Belfast Labourism, 1905-1925

Belfast Labourism,

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‘There’s many a victory decisive and complete, Has meant a sight less fighting than a hardly fought defeat; And if people do their duty, every man in his degree, Why, defeat may be more glorious than a victory needs to be.’ (Quoted in the Belfast Labour Chronicle, February 1905) Introduction? A recent issue of Ireland Socialist Review (ISR No. 3) + Te-published the British Labour Party’s 1920 report on the - *- situation in Ireland, The accompanying comment suggested that the politics of British labourism on the Irish question were more complex than previous analyses had allowed for.

Similarly this article will attempt to trace the main themes of Labourism in Belfast during the first quarter of this century, demonstrating the internal development which took place within it, when confronted by the Irish national struggle of those years, and the limitations of that development. Here too, it will be suggested, some previous analyses have been oversimplistic. The conflict in Northern Ireland over the last ten years has stimulated interest in the background to the partition of Ireland and in the social and political forces involved in the creation of the two Irish states, Since the labour movement in Northern Ireland has not played any very dramatic part in events, it has been neglected; this is unfortunate, since it not only underestimates the influence exerted in the background by that movement today, but it also ignores the fact that labour has played an important, if episodic, part in the politics of twentieth century Belfast.

Belfast Labour A branch of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) was founded in Belfast in 1893, encouraged by the British TUC, which met ' in the town that year. In 1905 a Labour Representation Committee (LRC) was formed, which later was merged with the Trades Council. In effect the Trades Council, the LRC, the ILP, the Belfast Socialist Society, and the Belfast Labour Party, were composed of an interlocking group of activists who will be referred to here as ‘Belfast Labour’.2 After some years of difficult struggles Belfast Labour began to make some progress in the first decade of this century. In 1905 and 1906 their candidate, William Walker, fought the North Belfast division, and was defeated by only 500 votes on the first occasion and 291 on the second. A third contest in 1907 resulted in a more decisive defeat. Despite its failures at Parliamentary elections Belfast Labour succeeded in various municipal, aldermanic and Poor Law elections, and maintained a steady ten per cent of the seats on Belfast Corporation between 1897 and 1919. However Belfast Labour proved to be extremely susceptible to the violent fluctuations of Irish politics, Its main successes were won at times when the constitutional future of Ireland was not a prominent issue. In the 1911-14 period when the anti-Home Rule agitation was at its height, Labour experienced some difficulties, as a report in the Glasgow Socialist paper, Forward (11.1.13), indicated: ‘The North Belfast branch of the ILP is at present passing through troubled waters. Many of their most prorninent 1905-1925 _— Bob Purdie | workers who found their daily employment at the shipyards have had to leave the city and find their bread in other and more tolerant quarters.”

During the First World War sectarian tensions faded, and Belfast was quiet during most of the Irish war of independence, which barely affected the North; Belfast Labour was able to recover its position. In March 1919 the British House of Commons legislated for a system of proportional representation in Irish local elections, and this aided Labour to win ten seats on the Corporation. Labour’s success was of material importance for the future Northern Ireland state — the Unionists’ decision to accept the exclusion of only six counties from Home Rule, rather than the nine counties of Ulster, was probably influenced by it. They would have had only a precarious majority in the nine counties, and at the Ulster Unionist Council meeting at which the decision was taken a delegate pointed out that the growth of the Labour vote in the Belfast area could reduce their overall majority in a parliament based on nine counties to two seats (Buckland 1973 p. 403). It is important to note that this Labour advance was achieved at a time of deep iridustrial unrest. The 40 hours strike on Clydeside had sparked off a similar movement in Belfast, and this indicated that wages and conditions were taking precedence over constitutional questions in the minds of Belfast workers. The 1919 strike recalled the events of 1907, when the fiery Labour leader, James Larkin, led a virtual general strike. So intense was the class feeling amongst Belfast workers that a section of the Orange movement backed : the strikers, and the hard pressed and underpaid police joined in. However the police mutiny, in bringing matters to a crisis point, revealed the weakness of the unity. The intervention of the British Army provoked a Catholic riot, reopened the sectarian divisions, and defeated the strike.

In a sirhilar way the 1919 strike was followed by a renewed period of sectarianism. In the spring of 1920 IRA operations spread to the North for the first time, and Protestant paramilitary forces were mobilised. By the autumn Belfast was gripped by a serious sectarian outbreak, and thousands of Catholics were being forced out of their homes and jobs.3 The focal point of this outbreak was the shipyards, and leading members of the ILP and Trades Council were also expelled, as suspected ‘disloyalists’.

It is hardly surprising that, in this atmosphere, the Labour movement in Belfast made little progress. During the first Northern Ireland general election, in 1921, the Ulster Hall was booked for a Labour rally, but on the previous night a mass demonstration of shipyard workers occupied it to prevent the ‘Bolsheviks’ holding their meeting, A telegram from the Unionist leader, Craig, said ‘... well done big and wee yards.’*(Farrell 1976, p.37) The atmosphere of the

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election campaign is conveyed by the report of a speech made by one Labour candidate at the count: ‘During the election he had not been allowed to say a word.

.. he had been hunted and shadowed by Crown forces and he was unable to conduct his campaign. Intimidation reached the polling and. many seeking to vote were brutally assaulted. He had been threatened... Your election . . . has been carried out under the worst intimidation and marked by wholesale impersonation.’ (ibid.)

However as time passed, and the violence subsided, the state returned to something resembling normality. In 1925, encouraged by the success of the British Labour Party in forming a Government, Belfast Labour won four seats in the Northern Ireland House of Commons. But the Unionists subsequently pushed through the abolition of Proportional Representation and Labour fortunes slumped again, not to recover until 1958, when it again won four seats. During the conflict of the last ten years the Northern Ireland Labour Party has been all but eliminated as an electoral force.

