Main Document Index | ETOL Home Page
Copied with thanks from the Workers’ Republic Website.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Ulster: Population of Ulster 1,247,000 in 1928, and by 1938 it had risen to 1,281,000. Roughly a third of the Irish population.
Belfast has a population of 438,112; more than half of the population of Ulster live in towns of over 5,000 inhabitants.
There were 430,161 Roman Catholics in 1937, i.e. 34.4% of the population. The remainder were registered in the various Protestant denominations. The bulk of the Catholic population are farmers and farm labourers, the mass of the Protestants are proletarians.
Foreign trade amounted to £111,000,000 in 1937 of which £65,377,000 was imports and £31,575,000 was exports.
The total area is 3,352,249 acres, of which 880,688 acres are under crops, including hay. This is 35.6% of the cultivated area.
There are 93,843 holdings of over one acre in area, of which 82% were less than 50 acres in extent. There are roughly 65,000 holdings of over 10 acres, but less than 100 acres. 20,000 permanent agricultural labourers are employed. All these holdings have “security” of tenure, and the majority are either owners or in process of becoming owners.
The value of field crops fell from £2,519,000 in 1931 to £1,177,000 in 1933. But between 1935 and 1936, owing mainly to increased prices and production of potatoes, rose to £2,938,000.
The principal industries are agriculture, flax spinning and weaving, linen bleaching and finishing, shipbuilding, distilling, the manufacture of machinery, aircraft, ropes and twine, clothing, hosiery, etc.
Exports of wholly or partially manufactured goods amounted to £31,573,000 in 1937.
Ulster has the highest foreign trade per head of population of any of the Dominion countries.
Éire: Population 1926 – 2,971,992. 1936 – 2,965,854.
The population of the main towns – Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Dún Laoghaire – was 583,774 in 1926 and rose to 657,523 in 1936. Of all other towns with a population of more [1] than 1500 inhabitants, in 1926 there were 367,624 and in 1936 there were 385,715. The first group rose by 12.6 per cent, and the second by 4.9 per cent.
Foreign trade in 1937 was £66,965,000, of which £44,108,000 was imports and £22,856,000 was exports and re-exports.
The total area is 17,024,485 acres, of which 1,582,488 acres are under the plough, 7,951,545 are pasture and 2,086,978 are under hay.
In 1851 there were 3,509,229 acres under the plough, the greatest area ever cultivated, which was 29 per cent of the total agricultural land. In 1932 there were 1,423,980 acres under the plough, the lowest ever cultivated, and amounting to 12 per cent of the agricultural land.
The number of cattle have increased. In 1849 there were 1,848,403 head of cattle; in 1921 – 4,919,347; in 1929 – 4,136,847; and in 1938 – 4,056,209.
Sheep have also risen in numbers. In 1849 there were 1,697,997; in 1854 – 3.507,644; in 1868 – 4,580,139; and in 1938 there were 3,196,600.
The number of pigs fluctuates violently from year to year, but poultry have shown a steady increase in numbers.
Almost the whole of the exports from Éire are agricultural and farm produce.
There are approximately 160,000 industrial workers, 110,000 registered unemployed and 126,000 agricultural labourers.
Holdings etc. are similar to those in the North: security of tenure, however, is not quite so advanced.
The following quotations are from Lenin’s On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination [Workers’ Republic Website note: we have replaced them with references currently in print and available on the Marxist Internet Archive]. I consider that the passages quoted by “Belfast” from this work assist my case – but in view of the forcefulness of the key ideas of Lenin in his article, I have decided to include them in the material I submit.
“What Is Meant By The Self-Determination Of Nations? Naturally, this is the first question that arises when any attempt is made at a Marxist examination of what is known as self-determination. What should be understood by that term? Should the answer be sought in legal definitions deduced from all sorts of ‘general concepts’ of law? Or is it rather to be sought in a historico-economic study of the national movements?” Lenin, Collected Works 20, pp.395-96
“A precise formulation of this question, which no Marxist can avoid, would at once destroy nine-tenths of Rosa Luxemburg’s arguments. This is not the first time that national movements have arisen in Russia, nor are they peculiar to that country alone. Throughout the world, the period of the final victory of capitalism over feudalism has been linked up with national movements. For the complete victory of commodity production, the bourgeoisie must capture the home market, and there must be politically united territories whose population speak a single language, with all obstacles to the development of that language and to its consolidation in literature eliminated. Therein is the economic foundation of national movements. Language is the most important means of human intercourse. Unity and unimpeded development of language are the most important conditions for genuinely free and extensive commerce on a scale commensurate with modern capitalism, for a free and broad grouping of the population in all its various classes and, lastly, for the establishment of a close connection between the market and each and every proprietor, big or little, and between seller and buyer.
“Therefore, the tendency of every national movement is towards the formation of national states, under which these requirements of modern capitalism are best satisfied. The most profound economic factors drive towards this goal, and, therefore, for the whole of Western Europe, nay, for the entire civilised world, the national state is typical and normal for the capitalist period.
“Consequently, if we want to grasp the meaning of self-determination of nations, not by juggling with legal definitions, or "inventing" abstract definitions, but by examining the historico-economic conditions of the national movements, we must inevitably reach the conclusion that the self-determination of nations means the political separation of these nations from alien national bodies, and the formation of an independent national state.” (Ibid., pp.396-97)
“Kautsky’s proposition is absolutely correct: the national state is the rule and the ‘norm’ of capitalism; the multi-national state represents backwardness, or is an exception. From the standpoint of national relations, the best conditions for the development of capitalism are undoubtedly provided by the national state. This does not mean, of course, that such a state, which is based on bourgeois relations can eliminate the exploitation and oppression of nations. It only means that Marxists cannot lose sight of the powerful economic factors that give rise to the urge to create national states. It means that ‘self-determination of nations’ in the Marxists’ Programme cannot, from a historico-economic point of view, have any other meaning than political self-determination, state independence, and the formation of a national state.” (Ibid., p.400)
“The Historically Concrete Presentation Of The Question. The categorical requirement of Marxist theory investigating any social question is that it be examined within definite historical limits, and, if it refers to a particular country (e.g., the national programme for a given country), that account be taken of the specific features distinguishing that country from others in the same historical epoch.
