Emigration. (1906)

From the June 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The March issue of the Socialist Standard contained a letter sent to one of our comrades by a friend who had gone to Canada to “escape poverty” in the Land of the West, describing the conditions he found existing there for the working class. These facts, which could have been supplemented by the communications received by others of our members, were timely in face of the long depression that has existed in the trade and commerce of this country for the last five years, and which has led to the booming of the theory of emigration as a cure for the poverty and misery existing here. Railway Companies, Shipping Companies and “Free Labour” providers like Mr. Graeme Hunter, have turned many a penny—if not honest, at least useful—by the rush of the workless, and those afraid of being workless, across the sea. Glowing accounts of the country and its prosperity are widely advertised by these interested persons, and the brilliant prospects for the “industrious” worker are dangled before the eyes of the unwary or unthinking like the bunch of carrots before the donkey. When these efforts are not sufficiently successful, then a prominent “Labour Leader” like Mr. Ben Tillett is engaged to travel this country lecturing upon the glorious conditions for the working-class existing in Australia, and it is the truth that these various agencies reach a much larger number of the people than the occasional accounts of the real situation can, under the circumstances, possibly do.

Still the seed sometimes reaches good ground and in response to an enquiry, a few remarks on the general question of emigration may be useful.

The question may be viewed from three different points. Firstly, that of analogy; secondly, the economic conditions in the countries emigrated to; and, thirdly, the reasons for emigrating.

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Under the first heading we may say that if emigration as such were a cure, or even a palliation, to any extent worth considering of the poverty of the working class, then Ireland should be the most prosperous country on the planet. For over fifty years her sons and daughters have streamed across the oceans to the continent of the West or to the land down under the Southern Cross, until to-day the population numbers about four and a half millions, while four millions of people have left her shores in that period. With what result ? The working class of Ireland, particularly the agricultural labourers, are even worse off than the workers here ! With such an example at our very doors, we are asked by the smooth-tongued agents of the ruling class to believe that if some of our fellow-workers cross the ocean all will be well with those remaining !

“But,” it may be objected “those who went away benefited by so doing.” Let us see. The countries usually emigrated to are America, Australia and New Zealand. Although South Africa is sometimes counted, the unsettled conditions still prevailing there—to say nothing of the large number of Chinese—renders it advisable for us to leave this territory out of the present consideration. What are the general conditions prevailing in the countries named ? In essentials, similar to those we have here, that is, capitalism rules there with all its consequences as we know them here. While the standard of living—and wages—are slightly higher in America than here, they are more than counterbalanced by the speeding up and greater driving that exist there and which result in throwing the worker on the scrap heap at an earlier age than occurs here. “Too old at 35” is an intensely real cry in that go-ahead land, and this, coupled with the increasing use of machinery in all industries, thereby dispensing with men or filling their places with women and children, creates an ever increasing army of relatively redundant and, therefore, unemployed workers ; so much so, that America can shew as large a number unemployed, comparatively, as any old country; while the march of Coxey’s Army to Washington will still be fresh in the memories of many here. The emigrant thus finds that he has left one set of capitalist conditions to go into a similar set elsewhere.

Australia, as far as its industrial sections are concerned, which are the only sections the mass of the emigrants can exist in, has for years been troubled with the question of poverty and unemployment. At the very moment Mr. Ben Tillett was endeavouring to persuade the workers to go to Australia, all the large cities and towns there were discussing “what to do with the unemployed,” while the various reports, including both the “Labour” papers and emigrants who have returned, show that the struggle for existence and the prospects thereof, differ in no essential from the same struggle undergone here. “General” Booth’s wily scheme to deport some of our unemployed to the region known as “Piliga Scrub,” where, as was shown at the time, water scarcely exists and the soil is all sand, totally incapable of producing anything to support life, seems to have been dropped for the present, but may well be borne in mind when the firm of Booth and Sons move again in the matter.

Thus, Australia offers no escape from the conditions of poverty and lack of employment that the emigrant thinks to flee from, but simply alters his position geographically while leaving it economically just as it was.

