"Beginning with our parliamentary representatives, we see men so poisoned by the evil association of parliament and enervated with the unwonted luxury of a salary much greater than they could ever hope to enjoy in private life, that they have instantly and completely abandoned all the traditions of their political party, and become the mouthpieces and defenders of an Imperial system their greatest leaders had never ceased to hold up to the scorn of the world.
We see the ties of self-interest so poisoning those men that they become the foulest slanderers and enemies of all who stand for that unfettered Ireland to which they also once pledged their heartiest allegiance."
#irishtraitor
We see the ties of self-interest so poisoning those men that they become the foulest slanderers and enemies of all who stand for that unfettered Ireland to which they also once pledged their heartiest allegiance."
#irishtraitor
"There is nobody in a representative position so mean that the British government will not pay some price for his Irish soul. Newspaper men sell their Irish souls for government advertisements paid for at a lavish rate, Professors sell their souls for salaries and expenses, clergymen sell theirs for jobs for their relatives, business men sell their souls and become recruiters lest they lose the custom of government officials."
#soul
#soul
"For the sake of a few paltry shillings per week thousands of Irish workers have sold their country in the hour of their country’s greatest need and greatest hope. For the sake of a few paltry shillings Separation Allowance thousands of Irish women have made life miserable for their husbands with entreaties to join the British Army. For the sake of a few paltry shillings Separation Allowance thousands of young Irish girls have rushed into matrimony with young Irish traitors who in full knowledge of the hopes of Nationalist Ireland had enlisted in the army that England keeps here to slaughter Irish patriots....
...For the sake of the Separation Allowance thousands of Irish men, women, and young girls have become accomplices of the British Government in this threatened crime against the true men and women of Ireland.
Like a poisonous ulcer this tie of self-interest has spread over Ireland corrupting and destroying all classes, from the Lord Mayor in his Mansion House to the poor boy and girl in the slum. Corrupting all hearts, destroying all friendships, poisoning all minds."
#irishtraitor #irishpeople
...For the sake of the Separation Allowance thousands of Irish men, women, and young girls have become accomplices of the British Government in this threatened crime against the true men and women of Ireland.
Like a poisonous ulcer this tie of self-interest has spread over Ireland corrupting and destroying all classes, from the Lord Mayor in his Mansion House to the poor boy and girl in the slum. Corrupting all hearts, destroying all friendships, poisoning all minds."
#irishtraitor #irishpeople
"The British Government stands in the Market Places and streets of Ireland buying, buying, buying, buying the souls of the men and women, the boys and the girls, whom ambition, or greed, or passion, or vice, or poverty, or ignorance makes weak enough to listen to its seductions.
And yet the great heart of the nation remains true. Some day most of those deluded and misled brothers and sisters of ours will learn the truth, some day we will welcome them back to our arms purified and repentant of their errors."
#soul #irishpeople
And yet the great heart of the nation remains true. Some day most of those deluded and misled brothers and sisters of ours will learn the truth, some day we will welcome them back to our arms purified and repentant of their errors."
#soul #irishpeople
"But deep in the heart of Ireland has sunk the sense of the degradation wrought upon its people – our lost brothers and sisters – so deep and humiliating that no agency less potent than the red tide of war on Irish soil will ever be able to enable the Irish race to recover its self-respect, or establish its national dignity in the face of a world horrified and scandalised by what must seem to them our national apostasy."
#irishrace #nation
#irishrace #nation
"Ireland is in the throes of a new invasion. But whereas all other invasions have been invasions of fighting men, this last invasion is an invasion of men who have declined to fight.
Since the passing of the military service law and its coming into force in England this country has been flooded daily with fresh hordes of English and Scotch, who have run away from military service in their own country and settled down like a swarm of locusts upon Ireland.
Here in Ireland we have another kind of dilution of labour. Everywhere since the conscription act was first mooted there has been a rush of Englishmen and Scotsmen to Ireland to escape the military net. These Englishmen and Scotsmen – let us call them Brit-Huns for short – are appearing as if by magic in every sort of job hitherto held by Irishmen. There is not a week and scarcely a day, that goes by without some unfortunate Irishmen being told by his employer that the firm is going to reduce its staff, and that his services are therefore no longer required. He goes, and in a day or two a Brit-Hun appears in his place ... all up and down the city the loyal capitalists are weeding out Irishmen and slyly substituting English and Scots – Brit-Huns – in their places. The Irish are wanted to fight the battles of the tottering British Empire – to set the ‘glorious example’ of dying for the Empire that denies their country the merest shadow of national freedom – and as the Irish will not go willingly they must be starved into going ... It is a new plantation, this time with the blessing and connivance of the Parliamentary leaders of the Irish race at home and abroad. And as the Brit-Huns come in the Irish boys march out in khaki, puzzled, misled, betrayed, the wonder of the world for stupidity, and the despair of their country ... It is the product of crime and folly – of British crime and Irish folly."
#plantation #scab #irishrace
Since the passing of the military service law and its coming into force in England this country has been flooded daily with fresh hordes of English and Scotch, who have run away from military service in their own country and settled down like a swarm of locusts upon Ireland.