“What does this categorical requirement of Marxism imply in its application to the question under discussion?
“First of all, it implies that a clear distinction must be drawn between the two periods of capitalism, which differ radically from each other as far as the national movement is concerned. On the one hand, there is the period of the collapse of feudalism and absolutism, the period of the formation of the bourgeois-democratic society and state, when the national movements for the first time become mass movements and in one way or another draw all classes of the population into politics through the press, participation in representative institutions, etc. On the other hand, there is the period of fully formed capitalist states with a long-established constitutional regime and a highly developed antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie – a period that may be called the eve of capitalism’s downfall.” (Ibid., pp.400-01)
“In this respect Rosa Luxemburg has lost sight of the most important thing – the difference between countries where bourgeois-democratic reforms have long been completed, and those where they have not.” (Ibid., p.405)
“Theoretically, you cannot say in advance whether the bourgeois-democratic revolution will end in a given nation seceding from another nation, or in its equality with the latter; in either case, the important thing for the proletariat is to ensure the development of its class. For the bourgeoisie it is important to hamper this development by pushing the aims of its ‘own’ nation before those of the proletariat. That is why the proletariat confines itself, so to speak, to the negative demand for recognition of the right to self-determination, without giving guarantees to any nation, and without undertaking to give anything at the expense of another nation.” (Ibid., p.410)
“For the proletariat, however, the important thing is to strengthen its class against the bourgeoisie and to educate the masses in the spirit of consistent democracy and socialism.” (Ibid., p.410)
I have purposely refrained – and it was very difficult to do so – from underlining any part of the above quotations from Lenin. These are the key passages from his work.
However, the section of the said polemic which introduces the question of Ireland (“Belfast”, peculiarly enough, did not attempt to use this part of the polemic to justify his case) is so important and holds such valuable lessons that I make no apology for underlining it.
“Marx had no doubt as to the subordinate position of the national question as compared with the ‘Labour question’. But his theory is far from ignoring the national question as heaven from earth.
“But let us return to the question of Ireland. Marx’s position on this question is most clearly expressed in the following extracts from his letters:
‘I have done my best to bring about this demonstration of the English workers in favour of Fenianism ... I used to think the separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now think it inevitable, although after the separation there may come federation.’ This is what Marx wrote to Engels on November 2, 1867.
“In his letter of November 30 of the same year he added:
‘... what shall we advise the English workers? In my opinion they must make the Repeal of the Union [Ireland with England, i.e., the separation of Ireland from England] (in short, the affair of 1783, only democratised and adapted to the conditions of the time) an article of their pronunziamento. This is the only legal and therefore only possible form of Irish emancipation which can be admitted in the programme of an English party. Experience must show later whether a mere personal union can continue to subsist between the two countries.
‘ . . . What the Irish need is:
1) Self-government and independence from England;
2) An agrarian revolution ...’” (Ibid., pp.437-38)“What were the theoretical grounds for Marx’s conclusion? In England the bourgeois revolution had been consummated long ago. But it had not yet been consummated in Ireland; it is being consummated only now, after the lapse of half a century, by the reforms of the English Liberals. (Ibid.) p.440.
“Things turned out differently [i.e. the movement for separation, from what Marx and Engels had expected. Socialist Appeal Editor]. Both the Irish people and the English proletariat proved weak. Only now, through the sordid deals between the English Liberals and the Irish bourgeoisie, is the Irish problem being solved (the example of Ulster shows with what difficulty) through the land reform (with compensation) and Home Rule (not yet introduced).” (Ibid., p441
It is six years since I last read this magnificent polemic of Lenin, and I must say that I am pleased that “Belfast” introduced it once again to my notice. It has helped greatly to clarify my mind on the question.
The first part of these quotations show the Marxian way of examining the problem. The second part shows the conditional nature of Marxian support for such movements.
Lenin in 1914, while Irish capitalism was still struggling to attain the National State (which it has now had established for the last twenty years) and to bring about the agrarian revolution (which has now taken place and is probably, outside of the Mexican revolution, the most complete solution to the land problem which has been made since the French Revolution, excluding, of course, the Soviet Union) considered the national problem – the problem of self-determination – as being in the process of solution.
Irish capitalism has solved its democratic tasks to the extent that it could, and only, be it noted, as the result of working-class struggle and sacrifice. Having organised its own capitalist industry, saturated the home market, and bludgeoned the working-class with great brutality in the process, it now, like capitalism in general, toboggans downhill with eyes closed.
The working class will lose its incorrect ideas in the process of the coming war; they will “learn through experience and disillusionment” that wars can profit only their exploiters. The socialists must not meanwhile succumb to mass psychology. Basing themselves on a strictly scientific analysis of the circumstances, they are sharply hostile to the war.
A minority only of the Irish people, and particularly the Irish workers, are prepared to struggle for the Irish Republic. The task of the Irish Marxists is politically to organise and teach the broader sections what can and must be fought for. In a sharp and polemical way they must raise the only alternative now – the Workers Republic.
|
|
Editor, Socialist Appeal, Ireland |
1. The downloaded text uses the word “less” here, but that doesn’t make sense, so we’ve taken the liberty of changing it to “more”.
Marxists’ Internet Archive | Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Document Index Page
Last updated on 16.8.2004