In New Zealand we have a country about twice the area of Great Britain with a population of just under 800,000. Certain reforms clamoured for here by several parties are in existence there, such as State ownership of the land, Labour Colonies, etc. Yet, with all these “advantages,” they are not more successful in dealing with the problem of unemployment and poverty than those in charge of affairs at home. Tom Mann, after spending some time in the colony and travelling in various parts, came to the conclusion that New Zealand was as much in need of Socialism as the Mother Country.

No matter then, in which direction we turn, we find the arguments in favour of emigration fall to the ground when confronted with the facts of the circumstances existing in the countries where the emigrant is urged to go. And this brings us to the third heading—the cause for emigration. The answer of course is poverty or dread of unemployment.

But this is only a surface answer, and in itself asks another question—Why are the workers poor ? The answer to this latter question will contain the solution, of the problem.

It will be admitted, generally, that if a person has a right to stay on any portion of this globe, he has the right to stay in the country where he was born, and before being driven out of that country, it should, at least, be shown that the country is unable to support him—or, rather, allow him to support himself. Can this be shown of England ? Take first the raw material in the shape of land. Is it all occupied, or cultivated, or being worked ? So little so, that millions of acres are uncultivated and large areas are kept for non-productive purposes, such as game preserves, deer parks, etc. The warehouses and stores are filled with machines and tools ready to be used for the conversion of this raw material into articles for man’s use and enjoyment, while large numbers of mechanics are available, nay, anxious to be employed in producing more machines and tools if those existent are not sufficient. Are the means of transport inadequate ? According to the statements of those favouring Railway Nationalisation half the trains run empty now, and while the goods trucks are obsolete and clumsy, they could, even as they are, transport far larger quantities than they do at present.

Many miles of canals have been bought up by the Railway Companies for the purpose of stifling competition and are almost unused, while those still operating are by no means overburdened with traffic. Evidently then, the means of transport, if not ideal, are at least adequate, and here, as with the machines, we have a large supply of workers at hand ready to extend or improve these means of transport should it be decided to act in that direction.

We thus see that there is an abundance of raw material (land), of instruments of production (machines, mills, etc.), of means of transport and of workers to operate all these things, yet we have poverty and misery. Why ? Because all these means of life are owned and controlled by a comparatively small section of Society—the capitalist class.

The workers have no means of living, except by selling their abilities—or power to work, which means themselves—to such members of the ruling class as care to employ them. As the capitalists are only concerned with wringing profits out of the labour of those they employ, which again depends upon their selling the articles produced, it follows that the capitalist will only employ the workers in accordance with the demands of the markets for commodities.

To-day wealth is produced in much larger quantities with relatively fewer workers than at any previous period of the world’s history. Every increase in the speeding up of the workers, every improvement in the present or introduction of new machinery, and every further application of science to industry, results in a still smaller number of workers being required to produce the same, or even a larger, amount of wealth than before. This, of course, applies wherever capitalism exists, and the attempts to escape results by flying to similar conditions in another clime necessarily fail in every case.

The solution of the difficulty stands out clear from the answer given above. As the workers produce all the wealth and are the only useful class in modern Society, they must take the means of life, in all its branches, into their own hands, to be under their own control, for their own benefit. In other words, only by establishing a Socialist Commonwealth can they abolish the poverty, misery and unemployment which the masters’ agents to-day tell them can be avoided by emigration.

Jack Fitzgerald

Irish Odds and Ends (1957)

The Odds and Ends column from the October 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Writing in the Dublin Evening Press (19/8/57), Fr. Robert Nash, S.J., says that somebody showed him a leaflet recommending Catholics to pray for the Communists; the idea being that each Catholic should “adopt” a special Communist in order to convert him to the faith. He continues: “Who he or she is will be known to God. For this precise person we are invited to pray much, to do penance, to commend him or her constantly to Our Lady”

Many prominent Communists, like Douglas Hyde, he continues, have found their way into the Church; but for those converted, millions are still “blinded and hardened, goaded to an insane hatred of God and His Church.” But, says Fr. Nash, “Suppose you entered into a pact with Our Lord to devote your life to the conversion of one of these? ”

Yes, suppose every Communist was converted to the Catholic Church. What good would that do for humanity? How would it, for example, solve the terrible poverty of thousands of Irish workers? As we see it, it would only mean that the Communists were exchanging one set of wrong ideas and attitudes for another lot— those of the Catholic Church, an organisation equally dictatorial intolerant and dogmatic as the Communist Party.

