James Connolly
Edited by Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh
The Dispute on the Docks
The Dispute on the Docks
p.183Is it War? 20 November 1915
The fight of the employees of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company against the attempt of that company to reduce them below the level of their fellow-workers has produced some very interesting developments.
Late last week this office was honoured by a visit from a representative of the Irish Party in the person of a gentleman who most pompously announced himself as 'Mr Esmonde, MP'. No one in Liberty Hall seeming very much impressed by this title the young man proceeded to unload himself of a large and varied assortment of threats as to what the Government and the Irish Party were going to do to the Transport Union. As he expressed it, they would 'wage war' upon us. Being told not too politely that he and the Government and the Irish Party could take themselves to a climate warmer than the Dardanelles or Flanders, the young gentleman (who, although an officer in the British Army, has no desire to go to any of the places specified or hinted at), looked a little pained p.184 and displeased, and suggested arbitration under the Munitions Act. He was then informed that there was nothing to arbitrate about.
That every other company on the quays were paying at least as high, and some higher than the company involved, and it would have to pay the same.
Here followed another explosion of wrath, and some more threats, and eventually it was hinted to 'Mr Esmonde, MP' that his room was preferable to his company. To go – and he goed. He was a nice young man for an old maid's tea party, no doubt, but the most insufferable coxcomb that ever the wind blew into this office. There are queer things comes up with the tide, and certainly he was one of the quarest.
We can well imagine how those old Parliamentary hands, Joe Devlin and J.D. Nugent, winked at each other behind his back when they sent him off to an interview at Liberty Hall.
Following the interview we had telephone messages from the Lord Mayor of Dublin on the same subject. His Lordship got from this office the courteous answer any gentleman gets here to a message courteously put, and was a welcome change to the manners of our former interviewers. But, of course, although we were interested to learn that we were the subject of Conference at the Viceregal Lodge and at Dublin Castle we still could not see that there was anything to arbitrate.
We were informed too that the Admiralty proposed taking the boats and using them as transports.
Well, the Admiralty has a legal right to take any boats it wants, but we hold that to take a boat that is involved in a strike, and pay the owners of that boat for its use during that strike is equal to assisting the company against the men. It is paying Government money to keep the owners from losing by the suspension of their business. It is like paying strike pay to the owners, and takes out of the hands of the men the only weapon they possess, viz, their power to inflict loss upon their late employer. Such an action by the British Government in a Dublin dispute could only be interpreted as an act of war upon Labour, and we would have no alternative but accept it in that light.
It would, we repeat, mean war.
We are going to win this fight. We are not going to allow Sir William Watson, William Martin Murphy, nor the British Government to single out any body of workers for attack and destruction. We know that the destruction of that body of p.185 workers would mean an instant attack all along the line upon organised Labour in Dublin, and to prevent that destruction and avert that attack we will fight with 'all the resources of civilization.'
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Title (uniform): The Dispute on the Docks
Author: James Connolly
Editor: Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh
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Electronic edition compiled by: Benjamin Hazard
Funded by: University College, Cork via The Writers of Ireland Project
Edition statement
2. Second draft.
Extent: 1720 words
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Publisher: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College Cork
Address: College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt
Date: 2006
Date: 2011
Distributor: CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
CELT document ID: E900002-056
Availability: Available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of academic research and teaching only.
Source description
Edition
- Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh (ed.), James Connolly: The Lost Writings (London 1997).
Selected further reading
- James Connolly and William Walker, The Connolly-Walker controversy on socialist unity in Ireland (Dublin 1911, repr. Cork 1986).
- Robert Lynd, James Connolly: an appreciation, to James Connolly, Collected works (2 vols, October 1916, repr. Dublin 1987) i, pp. 495–507.
- Lambert McKenna, The social teachings of James Connolly (Dublin 1920).
- Desmond Ryan, James Connolly: his life, work and writings (Dublin 1924).
- G. Schüller, James Connolly and Irish freedom: a marxist analysis (Chicago 1926, repr. Cork 1974).
- Noelle Davis, Connolly of Ireland: patriot and socialist (Carnarvon 1946).
- Richard Michael Fox, James Connolly: the forerunner (Tralee 1946).
- Desmond Ryan, Socialism and nationalism: a selection from the writings of James Connolly (Dublin 1948).
- Desmond Ryan, 'James Connolly', in J. W. Boyle (ed.), Leaders and workers (Cork 1960, repr. 1978).
- C. Desmond Greaves, The life and times of James Connolly (London 1961, repr. Berlin 1976).
- François Bédarida, Le socialisme et la nation: James Connolly et l'Irlande (Paris 1965).