Here in Ireland we have another kind of dilution of labour. Everywhere since the conscription act was first mooted there has been a rush of Englishmen and Scotsmen to Ireland to escape the military net. These Englishmen and Scotsmen – let us call them Brit-Huns for short – are appearing as if by magic in every sort of job hitherto held by Irishmen. There is not a week and scarcely a day, that goes by without some unfortunate Irishmen being told by his employer that the firm is going to reduce its staff, and that his services are therefore no longer required. He goes, and in a day or two a Brit-Hun appears in his place ... all up and down the city the loyal capitalists are weeding out Irishmen and slyly substituting English and Scots – Brit-Huns – in their places. The Irish are wanted to fight the battles of the tottering British Empire – to set the ‘glorious example’ of dying for the Empire that denies their country the merest shadow of national freedom – and as the Irish will not go willingly they must be starved into going ... It is a new plantation, this time with the blessing and connivance of the Parliamentary leaders of the Irish race at home and abroad. And as the Brit-Huns come in the Irish boys march out in khaki, puzzled, misled, betrayed, the wonder of the world for stupidity, and the despair of their country ... It is the product of crime and folly – of British crime and Irish folly."
#plantation #scab #irishrace
"Simultaneously with this invasion by British shirkers we have witnessed a concerted and sustained effort on the part of the Labour Exchanges, and also on the part of firms in England under Government control, to entice able-bodied Irishmen out of Ireland to work in England. Advertisements are appearing in the daily press calling for the services of Irishmen to work in England, some even particularising Dublin men as being the kind of men they want. Thus we find that young able-bodied Irishmen are being seduced out of Ireland after being denied work on the grounds that they were fit for military service, and even whilst they leave Ireland in despair the country is filling up with cowardly runaways from England for whom these same employers are gladly finding employment at the jobs they refused to give Irishmen."
"The British workers, no more than the Irish, have not any stake in ‘their’ Empire worth risking their lives to defend. That we freely grant.
But that being the case the duty of English workers is to stay at home and fight conscription, not to run away from that fight. We here in Ireland have been exempted from conscription for the present because, and only because, the best fighting material in the country have got arms in their hands and would have resisted conscription to the last drop of their blood. We have always admitted that we cannot remain at peace if the British Government wants us to fight. That Government can force us to fight whether we like or not. But neither that Government, nor any other Government, can decide for us the place where we are going to fight, if fight we must. And the best men in Ireland, the only men whom the Ireland of the future will care to remember, have decided long ago that if they must fight they will fight in Ireland, for Ireland, and under Ireland’s flag."
But that being the case the duty of English workers is to stay at home and fight conscription, not to run away from that fight. We here in Ireland have been exempted from conscription for the present because, and only because, the best fighting material in the country have got arms in their hands and would have resisted conscription to the last drop of their blood. We have always admitted that we cannot remain at peace if the British Government wants us to fight. That Government can force us to fight whether we like or not. But neither that Government, nor any other Government, can decide for us the place where we are going to fight, if fight we must. And the best men in Ireland, the only men whom the Ireland of the future will care to remember, have decided long ago that if they must fight they will fight in Ireland, for Ireland, and under Ireland’s flag."
"But what shall we say of the thousands of young, able-bodied English, Scots, and Welsh, now settling down upon Ireland – recreants, runaways, traitors to both sides, who will neither fight under conscription, nor fight against it!...they are here to take our jobs, to take the bread out of the mouths of Irishmen whilst using those same Irishmen to go and fight for the Empire. Surely such unmitigated curs are typical products of Empire – of an Empire that has accustomed itself to the practice of hiring slaves to fight freemen."
"What a picture! Irish soldiers fighting for England; English slackers staying at home to grab the jobs of Irish soldiers. And Irish employers driving out Irishmen of military age to serve the Empire, and giving their jobs to Englishmen and Scotsmen who refuse to risk their precious skins for the Empire."
"No work in Ireland for Irishmen, lots of work in Ireland for Brit-Huns – every ship that goes to England carrying away Irish men to jobs in England; every ship that comes to Ireland carrying over Brit-Huns to jobs in Ireland.
Was ever a nation so beset?"
Was ever a nation so beset?"
In The Slackers III (1916) Connolly responds to criticism of the previous articles.
www.marxists.org
James Connolly: The Slackers 3 (1916)
James Connolly: The Slackers 3 (1915)
To the Editor of The Workers’ Republic.
Dear Comrade,
As a regular and admiring reader of the Republic, permit me to express my disappointment with your leading article, entitled The Slackers, in which you criticise those young men who are landing in Ireland to escape conscription. You dip your pen in vitriol and in the most intemperate language denounce them as slackers, recreants, cowardly runaways, Brit-Huns, and unmitigated curs.
Before opening your flood-gates of abuse you would surely make certain of your ground, and although you do not produce it, you doubtless possess abundant evidence that the men you denounce are everything you brand them. You have enjoyed their acquaintance for a few days now, and must have collected extensive proof that they are the ‘curs’ you so charitably describe them to be. I would not ask you to produce this proof, only your lurid description does not tally with the impression of the men I formed during years of association with them.