The solution to the problems facing working people, in Ireland as elsewhere in this life—the only one we Socialists know of—will not be solved by joining or putting faith in either the Communist Party or the Catholic Church. Neither warrants working-class support.

* * *

Nationalised Industries compete in England

Nationalised concerns, like private ones, are run to make a profit—and to make as large a one as possible, even if this means one State concern having to wage war on another. And this is now happening in England.

Under the heading: “Shock for the British Post Office,” an Irish Independent (20/8/57) editorial comments:—

"A novel revolt against the Post Office has broken out amongst the nationalised industries in Britain. Two of the regional electricity boards have decided that the cost, under the new increased postal rates, of sending out bills to customers would be so high that the bills will be delivered by the board’s own employees. The campaign is still in the experimental stage; but there is no doubt that it can effect substantial economies. The North Western Electricity Board will save £10,000 a year by having 250,000 quarterly bills delivered by the meter-readers. One can only guess at what the London Electricity Board, which has begun to deliver accounts by hand to 1,300,000 customers, will save.”

And later in the editorial the writer says:—

"Trade Unions will be quick to realise that their members (in Eire) would be the first to suffer if a campaign of the kind in Britain were to spread to this country."

For our part, we hope that English meter-readers in the British Electrical Trades Union will have something to say about this move by the Electricity Board to save money by making them more work.

It is about time that workers everywhere—in Britain, Ireland, Russia and elsewhere—realised that Nationalisation is no use to them, whether they work for the nationalised concerns or not.

* * *

Economic decline in Eire

According to the Irish Statistical Survey for 1956, issued by the Central Statistics Office on August 21, 1957, and published in The Irish Press, there was a decline in the national income last year. The drop was three per cent. on the 1955 figure.

The total national income in 1955 was £462 million—last year it was £449 million. Profits from agriculture, forestry and fishing fell by £11½ million in 1956; other domestic profits declined by £2½ million. Industry’s percentage of the national income, at 25.2 per cent., showed little change since 1954.

Personal expenditure on consumer goods and services dropped 3 per cent. on the 1955 figure. During the year the number of cattle on the farms dropped by 1.2 per cent.; poultry by 3.2 per cent.; sheep increased by 3 per cent., and pigs by 10.3 per cent But industrial production declined during the year by 4 per cent.—this decline in industrial production was most pronounced in construction and repair of vehicles, in distilling, boat building and repairing, furniture, sugar and mineral waters.

The Survey states that the total labour force was down by 13,000. The direct drop in the numbers working was 19,000, with an increase of 6,000 unemployed. The decline was made up of 10,000 in agriculture, 4,000 in the manufacturing industries, and 4,000 in construction. Compared with 1951 the total at work is down by 59,000. Of course, many of these workers are now abroad, in England and elsewhere; but the annual percentage unemployed was 7.7 last year compared to 6.8 per cent, in 1955.

From this statistical survey it can be seen that the Irish economy, which is predominantly agricultural, is a capitalist one, and is not in very good shape. Life for the Irish worker, whether he works in industry or on the land, is indeed an insecure one.

* * *

Sinn Fein policy is futile

Speaking against the internment and the “jailing of Irishmen” by the authorities at Curragh, Mr. Seamus South “appealed to the people to join Sinn Fein, which, he said, was a lawfully constituted organisation . . . Their aim was the re-unification of Ireland as a thirty-two county republic and the re-establishment of an All-Ireland 'Parliament. They had been accused of wanting to create a civil war, but they did not want that” (Mr. South was speaking at a Sinn Fein meeting at Listowel, and was reported in The Kerryman (24/8/57).

Whether Sinn Fein achieved their aim of re-uniting Ireland and re-establishing an All-Ireland Parliament, they would not solve the problems facing the Irish people—the problems of poverty and general insecurity.