This brief summary indicates that Belfast Labour has operated under conditions significantly less favourable than those enjoyed by the British Labour Party — conditions which were even less favourable than those obtaining in the South of Ireland, where the Labour Party has been able to carve out a minor, but stable position for itself in Irish politics Belfast, it must be stressed, is unique;® the only city in Ireland which shared in the development of British heavy industry, it nevertheless was subjected to the vicissitudes of the Lrish national question, which helped to create a city Belfast linen factory deeply divided in religion and politics. As industry developed in Belfast, and labour flooded in from the surrounding countryside, the bitter sectarian divisions which had survived in rural areas between the descendants of the Protestant settlers and the Catholic native Irish, were imported. Sectarianism became woven into the social fabric of the city, determining the distribution of employment, the geographical distribution of the population, and political loyalties. Belfast Labour failed to rise above these sectarian divisions, and to become the political expression of the majority of the working class. Walkerism One of the reasons for the neglect of Belfast Labour is the fact that Irish Labour historiography is dominated by the figure of James Connolly. The contribution made by Connolly to the Irish Labour movement was extremely important, but was concentrated into two fairly brief periods.

A historiography which views the development of the Irish Labour Movement through his eyes will, inevitably, be somewhat fragmented. And since, for most of this time, Connolly’s politics were quite untypical of the mainstream of Irish Labour, it will be subject to distortions of perspective.

One example of this is the treatment given to the Belfast Labour leader, William Walker, in a recent book by Geoff Bell (1976), which claims that Walker was: ‘.. . leading socialism in Belfast along a religiously sectarian path...’

(p.74) This is a serious misinterpretation of Walker, and of Belfast Labour. However much socialists today may disagree

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with Walker’s strategy and tactics, we ought to try to grasp the logic of his politics. As will be shown, this cannot be dismissed as simple ‘sectarianism’.

William Walker has become best known for his debate with Connolly over the formation of an Irish Labour Party. This was carried in the pages of Forward between May and July 1911, and generated more heat than light, but Walker’s contributions give some interesting insights into his politics’ C.Desmond Greaves does not deal adequately with it when he says: “His (Walker’s) conception of politics was completely reformist. He pointed with pride to the progress of “municipal socialism” in Belfast. Did they not “collectively own and control” gasworks, waterworks, harbour works, markets, tramways, electricity, museums and art galleries?

They had even organised a police band. Walker saw no more to socialism than an extension of these things.’ (p.210) ‘Belfast Labour failed to rise above these sectarian divisions, and to become the political expression of the majority of the working class.’ This is true enough, but it does not get to the core of the differences; an Irish Labour Party was as capable of pursuing municipalisation as an Irish branch of the British LP, which Walker supported against Connolly’s proposal for a united party on an all-Ireland basis. In any case Connolly himself advocated the extension of municipal ownership when he stood for Belfast Corporation in January 1913. (Connolly 1951, pp.99-102). The clue to Walker’s outlook is to be found in the penultimate paragraph of his last contribution to the debate: *... only a combined and united attack, without geographical consideration, can assure to Ireland an equal measure of social advancement as that which the larger and more advanced democracy of Great Britain are pressing for.’ (Connolly/Walker p.27) Connolly saw the Union between Ireland and Britain as a barrier to progress, for the Labour Movement as much as for the nationalist movement. Walker on the other hand, saw progress being won foy the Irish working class, through its association with the British working class, and under his influence, the ideology of Belfast Labour was an extension into Ireland of British Labourism.

By ‘British Labourism’ is meant the ideas which were current in the formative years of the modern British labour movement, especially those which were influential in the ILP. It is useful, here, to quote from one of the most popular pamphlets of the period, Robert Blatchford’s Britain for the British: ‘The kind of Socialism I am advocating here is Collectivism or Practical Socialism. Motto: Britain for the British, the land and all the instruments of production, distribution and exchange to be the property of the nation, and to be managed by the nation for the nation.’ (p.89) *... Collectivism is really an extension of the principles, or ideas of local government, and of the various corporations and civil services.’ (ibid.)

‘... what is there in it (socialism) to prevent any man from being a Christian, or from attending a place of worship, or from marrying or being faithful to his wife, or from keeping and bringing up his children at home?’ (ibid.)

Essentially the same tone was struck by a leaflet issued by the Belfast Socialist Society:8 ‘In the same way as the Post Office, the Gas Supply, the Tramways undertaking and many other public services have been transferred from private to public ownership, so can the land, the Railways, Canals and Shipping, the Coal, Milk and Bread Suppy, etc. etc., be taken over by the community as the occasion demands.

‘We do not want to “destroy the foundations of morality’’.

We desire to introduce a higher morality into the industrial life of the nation. ‘We do not want to “promote a violent revolution’. We wish to see a higher social order peacefully evolved out of the present anarchical system by peaceful means.’

The belief that an extension of public ownership and democratic control was sufficient to cure society’s ills was allied to a chiliasm of peculiar moral fervour, which gave both a driving force and an immediate programme to the socialist movement in the early years of this century. Belfast Labour shared all of these characteristics, along with the conviction of the British movement that all other political prescriptions, Free Trade, Protectionism, Nationalism etc., were irrelevant or misleading.

Belfast Labour, however, had some important individual characteristics. Because of the structure of employment in Belfast, which meant that skilled trades were virtually excluded to Catholics, the labour movement in the city was dominated by Protestants. This domination was strengthened by the discouragement by the Church of Catholic involvement in socialist politics. Coming from a culture that regarded itself as British, it was natural that Belfast Labour should take its lead from. the British labour movement. This is not to say that their colleagues in the South were not also influenced by the British labour movement, but their attitudes to Irish nationality and the constitutional future of Ireland placed them at a greater distance. So far as Belfast Labour was concerned nationalism was a diversion, the July 1905 edition of their newspaper, the Belfast Labour Chronicle, summed up their attitude: “Class ties are stronger than those of race, and the workers of all lands and climes have a common class interest. They are all units of the army of labour, and they ought, therefore to forget their differences of race, language and colour and stand shoulder to shoulder in order to withstand the attack of the common foe — capitalism.’

