From the July 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard
A Letter From A Dublin Correspondent
On May 10th, 1944, the Eire Government was defeated in the Irish Parliament (An Dail) by one vote, on an amendment to postpone the Transport Bill, then passing through the House, until the Public Tribunal which was instituted to enquire into the leakages of information that occurred while the Bill was being drafted had reported its findings.
The Prime Minister (Taoiseach) De Valera then requested the President Douglas Hyde to call a general election for May 30th.
In March, 1943, Mr. A. P. Reynolds (efficiency expert, appointed chairman of the G.S. Railway by Government Minister Lemass), in his speech at the annual meeting of the Great Southern Railways, told the shareholders that the company was bankrupt, the rolling-stock obsolete, and station buildings in semi-ruin. He said a reorganisation of capital was necessary to save the concern, and clearly hinted at a writing-down of capital. Immediately after his speech G.S.R. shares crashed on the market, the ordinary falling to £9 per £100 share, the preference to £11.
“Meanwhile certain speculators (most of whom afterwards admitted they were friends of people in high offices, and hence in a position to obtain information on the scheme which the minister and Mr. Reynolds were then working out), proceeded quietly and secretly to buy up through the banks all shares offering at knockdown prices. The result was that before the reorganisation scheme became known to the ordinary shareholders and the general public, the great bulk of the stock had been taught up by well-known gamblers on the Stock Exchange.” (Irish People, April 27, 1944).
One speculator admitted buying 30,000 shares with a nominal value of £3 million on July 1st, 1943. Another admitted that as a result of a talk with a railway director at a dance he ordered £10,000 worth of shares, and there were numerous others buying at the same magnitude.
As it happened a dividend of 4 per cent, was paid on the preference shares for the first time in 13 years. The racketeers reaped a rich harvest almost immediately, to the tune of £612,000 paid out for the year 1943.
Shares bought at anything from £9 to £20 can now, because of state guarantee of interest, be sold from £45 lo £52, and when the Bill becomes law for £90 each. Thus have fortunes been made practically overnight in this poor little island of saints.
The election campaign started with the Government Party, Fianna Fail, well in the lead, because of their having placed their active supporters in Government and State subsidised jobs. They had the best election machine, and holding the largest purse they secured the most effective means of propaganda. After an initial statement they dropped the Transport Bill and concentrated on the issues of neutrality in the war, post-war plans, and a sob-stuff appeal for the supposed national saviour De Valera.
Neutrality has proved the greatest red herring yet drawn across the Irish political stage. The leading capitalist newspaper, The Irish Times, in its issue of May 19th, referred to their promises as “utterly fantastic. That they represented the kind of plan which during every election is produced like a rabbit out of the conjurer’s lint to impress the more gullible members of the public and then disappears down some ministerial burrow to remain in hiding until the next election comes along."
The main opposition party, Fine Gael, based their election appeal on the Transport Bill postponement amendment which they had proposed but whose only disagreement with the Bill being which group of shareholders would enjoy the profits created by the transport workers.
Their supporting programme consisted of an appeal for a National Government formed from all parties. The usual promises, end of unemployment, solution of housing problem, higher wages and lower prices, etc., etc. They were handicapped, however, by their failure to implement these promises during the ten years in which they had control of the government of the country.
Shortly before the vote defeating the Government, the Irish Labour Party was split by the disaffiliation of the largest trade union in the country, the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, led by Mr. William O’Brien, the Mephistopholes of the Irish Labour Movement. The ostensible reason being communist control of the party, but in reality because of his personal feud with Jim Larkin, who had figured prominently since he had joined the party lately, and who with his son had become deputies for Dublin in the Dail. The seceders formed themselves into a new National Labour Party.
The official Labour Party issued a manifesto and waged a not very enthusiastic fight on the basis of nationalisation of transport with full compensation for the pre-March 1943 shareholders, called by them "the unfortunate people who were induced by dubious means to part with their shares to speculators.” Their second point was a national cure-all through a policy of full employment which would provide farmers, manufacturers and traders with a vast body of new customers who would pay for the things they need with money earned by themselves through the effective control of the nation's monetary system, providing state credits free of interest for useful development work of national importance.
The National Labour Party’s policy was much the same except that, while the official Labour Party claimed that theirs was a Christian programme based on the Papal Encyclicals, the National Labour Party, while claiming the same, appealed to the most reactionary prejudices of the Irish workers, saying that it was the duty of every Catholic worker in N. East Dublin to come out and vote against Jim Larkin (who, by the way, was one of the defeated candidates).
The die was cast, and on election day the Government was returned with an increase of 11 deputies and an overall majority of 44, on a 70 per cent. poll. The position of the Parties being: Fianna Fail 76, Fine Gael 30, Irish Labour Party 8, National Labour Party 1, Farmers and Independent Farmers 13, Independent 7.
The fruits of our "Glorious National Revolution” have proved a poor crop indeed, considering the facts that in Dublin alone, according to the figures of the Dublin Board of Assistance, one third of the population of the city are on the borderline of sheer starvation: that, since 1939 a quarter of a million people were forced to emigrate to gain a livelihood; that while in 1912 Sir Charles Cameron, Dublin Corporation Medical Officer of Health, reported 70 thousand persons living in single room tenements, we learn from the Local Government Tribunal Report, 1938, that 25,787 are still living in one room tenements, and 2,000 insanitary basement dwellings are occupied, as well as large numbers of condemned buildings. A Dublin doctor says that the slums are manufacturing disease quicker than the hospitals can deal with, despite the monies collected by the Irish Hospitals Sweep.
In the face of these conditions, the election result providing increased support for the capitalist parties can only be explained through the political ignorance of the majority of the Irish workers. That is the immediate value of this election. It points out in the most forcible manner the necessity for a Socialist Party.
On election day the worker has the power in his hands as to what programme he will adopt. The vote, when backed by a majority of class-conscious workers, will enable them to capture the machinery of government and turn it from an instrument of oppression into an instrument of liberation. But first we must convince that majority.
In this election not a voice was raised for Socialism, not a voice was raised for the only solution to the problem of poverty in the midst of increasing plenty. That form of society where all the natural resources, the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution, are owned and operated by and in the interest of society as a whole, where all forms, of exploitation of man by man disappears, where everybody able to work will give of his abilities, and where each and every person able to work or not will receive the highest standard of life society can produce. For the Socialist Commonwealth, speed the day.
Steve Daly,
Dublin, Eire.
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