The mass of the people suffer from these problems because they own little or no property in the means of life. They are either propertyless industrial or farm workers—when they are not unemployed—or their farms are too small to enable them to make sufficient money to live a comfortable life.*

Only when Irish workers and poverty-stricken small farmers unite together to make the land and the other means of life the common property of all, together with the workers of other lands, will they be able to solve their problems. Emigration is not the solution—only Socialism is!

* * *

* Sixty per cent, of the farms are under thirty acres; and the recent survey, carried out by the Central Statistics Office, showed that the income level on the majority of these farms was too low to create incentives for young folk to stay on the land.

“This factor is the main cause of our rural exodus.” —The Sunday Press, 25/8/57. Emphasis theirs.

Peter E. Newell,

Co. Kerry, Eire.

50 Years Ago Irish Politics and the Church (2001)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Ritchie Calder, writing in the “New Statesman” (28/4/51) gives an account of the dismissal from the Eire government of their Minister of Health, Dr. Noel Browne. Appalled by the high infantile death rate he proposed to give free medical services, “without any means test, to all mothers and children, to provide mothers with specialist gynaecological care, and to give health education.”

The Cabinet had not objected until the Catholic Bishops intervened, one of their objections being that “the right to provide for the health of children belongs to parents and not to the State.” They objected to the possibility of information on birth control being supplied though Dr. Browne had given safeguards on this matter.

Although Dr. Browne was able to show that Vatican spokesmen did not object, the more reactionary views of the local Catholic Bishops prevailed and Dr. Browne was dismissed.

Mr. Calder quotes some statements made by Ministers:

“As a Catholic, I obey my church authorities and will continue to do so” (Prime Minister, Mr. Costello). “There is going to be no flouting of the Bishops on Catholic morals and social teaching (Minister of Labour).

And finally Dr. Browne, describing the Health Service before his resignation, said:

“As a Catholic, I accept the ruling of their Lordship, the Hierarchy, without question.”

Mr. Calder points out that one result of these disclosures is that the Northern Ireland parties opposed to Union with Eire are using the incident effectively as propaganda among Northern Ireland Protestants, as proof of “the political duress exercised by the Catholic Church.”

(From Socialist Standard, August 1951)

Irish Politics and the Church (1951)

From the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Ritchie Calder, writing in the "New Statesmen” (28/4/51) gives an account of the dismissal from the Eire government of their Minister of Health, Dr. Noël Browne. Appalled by the high infantile death rate he proposed to give free medical services, "without any means test, to all mothers and children, to provide mothers with specialist gynaecological care, and to give health education.”

The Cabinet had not objected until the Catholic Bishops intervened, one of their objections being that "the right to provide for the health of children belongs to parents and not to the State.” They objected to the possibility of information on birth control being supplied though Dr. Browne had given safeguards on this matter.

Although Dr. Browne was able to show that Vatican spokesmen did not object, the more reactionary views of the local Catholic Bishops prevailed and Dr. Browne was dismissed.

Mr. Calder quotes some statements made by Ministers:

“As a Catholic, I obey my church authorities and will continue to do so " (Prime Minister, Mr. Costello).

“There is going to be no flouting of the Bishops on Catholic morals and social teaching" (Minister of Labour, Mr. William Norton, leader of Irish Labour Party).

And finally Dr. Browne, describing the Health Service before his resignation, said:—

"As a Catholic, I accept the ruling of their Lordship, the Hierarchy, without question.”

Mr. Calder points out that one result of these disclosures is that the Northern Ireland parties opposed to Union with Eire are using the incident effectively as propaganda among Northern Ireland Protestants, as proof of "the political duress exercised by the Catholic Church.”

