Wage Rate

mont and Westminster governments produce about Northern Ireland there is one section that you can believe, and that is the set of unemployment figures which appear monthly. The current figures show that the overall unemployment rate in N. Ireland is more than 10%, that in Derry it is 14% and in Newry 16%. Unemployment levels of this order have always been taken to represent a state of depression in a capitalist economy, but the important question for socialists is, exactly for whom the economy is “depressed” To answer that we have to examine the position of both unemployed and employed worNow, it might be argued (by a Unionist) that these disparities only reflect the fact that Six Country workers work less hours than their British counterparts. But that is not true. The correct information again comes from Her Majesty’s Government. Generally, workers in N. Ireland work slightly longer hours, so that the figures already given remain accurate. So, the wage-vate in N. Ireland is generally 75% of what it is in Britain. In the most blatant case, however, the workers in quarrying work an average of 2359 hours per year in N. Ireland and in Britain they work 1703 hours. What that means is that the hourly rate for the job in N. Ireland (78 Old pence) was only half of what it was in Britain. situation has improyed since the. It has suggest that the cost of living in N. Ireland is among the highest of the various regions of the U.K. And the market disruptions brought about by the current struggle in the North are continually aggravating that situation. But the capitalist class is not reknown for its concern with the real wage; what concerns them is the money wage, the “cost” of labour. and the amount of profit they can gain from the product of that labour. For them the siWHO OWNS IRELAND?-2.

ploited.

secrets & tion's expected.

tuation whows continuing improvement. If we listen to Faulkner’s Minister of Commerce, Robin “Boy-wonder” Bailey, we learn that “Ulster” manufacturing capital is becoming more and more “productive”; that is, more and more profitable. And it is true that over the period 1960-1968 “productivity” gains in N. Ireland industry outstripped those in the rest of the U.K. But to examine the distribution of that additional productivity we would have to know a lot more than we do about the state of capitalism in the Six Counties. While the government is quite willing to produce figures on the profitability of capital. If those figures were avalaible we might be able to see just how the workers there are exfrom N_ Ireland to Britain. We also know that this outflow is a mer figure—that is, the outflow figure is arrived at after the subsidy has been taken into account. So, the gross outflow of capital from N. Ireland is greater than the inflow— the private outflow is in excess of the public inflow. The excess is very difficult to estimate, but some authorities suggest that the private outflow could be twice as big as the public inflow. Part of the outflow will be the industrial giants like ICI, Courtaulds, Du Pont, and so on. Those profits are shown in the total profits of the parent company, and there is no way of deciding just how much is attributable to their Six County plants and to the productive efforts of the underpaid workers. — The general picture we have is of the ludicrous situation in which British workers, through their tax payments, subsidise a state where British capitalism can exploit Irish workers to the extent that profits are in excess of their original subsidy. To make the case complete, what we need of course, are more accurate figures on the finances of Northern Ireland.

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The point of all these figures is to show that to 1968 there is no reason to be hat ¢

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