In October the same year the Chronicle confronted the question of Home Rule: “Nationalism is dead or dying, and imperialism is but the transition stage to international union of the proletariat of the world over... Even the total separation of Ireland would be but a disintegrating influence on the people, and can proceed from narrow views alone, and... the real object of all honest believers in Home Rule would leave Ireland more the prey of tyranny and oppression than ever.” (7.10.05) This belief that the centralising tendencies of industrial capitalism and imperialist expansion were a force for progress was returned to in a comment on the growth of the Irish language movement: *... the number. of Welsh speakers is declining each year, and it is a decided advantage to the Welsh people, who are more progressive than ever before in their modern history ... anything which tends to divide the people into separate and opposing factors is evil, and all which tends to unification is useful and desireable. Not the multiplication of spoken tongues, but their absorption into one universal medium of thought . .. will benefit the people of this world.’ (14.10.05) Not only Irish nationalism came in for criticism however, the Chronicle also denounced the behaviour of the English populace on Mafeking night as ‘mad blackguardism’(July 1905).

Despite these internationalist declarations, however, they gave many indications of their own background. The Chronicle of 14 October 1905 praised the ‘tactfulness’ of King Edward in agreeing to receive an address from Poplar Borough Council; the editorial of 7 October 1905 assumed that Irish independence meant ‘.. . handing Ireland over to the domination of the priesthood...’ , and at a social following one of Walker’s election campaigns the proceedings were closed with the singing of the (British) National Anthem? Small points, but in the atmosphere of Belfast sufficient to make any Labour supporter from a Catholic background feel in an alien environment, Whatever may have been their convictions, their opposition to Irish nationalism cannot be seen as simple internationalism.

James Connolly accused Belfast Labour of ‘parochialism’, and there is much truth in this. They, undoubtedly, felt the pressure of the protestant community very strongly, and especially that of the shipyard workers, the strongest centre we ke eae eaten Bo,

of Trade Unionism in the city. Peter Gibbon (1975) analyses the politics of the shipyard workers thus: ‘The shipyard was a bulwark of British imperialist might . . .

Fluctuations in imperial prosperity were registered more clearly and directly in the shipbuilding than in almost any other industry. Consequently the livelihood of shipyard workers was tied not simply to the more or less autonomous fluctuations of particular trades, but to the state of British capitalism internationally... . In this fasion shipyard men became attuned to questions of national politics... .’ (p.84) Their economic interest in the expansion of British power, combined with the traditions of Orangeism to produce a strong Conservative and Unionist consciousness amongst skilled shipbuilding and engineering workers in Belfast. This did not necessarily mean a rejection of Trade Unionism, on the contrary, many fervent Unionists were active Trade Unionists. Joseph Cunningham, later to become a Unionist Senator, was a member of the Belfast 7th branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and secretary of the District Committee, he was sent as a delegate to a number of conferences, and chaired a conference called by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions in the Ulster Hall, to discuss a shorter working week. For all this Trade Union activity he was a strong Orangeman and was Worshipful Master of his Lodge. During the anti-Home Rule agitation he was involved in lobbying British trade unionists in an attempt to persuade them against it. An indication of the outlook of such men is contained in the account of a meeting with Sir Edward Carson to discuss the acceptance of the exclusion of the six counties: ‘I was the first speaker to follow him stating that it would prove successful as we have a very intelligent and industrious people in Northern Ireland but I was afraid we would be swamped by the influx of Southerners to take advantage of our prosperity.” For skilled workers like Cunningham the maintenance and advancement of their standard of living was closely connected to the prosperity of British industry, and was woven ina seamless web with Orange traditions or anti-Catholicism and hostility to Irish nationalism?° At specific moments of crisis this outlook could break down, precipitating Protestant workers into militant struggles against their Unionist masters, but these occasions were few and far between, and the consciousness of such workers constituted the dimensions of the universe in which Belfast Labour had its being.

Amongst less skilled Protestant workers there was a strong sense of territorial community that frequently found expression in clashes with Catholics over encroachments, and this gave a violent edge to life in Belfast. When this was combined with the influence of fundamentalist evangelism which was popular in the city the result could be a dauntingly militant intolerance. The Clarion of 11 May 1895 described an early ILP meeting at which socialist speakers were assaulted by a mob which fervently sang Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen, and: ‘Organised and premeditated murder surrounded us on all sides... the dogs of war broke loose with a yell that rent the firmament and with clenched fists, fuming and trampling down everything the yelling demons leapt upon us,’ (Quoted in Patterson 1976 p.32) Although the Belfast ILP showed great courage in standing up to intimidation, it is scarcely to be wondered at that the social pressures of the Protestant community found expression in their attitudes to Jrish nationalism, and this was strengthened by the fact that they found in British Labourism a tradition of mechanical dismissal of nationalism as an irrelevance, and an assumption that British expansion was a basis for internationalism, which accorded with their own outlook.

Pluralism We cannot, however, dismiss Belfast Labour as a sort of ‘Orange Socialism’, their politics were much more complex than that. A deeper insight is provided by the address delivered by William Walker in his capacity as President, to the Irish Trades Union Congress in Kilkenny, May 1904. This is particularly relevant since it must be borne in mind that another

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dimension of Belfast Labour was its participation in the Jrish labour movement. Walker began by reviewing the state of trade unionism, and pointed out that the ‘Magna Charta’ granted to them in the Trade Union and Conspiracy Acts of 1871 and 1875 were being undermined by decisions of the courts. Increasingly they had to face trusts and combines rather than individual employers, and their representatives were not adequately educated. The workers had to refurn to the kind of constitutional agitation which had won them legislative concessions in the past; this required unity and a concentration on immediate issues, but they had been ‘.., victims of the unredeemed pledges of the various political parties ...’, this meant that: ‘The housing of the working classes, amendments to the Workmen’s Compensation Act, amendments to the Factories Act, the fixing of standard hours of employment, the improving of the condition of the rural labourer, and the many other necessary improvements can only be sympathetically grasped by a strong and vigorous Labour Party.’ (Walker 1904, p.5) The developing movement for Labour representation in Britain presented a challenge to Irish Labour: ‘No country in the world requires so much the care and attention to social wants that Ireland demands at the hands of her representatives. [But]... The keen party political warfare that she is continually plunged in prevents even moderate attention being paid to her industrial conditions.’

