More articles by James Connolly previously unpublished since his execution appeared in Issue 21 in March 2005.
The Corporation and the Children
[The Workers’ Republic, November 24 1900]
At last meeting of the Dublin Corporation a motion was under consideration dealing with the practice of street trading by children. It was resolved to refer the matter to the Law Agent to see if the Corporation had power to frame bye-laws dealing with the subject.
So runs the bald newspaper report. Not a word in the Corporation, never a sentence in the papers as to the evil social conditions which compel parents to send their children out to hawk articles on the street for the sake of the help to be derived from the few additional pence so earned. The Corporation, it is true, recognises that there is an evil, but the evil recognised by the Corporation is only that resulting from the noise and importunities of the youthful merchants in their efforts to sell their wares—that, and the competition which these embryo capitalists offer to the shopkeeping class to which our corporators belong. The other and greater evil, viz., the hopeless misery in which the parents of such children must exist to compel them to expose the latter to all the dangers of street sellers—dangers including the inclemency of the weather, inevitably sowing the seeds of disease; the pollution of the filthy talk they must hear going on around them; the temptation to immorality to which the young girls are exposed by the attentions of all manner of dissolute blackguardism; the education of the streets supplanting and obliterating the influences of school and home—that parental misery and degradation the Corporation will not refer to. Why? Because that misery cannot be investigated without publicly incriminating the capitalist class and the capitalist system. The corporators know that as long as the wages of the working class are at the present low level, the lower grade of manual labourers will always find it to be next to impossible to live and rear a family without taking the earliest possible opportunity to utilise the services of the youthful members of the family to assist in their own maintenance, by street selling or otherwise. Knowing this, the astute middle class who control the Corporation recognise that to evoke a discussion upon the conditions which compel children to act as street sellers would lead to an investigation into the social conditions, wages, etc., of the parents, and this could not be investigated without condemning the majority of the capitalist class, for whose benefit those parents are exploited.
Thus the question of street trading by children is seen to be linked inextricably with the capitalist system. In every country capitalism brings in its train the exploitation and degradation of children; coins into profit their tender limbs, and blots the sunshine out of their young lives. In countries where the factory system has taken root, as in England, the children are caught up into the factory, and there made to supplement by their pitiful earnings the wages of their parents. The millowner reduces the wages of the factory hand and, when remonstrated with, tells his wage-slave to send the children to work and their earnings will make up for the reduction in wages. In Ireland there are few factories, so when the competition for employment drives down labourers’ wages, or trade depression throws the labourer out of work, he uses his children also to supplement his earnings, and as he cannot send them to the factory he sends them, too often, to the street. Whose is the fault? The capitalist class, and all who uphold the capitalist class and their accursed social system.
The Corporation will take action in this matter. They will pass bye-laws to empower the police to harry these unfortunate youngsters; to chase them from their standings, to cuff them and maltreat them as if they were criminals, and eventually to make criminals of them. Thus the “respectable” traders for whom the Corporation caters will no longer be bothered by their poor competition; thus the precious children of our masters will no longer have their susceptibilities shocked by the sight of the ragged and shivering children of the poor endeavouring to earn a living; thus the misery and squalor of our life will be pushed into the background and only the bright side allowed to show itself—and what more could the municipal statesmanship of the shoddy capitalist class devise?
Where, it may be asked, were the Labour men in the City Hall when the subject was under discussion? Why, they were wirepulling with the politicians as to which middle class candidate they would agree to sell the labour vote to in the various contested wards at the municipal election. That is all the Labour members, save the mark, are good for. At least two of them, Alderman Doyle and Councillor Richardson, publicly accused each other in the Trades’ Hall of such conduct, and in the opinion of their hearers, each fully substantiated his charge against the other.
Thus while the rich proceed with their schemes for the aggrandisement of their class, the working class are betrayed by their representatives who spend their time in political intrigues for personal profit.
An Object Lesson
[The Workers’ Republic, December 15 1900]
On Wednesday November 28, there appeared in the Dublin newspapers an advertisement announcing the issue of shares in a new electrical syndicate, the “British Electrical Street Tramways, Limited”. We do not suppose our readers are interested in that fact as probable subscribers for the shares of this company, but we nevertheless venture to draw their attention to the circumstance, because the advertisement in question was in itself an eloquent tribute to the validity of many of the points raised by Socialists in their criticism of the capitalist system. The Syndicate is formed, the advertisement tells us, “to construct and work lines of electric railways and tramways licensed by special Acts of Parliament, or by Municipal or other authorities, and to extend the service of traction vehicles in large towns”.
Here we have a proposal by a number of rich men to engage in the business of constructing and working electric trams, etc, in any town of Great Britain and Ireland where they can procure permission to do so, and coupled with the proposal is an estimate of the large profits to be acquired by such a proceeding—to be acquired by whoever purchases shares in this company, even though the person so purchasing may be entirely ignorant of all that pertains to electric traction, or unable to visit any of the towns where the profits are to be earned. Tender-hearted humanitarians and benevolent persons generally, aghast at the miseries of the workers but loth to relinquish their belief in the institution of private property, are never tired of proclaiming that the cure-all for those miseries is to be found in the cultivation of feelings of friendship between capitalists and their workers. They affirm that strikes, lock-outs, and industrial disputes of all kinds would be rendered impossible if the employers and employed were only to meet and know each other better.
