Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Workers' Republic (Author: James Connolly)
Chapter 5
WOOD QUAY WARD, ELECTION ADDRESS DUBLIN, JANUARY, 1903 TO
THE ELECTORS
FELLOW WORKERS,
Having been again asked to contest the Wood Quay Ward in the
interests of labour, I desire, in accepting this invitation, to lay
before you a few of the principles upon which I conducted the campaign
last election, and on which I shall fight this.
Our defeat of
last year, brought about as it was by a campaign of slander and bribery,
and a wholesale and systematic debauching of the more degraded portion
of the electorate, did not in the slightest degree affect the truth of
the principles for which we contested. These principles still remain the
only principles by which the working class can ever attain its
freedom.
When the workers come into the world we find that we are
outcasts in the world. The land on which we must live is the property of
a class who are the descendants of men who stole the land from our
forefathers, and we who are workers, are, whether in town or country,
compelled to pay for permission to live on the earth; the houses, shops,
factories, etc., which were built by the labour of our fathers at wages
that simply kept them alive are now owned by a class which never
contributed an ounce of sweat to their erecting, but whose members will
continue to draw rent and profit from them while the system lasts. As a
result of this the worker in order to live must sell himself into the
service of a masterhe must sell to that master the liberty to
coin into profit the physical and mental energies.
A shopkeeper
in order to live must sell his goods for what he can get, but a worker
in order to live must sell a part of his life, nine, ten, or twelve
hours per day as the case may
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be. The shopkeeper, if he is
lucky, may get the value of his goods, but the worker cannot get under
the capitalist system the value of his labour; he must accept whatever
wage those who are unemployed are willing to accept at his job. This is
what I call wage-slavery, because under it the worker is a slave who
sells himself for a wage with which to buy his rations, which is the
only difference between this system and negro slavery where the master
bought the rations and fed the slave himself. There is only one remedy
for this slavery of the working class, and that remedy is the socialist
republic, a system of society in which the land and all houses,
railways, factories, canals, workshops, and everything necessary for
work shall be owned and operated as common property, much as the land of
Ireland was owned by the clans of Ireland before England introduced the
capitalist system amongst us at the point of the sword. There is only
one way to attain that end, and that way is for the working class to
establish a political party of its own; a political party which shall
set itself to elect to all public bodies in Ireland working men resolved
to use all the power of those bodies for the workers and against their
oppressors, whether those oppressors be English, Scotch, or sham Irish
patriots. In claiming this we will only be following the example of our
masters. Every political party is the party of a class. The Unionists
represent the interests of the landlords and the big capitalists
generally; the United Irish League is the party of the middle class, the
agriculturists, the house jobbers, slum landlords, and drink sellers. If
an Irish landlord evicts a tenant farmer he is denounced by the Home
Rule press as an eneny to Ireland, but an Irish employer can lock out
and attempt to starve thousands of true Irishmen, as was done in the
building trade in 1896, in the tailoring trade in 1900, and in the
engineers of Inchicore in 1902; and not a member of parliament would
take up the fight for the workers, or bother himself about them. Nay,
the capitalists who thus
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try to crush their workers are
highly honoured by the official parliamentary party, and some, like Mr.
P. White, are members of the United Irish League Executive. If a man
takes a farm from which a tenant has been evicted, he is rightly called
a traitor, but who ever heard or read of the capitalist Home Rule press
of this country saying a hard word about the scabs who go in on a strike
or lock-out, even when those scabs were imported, as was the case during the tailors' lock-out, the saddlers' strike, or the engineers'
lock-out? If the men who were imprisoned for threatening black-legs
during the engineers' lock-out had been engaged in a dispute over farms,
we would have been told that they were patriots suffering for their
country. But as they were only workmen fighting for their class
interests, we were told by the Home Rule newspapers that they were
misguided individuals.
What is wanted then is for the
workers to organise for political action on socialist lines. And let us
take lesson by the municipal election of last year. Let us remember how
the drink-sellers of the Wood Quay Ward combined with the slum owner and
the house jobber; let us remember how Alderman Davin, Councillor McCall,
and all their fellow publicans issued free drinks to whoever would
accept, until on the day before election, and election day, the scenes
of bestiality and drunkenness around their shops were such as brought
the blush of shame to every decent man and woman who saw them. Let us
remember the threats and the bribery, how Mr. Byrne of Wood Quay told
the surrounding tenants, that if Mr. Connolly was elected their rents
would be raised; let us remember how the spirit of religion was
prostituted to the service of the drinkseller to drive the labourer back
into his degradation; how the workers were told that socialism and
freethinking were the same thing, although the free thinking government
of France was just after shooting down socialist workmen at Martinique
for taking part in a strike procession; let us remember how the paid
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canvassers of the capitalist candidatehired
slanderersgave a different account of Mr. Connolly to every
section of the electors. How they said to the Catholics that he was an
Orangeman, to the Protestants that he was a Fenian, to the Jews that he
was an anti-Semite, to others that he was a Jew, to the labourers that
he was a journalist on the make, and to the tradesmen and professional
classes that he was an ignorant labourer; that he was born in Belfast,
Derry, England, Scotland and Italy, according to the person the canvasser was talking to. Remember that all this carnival of corruption and
dishonesty was resorted to, simply in order to prevent labour from
electing a representative who could neither be bought, terrified nor
seduced, and you will understand how important your masters conceive to
be their hold on the public bodies in this country. You will also
understand that there can never be either clean, healthy, or honest
politics in the City of Dublin, until the power of the drink-sellers is
absolutely brokenthey are positively the meanest and most
degraded section that ever attempted to rule a city.
Now, Ladies
and Gentlemen, you understand my position. This is socialist
republicanism, the politics of labour, of freedom from all tyrants,
foreign and native. If you are a worker your interests should compel you
to vote for me, if you are a decent citizen, whether worker or master,
you should vote for me; if you are an enemy of freedom, a tyrant, or the
tool of a tyrant, you will vote against me.
Believing that in
this fight I am fighting the fight of my class, invite every
self-respecting worker to join our committee and help the cause.
Yours in the name of labour,
JAMES
CONNOLLY.
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