Editorial: A Message for Irish Workers (1941)

Editorial from the May 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

A recent issue of the Cork Weekly Examiner (22/3/41) prompts us to recall an article in the Socialist Standard of January, 1918. From that 23-year-old article we quote the following extracts : —

“Imagine 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 people, and in many cases different families, all huddled together, eating and sleeping and performing the ordinary functions of life in one room! How is it possible for the physical, mental and moral life of these men, women and children to be maintained when they are forced to herd together under such awful conditions ? The death rate in Dublin is the highest of the United Kingdom. The infantile death rate is 200 per 1,000 in Summer Hill and Gardner Street districts, and 220 in Church Street district. In Dublin there are 20,000 houses of one room.’ This is an extract from an article published in 1914 on the conditions in Dublin. At a sworn housing inquiry in the same city in 1913, Dr. McWalter, a member of the Insurance Committee, stated that about 10,000 families in Dublin were living under unhealthy conditions. Practically two persons out of every five died in institutions or asylums in Dublin, and that was absolutely abnormal. If they had 40 per cent. living in institutions, it meant that there were 40 per cent. who could not normally provide for themselves. He had known women who were obliged to live on 3d. per day. In twelve wards the influence of the slum landlord was very strong. He did not think there were more than three or four members of the Corporation who were slum landlords.

* * * * *

Let every British Socialist face the fact that Irish ‘patriotism’ is not Socialism, and that the achievement of Irish nationality, even up to the highest professed ideals of traditional Irish patriotism, namely the complete political separation of Ireland from Britain, would not ‘free Ireland’ one iota in any sense satisfactory to the international Socialist and absolutely demanded by Socialist principles. This age-long struggle of Irish ‘patriots’ to ‘free Ireland’ is, therefore, from the Socialist point of view, an utter chimera which, if it could be achieved, would be to the wretched wage-slaves of Ireland but as the apples of Sodom, fair to the eye, but turning to smoke and ashes when plucked. The international Socialist who happens to be an Irishman can, and does feel profound sympathy with all the struggles of his countrymen and even their pathetic efforts to achieve the utter futility—from the strictly Socialist point of view—of Home Rule, or of an Irish republic, can excite his pity for their useless sufferings, even though he cannot take part in their misdirected exertions.”

Another paragraph refers to the useless slaughter in Dublin the previous Easter, when 1,300 casualties occurred, many of which were women children and non-combatants. The article concludes : —

“Our solemn word to Irish wage-slaves is, let them use their remaining strength to shake off the leeches of capitalism, that are sucking their life blood, instead of hastening their destruction in a mad effort to set up Tweedledum in place of Tweedledee. Let them beware of ‘republics.’”

The Irish workers did not heed our message. Now, in 1941, after many years’ functioning of the Irish Free State, Mr. Hickey (Lab., Cork) is quoted as stating in the Dail: —

“An examination of the facts revealed that there was poverty among a large section of their people. The M.O.H. in Cork had reported that thousands living in Corporation houses had not more than 4s a week each to live on. Doctors in the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, had complained that expectant mothers attending the ante-natal clinic were grossly under-nourished, and they had all seen appeals from the St. John Ambulance Brigade. Again, the Minister for Justice had told the House recently that 90 per cent. of the children sent to industrial schools represented dire poverty. In 1940 home assistance was double the 1939 figure in Co. Kerry. Like Deputy Dillon, he felt that the country was suffering increasingly from speculators and monopolists. Their law were grinding the poor and the rich were ruling the laws. The meagre unemployment assistance allowance was something any country in the world should be ashamed of.”

If another speaker (Mr. Esmonde, F.G., Cork West) is to be believed, the worker’s inability to obtain food is not due to shortage of supplies. He says:—

“They ought to tell the people the truth—that at this moment they were probably the richest nation in Europe so far as supplies per person were concerned There was no country where there was such plenty per head of the population, and it would be well to prepare the people for the fact that the situation could not continue. The people who were suffering were the people with fixed unemployment benefit.”

But some people are doing well. Mr. Milligan (F.G., Dublin North-west) stated: —

“Wheat Importers, Ltd., were making a profit of £250,000, which they had for distribution among themselves, after paying importing expenses, and, although the Board was supposed to be composed of those who had imported a certain amount of wheat over three years, it had emerged that people who had not that qualification, but who were friends of the Ministers, had been put on it. The elastic mills in Clare, which was a monopolist concern, had made a profit of £25,000, and the cement company, because of criticism of its profits, had lowered its dividend from 10 to 8 per cent.”

