Workers’ Republic, 30 June, 1900.
Transcription & HTML Mark-up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
WHEREAS the government of this country is maintained upon the bayonets of an occupying army against the will of the people;
WHEREAS there were in India, Egypt and other portions of the British Empire other and much larger populations also kept down in forced subjection;
WHEREAS a country that thus keeps down subject populations by the use of the hangman, the bullet or the sword, has no right to preach to another about its duties towards its population; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that this meeting denounces the interference of the British capitalist government in the internal affairs of the Transvaal Republic as an act of criminal aggression, wishes long life to the Republic, and trusts that our fellow-countrymen will, if need be, take up arms in defence of their adopted country.
This meeting was held by the Irish Socialist Republican Party, and was their first public meeting held in Ireland to express sympathy with the Boers.
The British Army is getting its hands full in South Africa. The defeated, demoralised, disheartened, subjugated, routed, dispersed, conquered, disarmed and humiliated Boers are still toppling over British battalions, capturing British convoys, cutting British lines of communication, and keeping Lord Roberts and all his generals in a state of almighty panic and unrest, and not a single soldier can be spared from South Africa for a long time to come.
The Boxers in China have developed a sudden aptitude for war, are prowling around on the hunt for foreign devils, and with a smile that is child-like and bland are offering to box all Europe, with Japan and America thrown in as appetisers. Great Britain is in want of soldiers there also.
Now it only wants a native rising in India, and then would come our Irish opportunity.
With war in Africa, war in China, war in India, we of the unconquered Celtic race would rise up in our millions from Malin Head to Cape Clear, from Dublin to Galway, and – and well, pass ‘strong’ resolutions, and then go home and pray that somebody else may beat the Sasanach.
The Boers are invulnerable on kopjes, the Boxers are death on missionaries, but we are irresistible on ‘resolutions’.
Last updated on 11.8.2003