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possible and postponing more radical moves to the moment of victory.

Even before the 1918 election, Sinn Fein had promised the Catholic Hierarchy not to interfere with education: the first Dail never appointed such a Minister. Dail leaders worked to conciliate nationalist and Unionist capitalists. Eoin Mac Neill whe helped wreck the Easter Rising, became a Minister first for Finance and then for Industries, not because hed had any grasp for economics, but because so that he might use his authority as an expert on Ancient Ireland to confuse’ its tribal socialism with that relevant to twentieth century Ireland. The Cabinet’s Courts defended property against land-hungery peasants. Only Count ess Constance Markievicz as both token Labourite a and as token woman in the Cabinet. Like others, she was kept quiet by the-hope of what would happen when the Republic won. This had two effects. Volunteers in the areas of land agitation were more active against the agitators than against the British. ’ Nor was there anything to appeal to Northern Protest ants, whether capitalists or workers. they feared to loose the British imperial market and their sectarian privileges in the Irish Republic. From June 1920, they fought the Republic actively, wrecking the trade unions in the process.

Labour could not oppose this. The limits of i ts support were reached in 1920 when a protracted strike against the carriage of munitions by train exhausted its resources. In thi elections for the second Dail Sinn Fein was able to persuade it not to run.

As Labour revived it found itself attacked by the em ~ ployers who tried to cut wages to make up for falling prices. Strikes and_oce-