The influence of Irish capitalists upon the policy of the Government is shown by the statement of Mr. Hugo Flinn, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, who said : —

“The report of the Banking Commission showed that the majority of the moneyed opinion in this country was implacably of opinion that the accumulated savings of this country should remain locked up in sterling assets, and overseas investments and conversion into consumers’ goods. Did that opinion alter now when it was too late; there was a growing recognition among those interests that the better policy would have been to try to straddle between sterling and dollars and to convert more of their assets into consumers’ goods. If the Government had tried to purchase dollars or purchase reserves of goods while there was yet time, he doubted if the commercial and moneyed opinion would have backed the Government.”

The above-quoted extracts of speeches give the normal picture of a capitalist State. Despite its “national independence,” there is in the Irish Free State widespread poverty going arm in arm with great wealth.

This story of Irish poverty, Irish struggles, and the results of the achievement of Irish “independence,” has its lesson, not only for the workers of Ireland, but for the workers of Britain and of all other countries.

The Irish Elections (1957)

From the April 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The main problem now confronting the people is to discover by what defect in our system it has come about that the nation, while never better equipped in knowledge and machinery to produce all its needs, is forced to see so much of that knowledge wasted and the machinery lying idle, while thousands of willing workers are unemployed and in need of the necessaries of life."

Thus spoke Senator James Hickey, Chairman, at the Irish Labour Party’s annual conference in Athlone, less than a year ago. At the time, Labour was the second largest party in a Coalition Government, which had been pledged to discover and remedy this defect along with all the other problems of the Irish working-class, who had elected them. They failed to do this and as a consequence. must now try to fill the opposition benches, with depleted ranks, while the task of administering Irish capitalism passes to Mr. De Valera and his colleagues in the Fianna Fail party Speaking at an earlier Labour Party conference, shortly after being elected to power, Mr. B. Corish (A Labour Minister) said: "Workers could look forward to the day when the spectre of emigration would have become a bad memory . . . it remained one of the fundamental aims of the Labour Party to see that every person who was willing to work would find decent employment in his own country.” (Dublin Evening Mail, 30/9/49). Yet, in a statement issued on the 26th January of this year, explaining why he could no longer support the Government, Mr. S. McBride, ex-Minister for External Affairs pointed out that the unemployment figure was now 100,000 and that in the five year period 1951-6, over 200,000 people had been forced to emigrate. So much for Labour Party promises. In Dublin, where unemployment is most acute, the unemployed put up a candidate of their own and succeeded in capturing a seat at the expense of the party who claimed to have the solution to their problems! Work hard, they were told, and prosperity is yours. “If our national income becomes stagnant, if we refuse to work hard and produce more, social security becomes merely a delusion and a deception, said John Costello, the Prime Minister, in 1948, but the man who was Minister for Social Welfare (plus the portfolio of Deputy Prime Minister), Wm. Norton (Leader of the Labour Party) had told the workers ten years before, that “Under our' present social system, greater productivity means a lower wage for the worker and higher profits for the owner of industry.” (Labour News, Dublin, 29/1 /38). Though Costello could claim in the Dail (20/7/49) that the 1948 volume of production for all industries was 28% above the 1938 volume and the United Nations Statistical Bulletin issued on 6 November, 1947, included Eire among the countries showing monthly production averages higher than 1937, the International Labour Office in its cost of living findings for February, 1947, picked out Eire for special mention among four countries where “real wages have actually dropped below 1937 levels.” Little wonder that the tide has again turned in favour of “ Dev.”

