BRITAIN'S IMPERIALIST BACKYARD

'A History of the Irish Working Class.' By P. Berrestord Ellis. Victor Gollancz Ltd. 352 pages. £3.50.

When Harold Wilson sent the British army into Northern Ireland in 1969 —to the ecstatic applause of the Internationa! Socialism group - there was a dearth of books on the history of Ireland. This has been more than made up.

Mr Ellis's book, the latest product of the industry, attempts to review Irish history from the standpoint of the working : class.

Describing • itself somewhat immodestly as 'the first major study of Irish history from the standpoint of the working class since James Connolly's "Labour in Irish History"', the book has some merit in this direcIt covers the early history of Ireland from the Celtic clan system to the successful move by the Irish Catholic Church and the Irish aristocracy to hand Ireland over to Henry II.

(In fact, Pope Adrian IV granted Henry a 'Bull Laudabilliter' in 1154 permitting him to 'enlarge the bounds of the Church, to teach the truth of Christian faith to the ignorant and rude, and to extirpate the roots of vice from the field of the Lord'. All Henry II had to do in return for the privilege of serving his God in this way was pay an annual sum to the Papal coffers.)

The so-called 'final solution' to the Irish question did not occur for another 400 years. This was the plantation' system, which simply involved driving the Irish from their lands and replacing them by English colonists. Once again the Catholic Church had its dirty finger in the pie-the plantation system was devised during the reign of the Catholic queen, Mary Tudor (15531558).

Ellis deals with the Wolfe Tone uprising of 1798 and the Emmet rebellion of 1803 (which sought to nationalize Church property). Both of these have been discussed in cribed accurately as "an opportunist politician and betrayer of the Irish people'.

In the early • 19th century O'Connell and his associates turned awav from the life-and-death struggle of the Irish masses and concentrated on 'Catholic Emancipation' — a subject of interest to bourgeois nara_coplare nnlu piact-suenuio umy.

It was in opposition to O'Connell that a revolutionary tendency-centred on Fintan Lalor-was to arise. This tendency was crushed in the 1840š, with the Catholic Church once more on the side of British imperialism.

In the words of one of the Irish leaders, John Mitchel:

'When the final scene was gathering itself to crush us, the clergy as a body were found on the side of the enemv. Thev hoped for their Church in a union with nevr monarchical and aristocratic England rather than in an Ireland revolutionized and ranuhlinanized. and havina Яттт A DIT aken their part, they certainly lid the enemy's work well.' The most valuable section of Ellis's book is that dealing with Marx, Engels and the Fenians. Marx arrived in England in 1849, the year in which the Encumbered Estates Act transformed the hated Irish middleman into a new native landlord class.

Coming as it did immediately after the Great Famine (which killed a million Irish poor and forced another million to emigrate) and the defeat of the 1848 rebellion, the effect of this Act was, as Marx pointed out, to 'characterize Fenianism by a socialist tendency and make it a "lower orders" movement'.

Marx drew the conclusion from this that the English working class should demand the repeal of the Act of Union. In a letter to Engels November, 1867, wrote only legal and so only possible form of Irish emancipation which can be accepted as part of the programme of an English party.' Marx devoted enormous energy to the plight of the Irish masses. Writing in the 'New York Tribune' in 1859, he declared:

'England has destroyed the conditions of Irish society. First of all, she has confiscated the lands of the Irish, then by "parliamentary decrees" she has suppressed Irish industry; finally, by armed force she has broken the activity and energy of the Irish peopie. In this way England has created the social conditions which allow a small caste of robber landlords to dictate to the Irish people the conditions in which they are allowed to hold the land and live on it.' Marx argued that only the expropriation of the landlords by nationalization of the land would solve the Irish agrarian question.

There is no doubt that a significant socialist tendency developed in the Fenian movement. The Fenian newspaper, "The Irish People', declared in 1865:

'We make no appeal to the aristocracy ... they are the willing tools of the alien government whose policy it is to slay the people, or drive them like noxious vermin from the soil. The people must save themselves.

'Something more even than a successful insurrection is demanded. And what is that? An entire revolution which will restore the country to its rightful owners. And who are these? The people.

'Every man has one simple object to accomplish. It is to rid the land of robbers, and render every cultivator of the soil his own landlord.

'Our only hope is revolution, but most bishops and many of the clergy are opposed to revolution . when priests a mortal sin to even wish Ireland should be free, when priests call upon the people to turn informers, when bishops and priests are doing the work of the enemy • • they are bad politicians and worse Irishmen.

Some of the Fenian leaders —in particular, James Stephens who fought on the French barricades against Louis Napoleon — joined the International Working Men's Association (the First International) and it was Gustave-Paul Cluseret, the defender of the Paris Commune of 1870-1871, who led a Fenian attack on Chester castle in 1867.

Marx, however, was critical of some of the Fenian tactics. After one bomb explosion in London, he wrote:

"This last escapade of the Fenians is very stupid • • It is not to be expected that the mass of the Londoners who have shown much sympathy with Ireland will allow themselves to be blown up for the greater honour and glory of the emissaries of the Fenians!' Marx constantly stressed the importance of the revolutionary struggles of the Irish masses for the English and European revolutions.

In a letter to Engels in December, 1869, he declared:

It is to the direct and absolute interest of the English working class to get rid of their present connection with Ireland ... The English working class will never do anything before it has got rid of Ireland. The wedge must be driven in Ireland. That is why the Irish question is of such importance for the socialist movement generally' A month later, he wrote:

'If England is the fortress of European landlordism and capitalism, then the only point from which a strong blow can be struck at official England is Ireland. Ireland is the fortress of English landlordism.

A survey of working habits in Germany is producing some disquieting findings. A system of variable working hours, known as 'Gleitzeit, is common in many factories there. This means that an employee is obliged to work 40 hours a week, but can spread these hours out throughout the week as he likes. Over a time, however, this has now virtually become a ten-hour, four-day week for everyone.

Although a four-day week sounds nice, the effects are Prass, Saturday July 22, 1872 PAGE The property bonanza roars on despite statements issued every day by various banks and housing societies that the market is dipping. Take Victor Lownes, 44-year-old boss of the Playboy Club, and benefactor to the flower people.

At the end of April he bought 56 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, and a lease with 49 years to run for £85,000. Now he's sold it for £106,000. I only went in it once,' he said.

Speaking of houses on • the