(p.7) He appealed for a new init’ tive on the part of Irish Labour: ‘I conjure each delegate to emancipate himself from the old atmosphere by which he has been surrounded and to step into that purer air that bespeaks .. . a regenerated and ennobling life.’ (p.8) After dealing with the proposals of Joseph Chamberlain for protective tariffs? and the introduction of indentured Chinese labour into the Rand, Walker sat down to an enthusiastic ovation, having delivered a speech which in most essentials could have been delivered by any British Trade Union leader!2 However at a number of points Walker reveals that he is sensitive to the fact that he is speaking to an Irish audience: ‘hear hears’ greeted his statement that ‘No power was ever yet able to withstand a nation’s united desire.’ (p.4), although he did not say which nation he was referring to. He gave equal emphasis to the deleterious effects of protection on Southern agriculture as on Northern shipbuilding. Towards the end of his address he confronted Irish problems more squarely: ‘How long are we going to perpetuate this internecine warfare that has strangled at birth every new hope and every ideal making for progfess in Ireland. Surely a mature consideration will show us, no matter what political or religious positions we may hold, that there are some questions on which we cannot hope to unite, but is that a reason why those hundred and one other problems, the solving of which means so much for our country, should be indefinitely shelved .. . is it not possible for us to adhere to our opinions... while at the same time we determine to unite our forces for the social redemption of our country. If we care to we can bridge the chasm that separates the North from the South.’(p.12) The idea that Irish Labour could maintain a pluralist unity between opponents and supporters of Home Rule was an interesting one, but Walker did not develop it beyond the level of rhetoric, quoting Ruskin to the effect that he was prepared to tolerate everything but another man’s intolerance}3(A quotation he also used in his polemic with Connolly).

Walker’s ideas can be compared with ideas current in the British Labour Movement, for example, in his address to the 1910 ILP conference W.F.Jowett said: ‘Hitherto it has been the fate of working class movements in this country to find no common denominator on which to unite. Every faction has insisted on pressing its opinions on the rest at the point of the bayonet of disruption.’

Nevertheless: ‘I have faith that by means of patient and persevering methods we shall fuse and weld together an alert and vigorous party for Labour and Socialism . . . I believe that this party ... at present but an alliance between bodies

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at various stages of political development, will grow in numbers and in influence in our day, until it changes the whole course of politics and gives dignity and independence to the working man and heads his straight for Socialism.’

(Conference Report p.35) The ILP strongly believed that, as the Labour Movement grew in strength and influence, it would undergo a qualitative change into a strongly united Socialist movement. It was this which justified Socialist participation in a Labour electoral alliance which was not itself Socialist. Socialism was the inevitable outcome of capitalist evolution, and Socialists could afford to be patient until the trend of development was evident to the movement as a whole. In a similar way Walker preached co-existence with Nationalist and Unionist trade unionists until Irish Labour caught up with the trend of history. Their expectations are revealed by an exchange which took place at a Trades Council meeting in September 1908: at which Walker said: ‘The East (Belfast) was the biggest division in Ireland, and from a. Trade Union and Labour standpoint it should be the best. They had there all the elements that should go to make up a proper Labour constituency.

“Mr. Murphy — “including the big drums”, (laughter)24 “Mr. Walker said that the East had not a monopoly of big drums, and some of that party might be found voting for the Labour candidate .. . the presence of a Labour candidate would have a stimulating effect on the workers and unify their actions.’ (Northern Whig 21.9.09) Electoralism However Belfast electoral politics were full of hidden shoals and reefs, as Walker found out in his first contest, during which he became involved in an incident which seems to have contradicted the principles he had previously set out.

In September 1905 he challenged the Lord Mayor of Belfast, Sir Daniel Dixon, at a bye-election in North Belfast. During the campaign a group called the Belfast Protestant Association (BPA) presented Walker with a questionnaire about his views on the constitutional status of Protestantism. Walker committed himself to opposing the opening of the offices of Lord Chancellor of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to Catholics; to opposing diplomatic links with the Vatican; to retaining the declaration against the doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Monarch’s Coronation Oath, and to ‘,.. resist every encroachment on the legislative enactments provided by our forefathers as necessary safeguards against the encroachments of the Papacy’ (Bell 1976, p.74). He further declared that ‘Protestantism means protesting against superstition, hence true Protestantism is synonymous with Labour.’ (Boyle 1962, p.139).

This was a grave blunder in a constituency which contained 1,000 Catholic votes; Ramsay MacDonald had come over from the Labour Representation Committee to act as Walker’s election agent, and almost returned to London forthwith. It is not at all clear why Waiker committed himself in this way; he may have conscientiously beHKeved in these policies, or he may simply have been afraid to alienate Protestant votes. Elections in the North of Ireland have always been fought with no holds barred, in fact MacDonald had at one point advocated giving up the fight, and appealing the election in the courts, on the basis that their opponents had grossly contravened the election laws. In the event Dixon refused to answer the BPA, and his supporters printed up Walker’s answers on an anonymous leaflet and had them distributed to Catholics. This was a cool piece of opportunism on Dixon’s part, considering the fact that the bulk of his campaign had been directed at Walker’s association with the LRC, most of whose leaders supported Home Rule. ‘Mr. WALKER and his friends,’ one of their leaflets said: “Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Walker’s election agent is an advocate of HOME RULE FOR IRELAND, abolition of the House of Lords, Socialist Programme and PRO-BOER: Electors of North Belfast, Don’t be misled by Home Rulers and Socialists.’ A Labour leaflet retorted: “WHY are so many English workmen HOME RULERS? Is it not because the Ulster Unionist Party Opposes the Shortening of the Hours of Labour. The feeding of Necessitous Children. The Amendment of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The Repeal of the Taff Vale Decisions against Trade Union .. . in fact every Bill making for the betterment of the People. VOTE FOR WALKER AND SHOW THE ENGLISH WORKMEN that besides being UNIONISTS you are also in favour of SOCIAL REFORMS.’ { The ease with which attempts to answer his opponent’s diversionary tactics could infringe a principled position is illustrated by another leaflet which took up a rumour that | Walker was an atheist. This reprinted a reply sent by Walker to a Rev. S. Simms, in which Walker said: ; ‘I can fully appreciate the difficulty you and your ] ministerial colleagues would be in were it not possible to give an emphatic denial to the report so shamefully circulated by my opponents... the report is absolutely ’ without foundation, as I am a BELIEVER in the fundamental principles of the Christian faith.’