If however the working class of Ireland believe that their problems can be solved by Fianna Fail, they are in for a rude awakening; for the record of that party is a record of service to the only class which can be served under capitalism—the capitalist class. It was they who introduced the most repressive anti-working class legislation in the history of the State. The Wages (Standstill) Order, the Trade Union Bill, the Industrial Relations Bill (which set up the now notorious Labour Court), all measures designed to hinder the efficacy of trade-union action, in the interest of Irish employers. After sixteen years of Fianna Fail rule, the Medical Superintendent of the Dublin Fever Hospital stated that: “Until the Dublin wage-earners and their wives and children were decently housed and fed, more beds in sanatoria and tuberculosis hospitals would be needed.” (Irish Independent, 24/6/49). That was Fianna Fail before; may we expect a change now? The answer is an unqualified “ NO ” and to prove that he is consistent in his concern for the class he represents, Mr. De Valera’s first statement after his election success was— yes, you guessed it—a clarion call for harder work! “One great, combined and sustained effort and the task will be done.” (Irish Times, 8/3/57). And the “task?” To put a very shaky native capitalist class back on its feet again, while Irish workers continue to live in poverty and go to Mass on Sundays.

There is, however, one bright spot in this otherwise murky picture; the tiny (as yet) Socialist Party in Ireland, continues, with the limited means at its disposal, to point out to Irish workers the message of Socialism, that until the machinery referred to in the first paragraph is commonly held by ALL, it will continue to lie idle, however willing a non-owning class may be to use it. This wonderful world can be OURS when enough of us really want it AND KNOW HOW TO GET IT.

F.

50 Years Ago: The Freethinkers (1960)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mankind is prone to many errors. When, for instance, one mistake has been discovered and the error removed, many men fancy they have rid themselves of all wrong notions. Those people who, because they have abandoned certain religious superstitions are fond of calling themselves Freethinkers, often imagine they have banished superstition from their minds altogether. Vain delusion. The bulk of the so called Freethinkers, including their leading propagandists (such as C. Bradlaugh, G. W. Foote, and J. M. Robertson) still accept and repeat the wholly unsupported assertion of the parson Malthus, that the cause of poverty is over-population. In spite of the example of Ireland, which, under their very eyes, has had its population steadily decreasing during the last 50 years, yet the misery of its working-class continuing, they reiterate the same old superstition like the parsons they so often condemn.

From the Socialist Standard, February, 1910.

The Irish General Election (1944)

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.

A Letter To An Irish Worker (1947)

From the October 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not far away lies the country where you were born, Ireland—Ireland, geographically, but not politically. Politically, there are two lands—as you know—Eire and Northern Ireland. Ireland as a geographical unit does exist—Ireland as a nation, no.

Unpalatable as this fact may appear to you and the majority of Irishmen and women in this country it remains none the less a fact and to ignore it in any review of the situation in Ireland would be sheer folly, if not deceit. More important still: since it is the position of the working class with which I am concerned it is from that class point of view that I examine Ireland. To express any other point of view but the working class one would not only be detrimental to the real interests of Irish workers both here and in Ireland, but would also be tantamount to a surrendering of my Socialist principles.

At present you are being asked to give your support to a campaign to ”end partition in Ireland.” You are asked, as an Irishman, to "help end the unnatural division of Ireland, to make Ireland, once more, as she was in the past, a free and united nation.” Those organisations that are very much interested in getting your support for their nationalist policies are constantly reminding you of “your glorious heritage,” of ”your proud past, your great Irish nation and your nationality.” However, I would urge you to stop and think, and ask yourself what it’s all about—remember, the hand that heartily slaps you on the back may yet conceal a knife.

Ireland, today, represents a glaring example of the utter futility of supporting nationalist parties, from the workers’ view point. From long before the French Revolution to the Civil War of 1920 Irish men, women and children, have died a hundred-and-one deaths through war, famine and pestilence caused either directly or indirectly by the pursuing of this "pure ideal” of national independence. Of course, one can look back upon it all as ‘‘just history” and murmur about the "inevitability of social development.” However, such an attitude is not enough—to stop there is to close your eyes to what is happening now and what may happen in the future. History follows no preordained, inexorable path—it is men who make history, and men who change the world. And because Irish working men and women still give their allegiance and support to this nationalist ideal of a “free and united Ireland” so are they also prepared to follow in the footsteps of those who went before them and lay down their very lives, in one way or another, for something they believe to be in their interests.

And what has been the result of it all in Ireland? What has been achieved through the misery and the suffering and the death of the countless thousands of unnamed Irish peasants and workers? What concrete and tangible gains have been made by those who always bear the brunt of wars, whether national or international? Shall we assess our gains? Surely it is high time we did.