You tell us the new arrivals are English, Welsh, and Scotch. Well, they were Irish when they sailed from here. Irish to a man. Fifty of my personal acquaintances are now basking in your comradely scowls. Half of them are Irish born and have returned to their natal roof-trees. The other half are born of Irish parents and have crossed to the hospitality of relatives. They don’t sing Rule Britannia. They never sport the loyal colours. They duly ‘hate England’, and although they came here some years ago to steal the jobs (by selling their labour cheap) and ‘take the bread out of the mouths’ of Scotchmen, they are not willing to be pressed into the Army if by the simple device of changing their locus they can evade it.
You are opposed to conscription. So are they. You say they should remain in Britain and fight against it. Don’t you know the fight is over? Conscription has won. It is the law of the land. Those who fought against the Bill must now enter the Army, or devise some means of avoiding it. There are only two ways of keeping out of the Army – to step into prison or over to Ireland. Scotch and English resisters will go to prison; those who have friends in Ireland are choosing the lesser punishment of returning to their native land.
Whose applause do you hope to gain by such an article? What are your motives for writing in a strain that does you so little credit? If you believe it is wrong to join the Army, why deny a refuge to those who believe with you? If you believe the Irish workers are poor because of capitalist oppression, why mislead them to regard the Scotch and English workers, who may compete for jobs, as the authors of Irish misery.
“Glasgow Reader”
Dear Comrade,
As a regular and admiring reader of the Republic, permit me to express my disappointment with your leading article, entitled The Slackers, in which you criticise those young men who are landing in Ireland to escape conscription. You dip your pen in vitriol and in the most intemperate language denounce them as slackers, recreants, cowardly runaways, Brit-Huns, and unmitigated curs.
Before opening your flood-gates of abuse you would surely make certain of your ground, and although you do not produce it, you doubtless possess abundant evidence that the men you denounce are everything you brand them. You have enjoyed their acquaintance for a few days now, and must have collected extensive proof that they are the ‘curs’ you so charitably describe them to be. I would not ask you to produce this proof, only your lurid description does not tally with the impression of the men I formed during years of association with them.
You tell us the new arrivals are English, Welsh, and Scotch. Well, they were Irish when they sailed from here. Irish to a man. Fifty of my personal acquaintances are now basking in your comradely scowls. Half of them are Irish born and have returned to their natal roof-trees. The other half are born of Irish parents and have crossed to the hospitality of relatives. They don’t sing Rule Britannia. They never sport the loyal colours. They duly ‘hate England’, and although they came here some years ago to steal the jobs (by selling their labour cheap) and ‘take the bread out of the mouths’ of Scotchmen, they are not willing to be pressed into the Army if by the simple device of changing their locus they can evade it.
You are opposed to conscription. So are they. You say they should remain in Britain and fight against it. Don’t you know the fight is over? Conscription has won. It is the law of the land. Those who fought against the Bill must now enter the Army, or devise some means of avoiding it. There are only two ways of keeping out of the Army – to step into prison or over to Ireland. Scotch and English resisters will go to prison; those who have friends in Ireland are choosing the lesser punishment of returning to their native land.
Whose applause do you hope to gain by such an article? What are your motives for writing in a strain that does you so little credit? If you believe it is wrong to join the Army, why deny a refuge to those who believe with you? If you believe the Irish workers are poor because of capitalist oppression, why mislead them to regard the Scotch and English workers, who may compete for jobs, as the authors of Irish misery.
“Glasgow Reader”
"The above is about the most amusing criticism we have ever come across. The writer coolly ignores our very explicit description of the men whom we attacked in our article, and proceeds to a totally unnecessary defence of people whom we did not attack.
...the people whom we were attacking do sport the loyal colours, and do sing Rule Britannia, and do shout for the war, and are blatant jingoes to a man; they are not Irish refugees returning to the land of their birth, or the land of their fathers. Oh, no, they are boys of the bull-dog breed, publicly and privately asserting that Irishmen should go out to fight for the Empire they will not shed their own blood to defend."
...the people whom we were attacking do sport the loyal colours, and do sing Rule Britannia, and do shout for the war, and are blatant jingoes to a man; they are not Irish refugees returning to the land of their birth, or the land of their fathers. Oh, no, they are boys of the bull-dog breed, publicly and privately asserting that Irishmen should go out to fight for the Empire they will not shed their own blood to defend."
"Dublin, Ireland, is rotten with these carrion; our patriotic jingo employers are continually discharging Irishmen and filling up their jobs with English and Scots and Welsh, and these Brit-Huns are neither socialists, radicals, no conscription fellowship members, nor people who believe with us that it is wrong to join the Army."
"But because some of the shouters for the war, some of the blatant jingoes and union-jackers came over to Ireland, to help their rulers to depopulate Ireland by grabbing our jobs whilst our brothers are elbowed out to starve or enlist, our critic has nothing but covert insults for us when we dare to criticise them."