Just as he had failed to see the implications of accepting that a lack of religious belief would disqualify a Labour candidate, Walker may not have seen the broader principles involved in his capitulation to the BPA. And within his political tradition there were elements which would justify his action. The belief that socialism involved nothing more than a series of legislative reforms, with no implications for prevailing morals or religious beliefs, meant that accusations that he challenged these morals or beliefs were an irrelevance to be answered by showing that he did not, Similarly accusations that he was soft on Home Rule were irrelevant, and were to be answered by pointing out that he was opposed. Further his pluralist ideas were applied to his relationship to a British Labour Party which supported Home Rule; a leaflet entitled ‘DIXON’S RED HERRINGS’ pointed out that, ‘The English Labour Party has decided to accept Mr. Walker as a Unionist and to respect his principles’.15 In January the following year, when Walker again faced Dixon, this time at a general election, he took pains to stress that: *... he was neither a bigoted Protestant nor a Roman Catholic: he was not a man ashamed of his Protestantism, but he was not a bigot, and he wanted to get every man his rights.’ (BLC 6.1.06) The importance of those 1,000 Catholic votes was further indicated by the Chronicle’s remarks on West Belfast, the constituency with the largest number of Catholics: ‘If the Catholic voters can secure one fourth of the representation (from Belfast) — and on their aggregate numbers they are entitled to it, they ought to aim, in our opinion, at having a candidate of Mr. Devlin’s stamp, who ... has all the backbone-and independence necessary to prevent his becoming the tool of any party or clique.’

(30.12.05) Labour possibly hoped that by backing Joe Devlin they in turn would be supported by Devlin’s organisation, the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), and the main Catholic paper the Irish News. This was a significant change in Labour policy. A year earlier, in its February 1905 edition, the Chronicle had spoken confidently of the five wards Labour had won in Protestant areas, and predicted that: ‘A similar policy in Falls {the main Catholic] ward will have similar results...’ In June it took a similarly uncompromising line on the candidacy of Thomas H. Sloan, a populist Protestant; before receiving Labour’s support a candidate would have to‘... be the accredited nominee of some bona fide Labour body .. .’. It went on to say that if the projected candidacy of Michael Davitt for West Belfast should materialise, he could no more receive Labour backing than could Sloan. Less than a year later they felt obliged to abandon this position in favour of Devlin, a man, for all his rhetoric, who had infinitely less solid links with the Labour Movement than Davitt had.16 Apart from those vital Catholic votes in the North, another factor which probably influenced this switch in policy was the fact that Labout’s rise co-incided with that of two parallel popular movements, Devlin’s AOH, and the Independent Orange Order, with which Sloan was associated. The AOH was part of the revival of the Home Rule Party under Redmond. It was distinguished from the Catholic Association, which had previously dominated the politics of Catholic Belfast, by its

relative independence from the Church and by Devlin’s radicalism. The Independent Orange Order (IOO) started as a breakaway from the main Order, influenced by the Belfast Protestant Association. Its leader, Lindsay Crawford, started out as an extreme Protestant bigot, but after the breach began to evolve rapidly in the direction of radical politics, and ended up as a Liberal Home Ruler. For a time he was able to draw the 100 with him, and in the Magheramore Manifesto of July 1905 it declared that it wished to: ‘Hold out the right hand of fellowship to those who, while worshipping at other shrines are still our countrymen — bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.’ (Boyle p. 134) It further departed from Orange doctrine by declaring that: ‘There is room in Ireland for a patriotic party with a sound constructive policy that will devote itself to freeing the country from the domination of impracticable creeds and to securing the urgent and legitimate redress of her many grievances.’ (ibid. p. 135) The sense that there was a new departure in Belfast politics, and the affinity between these three movements is conveyed by a report in the Jrish News of one of Devlin’s election meetings: ‘Mr, Nanetti17 said that, like Mr. Devlin he differed from Mr. Sloan on religious and political grounds but... Tom Sloan would fight in the House of Commons for their interests and the interests of the working men of Belfast (Applause) . . . If they could not give him a nationalist, at least give him an honest Orangeman who was prepared to work straight for the people. (Cheers) He had worked for years with Mr. Walker — (Cheers) — as a Labour man Walker was a clever intelligent fellow ... and if the people of North Belfast were wise they would send him to Parliament next session (Cheers). Devlin for the West, Sloan for the South, and Walker for the North. (Renewed cheers) With these three men in Parliament they would not be misrepresented as they had in the past. (Hear, hear and applause).’ (15.1.06) Given the pluralist conceptions of Belfast Labour, and their belief that people with different views on questions of religion and nationalism could collaborate for immediate social reforms, it is not surprising that they should accept a tacit alliance of this kind, even though it contradicted previous statements. But their hopes that social agitation would replace sectarian politics in Belfast were not realised. The three movements reached a peak during the 1907 strike, but with its defeat the old order reasserted itself. They had been going through what was, essentially, an artificial phase of Irish politics, when the Liberal Party had got agreement to shelve Home Rule. Lindsay Crawford soon outran the IOO and was expelled; under the leadership of Sloan it lapsed back into its former bigotry. The continuing animosity of the Belfast Labour Movement to Home Rule prevented any closer association with Devlin’s movement, which was in any case fairly demagogic in its radicalism, and was dominated by Catholic small businessmen rather than by workers.

Partition Nor were hopes of a growing unity within the Irish Labour Movement realised. The problem was that before Irish Labour could make any significant initiatives in the electoral field it would have to decide whether it was going to set up an Irish Labour Party or an Irish extension of the British Labour Party.

Belfast Labour favoured the latter course, radical nationalists in the South favoured the former, and more orthodox nationalists favoured an association with the Irish Party. In 1903 Congress passed a compromise position calling on Irish unions to affiliate to the LRC in Britain as a first step towards securing Labour representation in Ireland, but only Belfast Labour really carried this policy through. At the 1904 Congress Walker urged his colleagues to set about this task, in an atmosphere of fraternal goodwill between North and South; the goodwill was not to last.