Now, then, note these data: Eire (26 of the 32 Irish counties) is a Republic, an independent state. It has a population of about 3,000,000, of which number 66 persons are considered wealthy to the extent that they receive an average £27 10s. each per day; the great remainder of the population—the working class—being so poor that their income is below the 1939 cost-of-living figure by over 30 per cent. in the cities and 15 per cent. in the country areas; of the 70-odd-thousand registered unemployed members of this population the unmarried man “exists” on the munificent sum of 22s. 6d. per week. Emigrant ships (you’ve experienced the luxurious comfort of these sea-greyhounds!) have carried on an average a daily cargo of 78 Irish men and women to this and other countries since 1922. Slums, hovels and dilapidated houses that constitute “habitable accommodation” for a great many; all the poverty-diseases, of which tuberculosis causes one-half of all the deaths between the ages of 15 and 25 each year. One hundred and forty politicians who prate about "equality of sacrifice” and, at the same time, increase their salaries from £40 to £52 per month while 140,000 old-age pensioners “exist” on £2 10s. per month. Charitable organisations are as much a part of the Irish scene as are the Mountains of Mourne or the Blarney Stone. (One of these organisations issued its 157th annual report in June. That report stated that in Dublin City—capital of this proud “Irish nation,” Eire—about 8.500 families are trying to live on incomes of between five shillings and £1 per week. It continued, in like vein, to enumerate the many afflictions from which the working people of city, town and village suffer; and for the hundredth-and-fifty-seventh time this unctuous, back-slapping Christian organisation, shedding crocodile-tears, bemoaned the fact that to find large families accommodated in one ramshackle room, damp and miserable, without anything like sufficient food, clothing and bedding is a common experience.)

Well, that’s Eire today after a quarter of a century’s self-government. I think you’ll agree that all the “heroic” national struggles that have been waged in Ireland have—so far as the Irish worker and his family is concerned—achieved absolutely nothing. Today, behind the brave talk of the politicians, behind the backs of the cultured gentlemen of the Gaelic League and the language revivalists, beneath the cloak of nationality and religion, lies the stark reality of the slum, of rampant disease, of poor wages, of high prices, of dole and emigration queues—poverty is the daily companion and bed-fellow of the majority of men and women in Ireland.

Yes—of course—there have been changes, the strategically-important seaports are no longer the legal property of the British Government, the British Governor-General is gone, the tricolour now flutters triumphantly in the breeze over Government House in Merrion Square . . . Changes? Well, of a sort; changes which certainly haven’t changed your wage-slave position in the least—and, surely, that’s the one thing worth changing?

No, nationalism has nothing to offer you—except a change of masters. Whether the Eire Government of De Valera or the Northern Ireland Government of Basil Brooke rules the whole, or only part, of Ireland, whether the flag be the tricolour or the Union Jack, whether partition ends or continues, you, as a worker, will in no wise be any better off. Your problems will still continue, will still confront you—worrying you and causing you many a headache—while the present system of society lasts. To solve those problems—which never leave yon, be you in Ireland, Britain, America or any other part of the world—you’ll most certainly have to struggle.

But let your struggle be one against the real origin of your problems, against the system of capitalism, and against those who support it. Struggle against the system which condemns all workers, regardless of the place of their birth being Ireland, Britain, America or anywhere else, to a life-time of toil and poverty, from cradle to grave ; struggle against the wealthy few who, because they own the factories, mines, railways and all of the means and instruments for producing wealth, compel you—because you own nothing—to labour for their benefit.

Your struggle, in common with the struggle of workers everywhere, to be successful must be a revolutionary one. Your aim? To take from the capitalist class its ownership of the means of production and make them the common property of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex. When you’ve achieved that—when you’ve won that revolution — living will really be worthwhile then, it will be a joy and an adventure.

Then things will be produced because people need them and not in order to sell for the purpose of making profit; then poverty will disappear, insecurity vanish, and wars will be nothing but memories . . . That will be Socialism—so, speed the day!

Comradely Yours,

Chris Walsh.