- Joseph Deasy, James Connolly: his life and teachings (Dublin 1966).
- James Connolly, Press poisoners in Ireland and other articles (Belfast 1968).
- James Connolly, Yellow unions in Ireland and other articles (Belfast 1968).
- Peter McKevitt, James Connolly (Dublin 1969).
- Owen Dudley Edwards, The mind of an activist: James Connolly (Dublin 1981).
- Derry Kelleher, Quotations from James Connolly: an anthology in three parts (2 vols Drogheda 1972).
- Peter Berresford Ellis (ed.), James Connolly: selected writings edited with an introduction by P. Berresford Ellis (Harmondsworth 1973).
- Samuel Levenson, James Connolly: a biography (London 1973).
- James Connolly, Ireland upon the dissecting table: James Connolly on Ulster and Partition (Cork 1975).
- Nora Connolly O'Brien, James Connolly: portrait of a rebel father (Dublin 1975).
- E. Strauss, Irish nationalism and British democracy (Westport CT 1975).
- Bernard Ransom, Connolly's Marxism (London 1980).
- Communist Party of Ireland, Breaking the chains: selected writings of James Connolly on women (Belfast 1981).
- Ruth Dudley Edwards, James Connolly (Dublin 1981).
- Brian Kelly, James Connolly and the fight for an Irish Workers' Republic (Cleveland, OH 1982).
- John F. Murphy, Implications of the Irish past: the socialist ideology of James Connolly from an historical perspective (unpubl. MA thesis, University of North Carolina at Charlotte 1983).
- Anthony Lake, James Connolly: the development of his political ideology (unpubl. MA thesis, NUI Cork 1984).
- Frederick Ryan, Socialism, democracy and the Church (Dublin 1984). With reviews of Connolly's 'Labour in Irish History' and Jaures' 'Studies in socialism'.
- Connolly: the Polish aspects: a review of James Connolly's political and spiritual affinity with Józef Pilsudski, leader of the Polish Socialist Party, organiser of the Polish legions and founder of the Polish state (Belfast 1985).
- X. T. Zagladina, James Connolly (Moscow 1985).
- James Connolly and Daniel De Leon, The Connolly-De Leon Controversy: On wages, marriage and the Church (London 1986).
- David Howell, A Lost Left: three studies in socialism and nationalism (Chicago 1986).
- Priscilla Metscher, Republicanism and socialism in Ireland: a study of the relationship of politics and ideology from the United Irishmen to James Connolly, Bremer Beiträge zur Literatur- und Ideologiegeschichte 2 (Frankfurt-am-Main 1986).
- Michael O'Riordan, General introduction, to James Connolly, Collected works (2 vols Dublin 1987) i, pp. ix–xvii.
- Cathal O'Shannon, Introduction, to James Connolly, Collected works (2 vols Dublin 1987) i, 11–16.
- Austen Morgan, James Connolly: a political biography (Manchester 1988).
- Helen Clark, Sing a rebel song: the story of James Connolly, born Edinburgh 1868, executed Dublin 1916 (Edinburgh 1989).
- Kieran Allen, The politics of James Connolly (London 1990).
- Andy Johnston, James Larraggy and Edward McWilliams, Connolly: a Marxist analysis (Dublin 1990).
- Lambert McKenna, The social teachings of James Connolly, by Lambert McKenna, ed. Thomas J. Morrissey (Dublin 1991).
- Donnacha Ní Gabhann, The reality of Connolly: 1868-1916 (Dublin 1993).
- William K. Anderson, James Connolly and the Irish left (Dublin 1994).
- Proinsias Mac Aonghusa, What Connolly said: James Connolly's writings (Dublin 1994).
- James L. Hyland, James Connolly: life and times (Dundalk 1997).
- William McMullen, With James Connolly in Belfast (Belfast 2001).
- Donal Nevin, James Connolly: a full life (Dublin 2005).
Connolly, James (1997). ‘The Dispute on the Docks’. In: James Connolly: The Lost Writings. Ed. by Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh. London: Pluto, pp. 183–185.
You can add this reference to your bibliographic database by copying or downloading the following:
@incollection{E900002-056,
author = {James Connolly},
title = {The Dispute on the Docks},
editor = {Aindrias Ó~Cathasaigh},
booktitle = {James Connolly: The Lost Writings},
publisher = {Pluto},
address = {London},
date = {1997},
pages = {183–185}
}
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Profile description
Creation: by James Connolly
Date: 1915
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- The text is in English. (en)
Keywords: political; essay; prose; 20c
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