A year later the Chronicle was complaining about trends in the Irish Labour Movement: ‘Year by year the amount of interest which our local Trade Unionists manifest in the annual assembly called the Irish Parliament of Labour becomes beautifully less. . . . This

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year’s Congress has added the finishing touches to what preceding Congresses began, and to all intents and purposes local interest in the Congress and its deliberations is now dead.’ (July 1905) In a report on the Congress, Harry R. Stockman (ILP 1905) complained irritably about the many shortcomings of the 1905 Congress, and at the way in which nationalist sentiments had been introduced where they were not relevant; in discussing the Trades Disputes Bill, for example, fulsome tributes had been made to nationalist MPs who had supported it. The free-trader Stockman was aghast at proposals to restrict imports and the immigration of labour in order to boost industry and employment in Ireland. ‘If the Irish Nationalists are to be judged by their actions at Wexford,’ he commented, ‘... They are reactionaries of the worst type.’

(ibid). There was bitter infighting at the Congress between the Dublin Typographical Association and the Belfast branch of the English Typographical Association, reporting this Stockman’s irritation found vent in a phrase which reveals something of the cultural divide between Belfast Labour and their Southern colleagues. ‘Delegate after delegate’, he said, ‘with more brogue than brains, was put up to explain...

what wicked things the Belfast and English Typographical men had done’ (ibid). As the strength of nationalism within the Southern Movement increased, relations between Belfast and the rest of the Movement deteriorated further. When, in 1912, the Irish Congress decided to set up an Irish Labour Party the Belfast Trades Council disaffiliated. However the Congress’s decision was partly a result of changes in the balance of forces within the Congress due to the unionisation of unskilled workers, and in particular the rise of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. Similar changes were taking place in Belfast, so that withdrawal from the Irish Congress did not free Belfast Labour from the same controversy. In addition, despite the Trades Council’s repudiation of an Irish Labour Party a number of unions withdrew. This meant that the balance of forces within the Trades Council was changed.

Other factors were dictating a change in the attitudes of Belfast Labour; in the 1911-12 period Home Rule seemed almost a certainty, and James Connolly’s call for an Insh Labour Party, which would fight the battles of the workers in the new Dublin parliament, made sense to many Belfast trade unionists. In 1912 Walker was appointed a National Insurance Commissioner and retired from active politics, thus removing from the scene the most capable opponent of an Irish Labour Party. Two of the three Belfast branches of the ILP joined with Connolly’s Socialist Party of Ireland, to form the Independent Labour Party of Ireland (ILP[{I]}), although Walker’s North Branch carried on as a branch of the British

ILP.18

The new atmosphere in Belfast Labour politics was signalled on 21 February, 1914, when the Trades Council passed the following resolution: ‘That in view of the probable change in the government of Ireland, in the opinion of the Council the time is now opportune for a conference of Trade Unions, ILP and Co-operative Societies to consider the question of Labour representation in Ireland.’

With the suggestion of the secretary that this initiative should be co-ordinated with the plans of the Irish TUC, the resolution was passed, and one month later the Council re-affiliated to the Irish Congress. This turn-around is less surprising when it is placed in its political context. The idea of excluding Ulster. or part of Ulster, from the operation of the Home Rule Bill was being floated, and this produced strong opposition from Irish Labour. The Trades Council minutes of 2 April 1914 record a strongly worded resolution from the Congress’s Parliamentary Committee: ‘_. . the suggested exclusion of Ulster (or any part thereof), will intensify the divisions at present existing, and destroy all our hopes of uniting the workers of Ulster with those of Munster, Leinster and Connaught...

At the Irish Congress of 1914 a Belfast Trades Council delegate explained the attitude of Belfast Labour, the Trades Council had: ‘Never voted on Home Rule but had emphatically protested

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against Partition ... The Irish Parliament would not dare to promote labour legislation; they would be told that there must be no interference with labour lest they might frighten off the capitalists of Ulster. Labour in Ulster would be nobody’s child; it would be very hard to get Westminster legislation to apply ‘to Ulster.’ (Quoted in Clarkson, 1925, p. 299) This statement reveals how consistent with their previous positions this opposition to Partition was. The central plank of Walker’s defence of the Union with Britain was that Irish workers would benefit from the victories of the British working class. Partition would give them the worst of both worlds; not only would they be cut off from the Irish working class, in a way that would sustain sectarian divisions in Belfast, but they would also be cut off from the progress of British Labour. The Trades Council’s activity on this question and the fact that it represented only a minority of working class opinion is testified to by Joseph Cunningham, who recalled that: ‘The Trades and Labour Council with very little support from the trade unionists, were sending reports across the water that only the employing class were opposed to Home Rule; the workers were not interested.’

Cunningham, however, was exaggerating the lack of support for the Trades Council’s line.

In 1917 the position of Belfast Labour seems to have been further developed. Forward of 9 June reported that the Belfast ILP had declared in favour of a‘... broad and comprehensive measure of Self-government for Ireland with no partition.’ This must have referred to the North ILP branch, since the ILP (1) had reverted to calling itself the Socialist Party of Ireland. By this time, however, the Labour Movement in the South was strongly influenced by Republicanism, and under pressure from Sinn Fein. In trying to keep pace with developments in nationalist politics they left Belfast behind, andin 1918 Belfast Labour refused to accept the Irish Labour Party’s decision to abstain in the General Election to give Sinn Fein a clear run.

Two candidates were put up in Belfast whose, “... campaign was on the usual line — shorter working hours, improved factory conditions, concilliation boards, an improved education system — but avoided the issue of Irish self-government.’ (Mitchell 1974, p. 101) With the tide running their way Walker’s supporters felt bolder in the local elections of 1920. To Unionist accusations that they represented ‘Sinn Fein Trade Unionism’ 19 the President of the Belfast Labour Party replied that: ““Home Rule”... held no fears for his party. “We consider that the progress of Ireland is more to be considered than remaining as we are between the barriers of religious bigotry”.’ (ibid. p. 125) In the event many of their fears about partition were realised, the new Northern Ireland state was bor on a wave of sectarian violence which surpassed anything Belfast had suffered in the past. However, once the state had been consolidated, the outward forms of democracy were observed, although they were distorted to exclude Catholics from power as much as possible.

