of his " army " may have forced his hand. It is quite possible that what was said of a far different and nobler leader may have been true of him also : " he could a people raise but could not rule." But this secret he has kept beyond the grave. He met his death worthily and manfully : a strange, tragic, wilful figure, capable of finer things than ho ever accomplished.
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