To this contention Socialists have always replied that the development of modern industry renders impossible any such rapprochement between the classes; that the employer is no longer a person but a thing—a company; that, the shares of said company being saleable on the market, the personality of the shareholder is of a fleeting character, and that consequently the possibility of human, personal, intercourse between master and man is fast being destroyed by the inevitable tendency of industry to fall into the hands of companies, and of companies to form combinations or trusts. The man who holds shares in companies situated a hundred or a thousand miles distant from his home cannot have a personal regard for the employees who earn his dividends, and the employees cannot be expected to remember in their prayers shareholders whose very names are unknown to them. The fact of this company offering its shares promiscuously to all who choose to buy, and proposing to exploit the needs of towns wherever possible, proves this Socialist contention to be absolutely correct. How can anyone believe that the monied people rushing to buy these shares could be brought to regard as men and brothers the unfortunate workmen whose labours they hope to profit by?
One other and more important point is brought out by this advertisement, viz., that the private capitalist is no longer necessary. Apologists for capitalism claim that the profits of the capitalist are the reward of his brains and skill in organising; that without the brains and organising genius of the capitalist industry would be impossible. But here we observe in this case, as in the case of all capitalist companies, that the profits are to be reaped by people who bring neither brains, skill, nor even technical knowledge to the work—who bring nothing but cash to purchase the brains and muscle of other men.
All the organising and managerial functions of the company will be performed by experts hired for the purpose. These experts need have no interest in the company other than their salaries. It is obvious, then, that when private capitalist companies can hire servants to perform the brain work necessary for their schemes, the same class of persons could be hired, if need be, by the public bodies, state or municipal, to perform the same functions in the service of, and for the interest of, the entire community.
By the hiring of salaried managers the capitalist class abandon all right to use the plea that the community could not progress without their aid; since personal supervision and direction by the capitalist himself is not required, the public bodies who represent the community can safely undertake the ownership and control of all the work of production and distribution; and solve the problem of organising skill and genius by the same method as that employed by the capitalist class today, viz., by hiring technical experts to organise and direct.
Thus the first step in the Socialist organisation of industry is illustrated by the last step in capitalist organisation. The capitalist having voluntarily abdicated his personal supervision, in his own interest, must now abdicate his personal ownership, in the general interest.
Socialist Electioneering
[The Workers’ Republic, February 1901]
Since the appearance of our last issue the Dublin branch of the Irish Socialist Republican Party has been engaged in its third municipal campaign. It is therefore fitting that we should place before our readers a brief resume of the results of that election, as well as of the principal lessons to be drawn therefrom.
On this occasion we were fortunate in having as our candidate a comrade who held a high position in his trade union, and was also on the executive of the Dublin Trades’ and Labour Council, as well as being a true and tried Socialist. Thus our comrade McLoughlin received the endorsement of his fellow-tradesmen and trade unionists—undoubtedly the first time in Ireland on which either a trade union or a Trades’ Council publicly identified themselves with the electoral campaign of a Socialist party. This fact was both an element of strength and a source of distraction. It was an element of strength, because it disarmed the prejudices of the trade unionists among the electors, and made them more susceptible to the teachings of Socialism; it was a source of distraction, because it temporarily admitted to our counsels many who, not seeing farther than the success or failure of the moment, were ever pressing upon the party and its candidate the supposed necessity of temporising with the middle class in order to snatch an electoral success. Needless to say such advice was promptly rejected. The following remarks of Mr Connolly, when acting as chairman of the great meeting in the Trades’ Hall, defined exactly the position of the party and its candidate towards such proposals:—
It has been said that the uncompromising working class position taken up by Mr McLoughlin, in conformity with his Socialist principles, will alienate many middle class voters, and so endanger his chances. But those who use this argument do not understand Mr McLoughlin’s position. He does not wish to crawl into the Corporation (applause); he does not wish to creep in there; he does not wish to smuggle himself in there under false pretences. He wishes to go in standing erect on his own feet as a man should; compromising no principle, yielding no point of his programme; proud, conscientious and upright as a representative of the working class should be, and if he cannot enter the Corporation in that manner he is content to remain outside.
This language was new to the Dublin Trade Unionists; the enthusiasm with which it was received, and the endorsement it received at the polls, was proof enough of its soundness. Be it remembered that the Socialist candidate was opposing the nominee of the “great Nationalist organisation” the United Irish League; that the said nominee was supported at his public meeting by three members of Parliament, viz., Tim Harrington, Pat O’Brien and P White; that one of them stood all day canvassing voters at the polling booth; that the Labour Electoral Association supported the middle class candidate; that our enemies had hired corps of paid canvassers and agents, whereas the Socialist candidate had none but unpaid volunteer canvassers; that our enemies had the funds of the capitalist class in the Ward to aid their candidature, and the Socialist nothing but the coppers of poorly paid workers; that all the prejudices of religion were played upon against us; when all this is remembered, who can say that the poll of the Socialist Republican—defeating the Loyalist, and coming within 97 votes of ousting the Home Ruler—is not a result to be proud of and full of promise for the future?
RED BANNER 