This ushered in a new phase for Belfast Labour; in 1925 their influence was again expanding, and they were to be found reiterating many of the old Walkerite ideas. The Northern Ireland general election of 1925 was called over the issue of the Boundary Commission, set up under the terms of the Government of Ireland Act to mediate between South and North over possible changes in the border. The Unionists made this out to be a threat to Northern Ireland, but to the ILP paper Labour Opposition it was the ‘Boundary Bogey’. The Labour candidate for North Belfast, Sam Kyle, declared that: ‘... the boundary which most concerned me is that between the poor who have no bread and the rich who have a surplus.’

He went on to expand on Labour’s attitude to the South: ‘As a citizen of Belfast I do not desire to see anything that would cause bloodshed or any aggravation of the relations between the North and the South. Sir James Craig has stated that it is a matter that can only be settled as between the contending parties. This is following the lead of Mr. MacDonald who, when Labour Prime Minister, endeavoured to bring the nations of Europe to agreement on the same lines, Until the Free State is prepared to give the same conditions to teachers, OAPs and Unemployment Insurance as we have in Northern Ireland we in the North should not permit any worsening of our position.’ (LO April 1925) With the refusal of the Nationalists to take their seats in the Northern Ireland Parliament, Labour became the official Oppostion, pledged to a programme which included demands for pensions on the same scale as Britain, the establishment of a Ministry of Health, work or maintenance for the unemployed and homes for all. The old Walkerite tradition of seeking to benefit from progress in Britain is evident here. It isinteresting, however, that in their proposals for railway nationalisation, they suggested joint ownership and control, through a special commission, by both Southern and Northern Governments.

(See LO August 1925) Just as practical considerations had motivated their previous opposition to partition, the apparent solidity of the state, and the gap which had appeared in social policies between North and South inclined them towards acceptance of the status quo.

In the November 1925 edition of Labour Opposition, Jack Brand suggested that the matter be looked at again: *...a Regional Parliament might perform a ‘useful function in the evolution of the social fabric of Ireland. Socialists accept... that political institutions should reflect the economic structure of the time ... May the writer suggest that there is a use for a Northern Ireland Assembly , covering a region with a political history different than the rest of Ireland . . .? The Socialist view is that the structure of a modern state should allow as much local autonomy as possible ... A Regional Assembly fer the North is in harmony with these fundamental requirements. . .’

The article, however, stopped short of advocating recognition of the existing set-up, and there was much to alienate Labour from the new state. . They responded with disgust to the speech of a Unionist candidate during the 1925 election: “... when the next election takes place Mr. Archdale should be muzzled. He is reported to have said — “I have 109 officials and so far as I know, there are four Roman Catholics — three of these were civil servants turned over to me, whom I had to take when we began”.’ (LO May 1925) In October 1925 a Labour Movement demonstration against unemployment was banned by the Government, and November’s Labour Oppostion blazed at ‘Tory Sedition’: ‘The Tory Party of Ulster have long been notorious for Sedition, Treason and Disloyalty, and many of our present legislators had their unconstitutional activities rewarded by the glittering prizes of office under the Crown.

Mr. Hanna indeed has the brazen effrontery to quote the “law” on sedition during the debate on the proclaimed Labour Demonstration, but he and the other hypocrites were sharply reminded by the Labour MPs that the Labour Party had always been a constitutional party, whereas the record of the Government would not stand examination.’ Whatever they may have thought of its legitimacy, Labour, as a ‘constitutional party’, was bound to work within the given political system. Their tendencies towards acceptance of it, however, were strengthened by the fact that the border did weaken their links with the Labour Movement in the South, while the growth of Labour in Britain inspired admiration and hope. Belfast has always been strongly influenced by Clydeside, and the victories of the Scottish ILP in the 1919 general election gave Belfast Labour a model which was almost as geographically close as Dublin, and culturally much closer.

‘Red Clydesiders’ like David Kirk wood and James Maxton came to speak to major meetings in Belfast, and Labour Oppostion is reminiscent of Forward in design and content.

‘Maxton’s Messages to Belfast’ in the Opposition of April 1925 expresses their still bright hopes: ‘Here as in Scotland is a race of men who will refuse to suffer forever the intolerable conditions imposed on them by the Capitalist system; here are men who will combine in their Trade Union and their ILP branches to work together to overthrow the present mad system...

Socialism is a cause big enough to swallow up all smaller differences and to bind together peoples of all races and creeds. Socialism is the hope of the world...’

In 1949, influenced by the British Labour Government’s social legislation, which had been extended to Northern Ireland,

> Labour in the province finally decided that their future lay with Westminster, and accepted the constituion of the Norther Ireland state. Conclusions In its theory and practice, Belfast Labour reflected the divided city in which it grew up, and it never resolved those contradictions, While it can be criticised for a mechanical counterposition of ‘Socialism’ to the problem of Ireland’s constitutional status, it must be exonerated of charges of ‘Orange Socialism’. Moreover the ideas of Belfast Labour, particularly those contributed by William Walker, were more complex and more consistent than a superficial examination would suggest. Throughout the three phases we have examined ~ anti-Home Rule — anti-Partition — gradual rapprochement with Northern Ireland — certain common themes appear.

However, the strongest common thread is the influence of British Labourism, and the ultimate failure of Belfast Labour must be strong evidence that British Labourism did not contain the elements necessary for a solution of the immense problems confronting Belfast socialists.

Notes 1. In researching this article I was greatly assisted by having access to Austen Morgan’s doctoral thesis on the Belfast Labour Movement.

The book which he is preparing on the basis of that thesis will supercede this article in range and scope; responsibility for the analysis presented here is, however, mine alone.

2. The Trades Council was founded in the early 1890s, in 1892 a Belfast Labour Party was formed, and in 1895 the Trades Council President Alexander Bowman stood as a Lib-Lab candidate, winning a ‘respectable number of votes’ (Mitchell 1974 p. 18).

Throughout I refer to the dominant political trends within the Labour Movement as “Belfast Labour’ and it is important to note that there was always dissent from Conservatives, Unionists, Independent Orangement, Nationalists and Republicans within the Labour Movement. 3. The Irish News for 6 October 1920 reported that there were 8,140 registered expelled workers, and that another 500 had been forced out of their employment the previous day.

