Book review

An Reabhloid - for a Workers Republic - Page 21 Book Review; Labour and Parti tion: The Belfast Working Class 1905-1923 Austen Morgan, Pluto Press, Lon don, 1991. This work is useful for the immense amount of information put into it. It is, if anything even more valuable as a lesson as to how all such work can be neutralised by being used ina project that contradicts the actual sum of the facts. It is not that the subject of this work is mistaken. It is a worthwhile task to examine the oldest mass local political movement of the Irish working-class and to reassert Belfast’s mainly Protestant Labour tradition, particularly now that it seems to have been obliterated by Orangeism and what Morgan terms ‘Sloanism’ (after Paisley’s successful precursor, Tom Sloan, M.P.). It is also to Morgan’s credit that he does not chart as coming from Ulster Liberal Unionist (like B.L-C.O) nor in the said Sloanism (like Henry Patterson). His problem is to regard Belfast Labour as the Irish working class's highest (rather than just its earliest) achievement which set norms that could not be surpassed in the period of which he writes. 50 he insists, for both now and then, on separating the strugglesof the Irish working classand of Irish nationalism. He sees the latter simply as.a force dividing the first between the Ulster Protestants and the rest, and postponing thereby its own success as part of a democratic movement of which “Belfast labourism.... was part’ (Page xix). From this ultimatistic (and sketchy) position, despite the inadequacy of his chosen tool, he is able to dismiss the idea that, in Ireland, Socialism might be advanced through the actual strugele for the democratic aim of Irish self-determination: “The concept of permanent revolution associated with Trotsky has led the Irish left to support republicans in the mistaken belief that separation is tantamount to socialism’ (Page xxi). (He does not pinpoint the fools whom he alleges confuse democratic and national and socialist international demands.) At the end of his book, he provides three alternative scenarios to that of the actual course of Irish history between 1913 and 1921... they all involve initiatives by nationalists or their foreign allies: none give the working-class movement orany partofiteven the role that Connolly tried to play. This is justified by the narrative that contains basic mistakes made the more necessary by Morgan’s need to do down the national struggle as well as giving Belfast Labour its due. This group does deserve to be honoured for raising the Red Flag ina working class divided against itself and its majority hegemonised by the most predatory section of British capital. This last part (the imperial connection) is downplayed, with Morgan asserting that it has tended to be overstated by nationalists and other amti-imperialists compared to Ulster’s internal divisions. He bends the stick the other way and breaksit. In hischosen period, Unionismisa coalition of three groups: those, initially Northerners, concerned to defend Ulster against the threat of Irish nationalism; others mainly the Anglo- Irish, seeking to use Ulster to maintain the Protestant ascendancy throughout Ireland, and, finally, those in Britain, who sought to use Ulster and Ireland as a

An Reabhloid - for a Workers Republic - Page 22 whole to maintain the empire, and see off the liberal government.(P.124) The relative strengths of these groups are not quantified.

Accordingly, Morgan can assert that,’ today, Britain has lost the will to dominate’ (Page xviii) and that, were it to withdraw its troops, it would have to send them back to avert further chaos‘(P317).

This leaves Ulster Unionism, in particular, as a defensive reaction to the threatened imposition of Irish Home Rule on its province: a demand purely and simply for the same self-determination rights offered the Irish majority and allied only conjuncturally with United Kingdom reaction, justas the Home Rulersare allied conjuncturally with liberal democracy. Hedoes notexplain how, after an unsuccessful attempt, before this period, to justify Unionism by winning decisive support from among the Irish majority, the Ulster Unionists set the pace for that majority's suppression and as defender of the claims of every isolated Irish Protestant to dominate his Catholic neighbour. The partition compromise was not an Ulster initiative: it was moved by a British Liberal, adopted by his party and more reluctantly by the Irish Home Rulers, only to be rejected by Ulster Unionists until the British Unionists accepted. “The Protestant working class of Belfast__the most important social force in Ireland’ (P.3) did not just try to defend its own patch; it mandated individuals as aggressively anti-democratic as could be found. This conscious symbiotic relationship with consistent imperialism was caused economically, probably by Belfast industry's greater deon the British empire than was the United Kingdom; socially, there was the Orange tradition of Protestant ascendancy. What was certain is the fact of this consciousness, that it limited Belfast Labour's ability to expand and madc its actual achievement all the more impressive. Morganiscasual about all workers that are not Belfast Protestants. Even the Belfast Catholics are denied class-consciousness and portrayed as dominated by the Home Rulers save the brief moment during the 192) pogroms, when the Republicans got a foothold.

Yet, between 1911 and 1920, it was the Falls that returned one Labour councillor. His Labourism was probably inadequate; he does not seem to be sponsored by the trades council. Nonetheless,in 1911 and 1914, he contested his seat against Home Rule candidates. Heis wortha paragraph,Morgan does noteven give him a line. Hiserrors are equally glaring outside Belfast, particularly after 1914. He repeats the error of his Connolly biography as to the members of the Irish Citizen Ammy (P 184-185), a crucial point since the mistake exaggerates the importance of that body in Connolly's strategic thinking and makes him more republican than he is. He claims the Republicans fought the 1916 West Cork by-election unsuccessfully (P192);they did not fightatall. Heclaimsthat Redmond was prepared to ‘surrender customs duties’ to win the Unionists at the 1917 convention (7.194); in fact, it was years since the Home Rulers had advocated tariffs; what Redmond opposed was his colleague's attempt to regain Republican votes. These errors are relatively minor ones but they are significant in springing from an overall necd to cxaggerate Protestant working class consciousness. He sees its political organisation in Belfast as representing a mass vanguard for its Irish comrades (and it was so until after 1907). Accordingly, he sees it as having a duty to set Irish Labour's agenda according to the Protestant workersinitscity. Thisopposes Connolly ontwo points. Firstly, Labour had to be constitutional; revolution had a particular national identity in Ireland, this being the major political restraint on Protestant working class behaviour. A serious challenge to legitimate authority in Belfast merely played into the hands of the .R.A(P.229). Thesecond pointis the union; the farthest he will go to allow support for Irish self-determination is the purely formal support forit given by Belfast Labour candidates. His alternative perspective is purcly electoral and essentially economistic. Accordingly, he criticises ‘ish Labour abstention from the 1918 election. The i.imerick Sovict he considers represents ‘its willingness ‘at times’ todo the bidding of the republican command’ (P.247). The May day holiday of 1919, called by the Social Democrats at the Berne Congress, he calls ‘in no sense’ a proletarian manifestation against the national and imperialist bourgeoisie’ (P.248). Two events that * contributed to the growth of Irish working class consciousness are denounced because itis assumed against all the evidence of the past century, that even the nationalism of the oppressed debases such consciousness utterly. Asthen,sonow Morgan's perspective for the futureof Northern Ireland sees the Catholic minority reconciled to British rule, ‘especially withdevolu tion’ (P.xcvii) and with their position ‘levelled upward by considerable economic growth ‘(P.11). Since any devolved government is likely to be dominated by the heirs of those who subordinated economic growth consistently to Protestant sectarianism, this common sense approach seems less likely than the ‘utopianism’ of Irish unity under Socialist leadership.

The project was a worthwhile one, its execution is the more to be deplored. D.R.O'Connor Lysaght