4, The ‘Big’ yard was Harland and Woolf, and the ‘Wee’ yard was Workman Clark — a large yard in comparison to most British shipyards. 5. This is not to say that the Irish Labour Party has not had problems, including large fluctuations in its vote, and splits caused by interunion animosities. But there has always been a basic Labour vote, larger and more consistent than that of the NILP.

6. It is worth pointing out that Belfast is unique not only in relation to British and Irish cities, but within Northern Ireland itself. The only other city — Derry — has a two-thirds Catholic majority, an exact reversal of Belfast’s proportions, Moreover it has been dominated by textiles and shirt making, rather than by heavy industry. This means that politics and sectarian relations have been different. The smaller towns tend to reflect the less volatile sectarianism of the countryside.

The only other city which resembles Belfast is Glasgow, which is similar in economy, culture, sectarian composition, and relationships to its geographical area (see Budge and O’Leary 1973, p. xiv). But despite the similarities and the direct links between sectarian cultures in the two cities, in Glasgow the problem has been effectively de-politicised.

7. Ido not propose to deal in detail with this debate, which is weil known, and is available in an inexpensive pamphlet (see also Greaves pp. 209-12 and Levenson 1973, pp. 197-8).

8. The Belfast Socialist Society seems to have been started in about 1895, as a socialist propaganda group, after the ILP had been intimidated out of holding open-air meetings. It seems to have been parallel to, but not identical in composition to, the ILP.

There is no clear indication of when it was formally wound up, nor is there any date on the leaflet quoted, but it must have been some time after 1901, since it is signed by Thomas Johnson, as secretary, and he moved to Belfast in that year (Johnson, an English Protestant, became leader of the Labour Party in Dail Eireann during the early years of the Free State).

9. The British National Anthem, and the Union Jack, have always had strong sectarian associations in Belfast.

10. Belfast shipyard workers provide an interesting test case for the theory of a ‘fabour aristocracy’, as a layer of privileged workers, with a conservative outlook, within the working class (see Bell, Gibbon, and Reed, 1980). 11. Walker and most of Belfast Labour supported free trade, but there were Conservatives on the Trades Council who were favourable to

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Chamberlain’s proposals. On this issue they were saying remarkably similar things to the protectionist policies of Arthur Griffiths’ Sinn Fein (see Trades Council minutes, 19.9.03 and 21.11.03).

12. Walker was President of Belfast Trades Council and Organiser for the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners.

13. That this was not a chance remark, and that it represented something basic to Walker’s outlook is shown by an article he wrote in the Chronicle of January 1905, in which, replying to attacks made on him at a meeting where he spoke of Puritan intolerance to other Protestants, he said: ‘In modern Britain we rightly owe our religious freedom to the fact that the predominant power was not of one sect but of a number. Churchman, Presbyterian, Methodist, Jew, etc. have commingled to give stability to the government and freedom to the subject, but one cannot doubt that if any of the sects obtained the ascendancy, such ascendancy would naturally mean the subordination of the others. . . civil and religious liberty is only guaranteed when the governing power is heterogenous and not homogenous, when different sects compose the “Cabinet” and the Government and are striving to coalesce and not destroy each other.’ 14. ‘Big drums’ refers to the giant Lambeg Drums, which are played on Orange processions. 15. Although Pete Curran MP complained that Walker had contravened the LRC constitution by describing himself as a ‘Labour Unionist’, an official report from that body exonerated Walker (see BLC 28.10.05). 16. Davitt’s death was marked by a sympathetic obituary in the BLC 6.1.06. 17.J. P. Nannetti was the Lib-Lab MP for Dublin, College Green. He was an advocate of an association between the Irish Labour Movement and the Irish Party.

18. The North Branch, however, was probably stronger and more active than the combined strength of the branches which went into the ILP[I]. 19. The Unionists had set up the Ulster Unionist Labour Association in 1918 to counter accusations that they were antiLabour. Joseph Cunningham was active in this, but it never amounted to more than a front for the Unionist Party.

References Atholl Books (undated), The Belfast Labour Movement: Part 1, 1885-93, Belfast. J. C. Beckett and R. E. Glasscock (eds.) (1967): Belfast; Origin and Growth of an Industrial City. London.

G. Bell (1976): The Protestants of Ulster, London.

Andrew Boyd (1969), Holy War in Belfast, Tralee.

J. W. Boyle (ed.) (undated), Leaders and Workers, Cork.

J. W. Boyle (1962), ‘The Belfast Protestant Association and the Independent Orange Order, 1901-10’, in Jrish Historical Studies, VoL xiii. Patrick Buckland (ed.) (1973), Irish Unionism 1885-1923: A Documentary History, Belfast.

lan Budge and Cornelius O’Leary (1973), Belfast: Approach to Crisis, London. J. D. Clarkson (1925), Labour and Nationalism in Ireland, New York.

James Connolly and William Walker (undated), The Connolly-Walker Controversy, Cork. M. Farrell (1976), Northern Ireland: The Orange State, London.

P. Gibbon (1975), The Origins of Ulster Unionism, Manchester.

J. Gray (1976), ‘1907: A Year of Strikes in Belfast’, in West Belfast Historical Society, Outline Annual.

C. Desmond Greaves (1960), The Life and Times of James Connolly, London. S. Levenson (1973), James Larkin, London.

F. S. L. Lyons (1971), freland Since the Famine, London.

A. Mitchell (1974), Labour in Irish Politics 1890-1930, Dublin.

H. H. Patterson (1976), ‘Conservative Politics and Class Conflict in Belfast’, in Saothar 2 (Journal of the Irish Labour History Society).

W. Walker (1904), Address to the ITUC, May 1904, Belfast.

Martin Wallace (1971), Northern Ireland: 50 Years of Self Government, Devon. Periodicals and Documents used Belfast Labour Chronicle, (1904-6) Linenhall Library, Belfast and National Library of Ireland, Dublin.

Forward, Mitchell Library, Glasgow.

Labour Opposition, Linenhall Library, Belfast.

Belfast election literature, Belfast Socialist Society leaflet, and resolutions of ITUC re. partition, in the William O’Brien Collection, National Library of Ireland.

Minutes of Belfast Trades Council, and Senator Joseph Cunningham, ‘Particulars of My Life’, in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast. Reports of ILP conferences, 1907-1910 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.