On the whole, it is said, the way of the labor propagandist is easy, for capital in Ireland is very weak.  First, there is very little of it.  In 1917 the total income tax of the British Isles was L300,000,000; Ireland with one-tenth the population contributed only one-fortieth of the tax.  In the same year, the total excess profits tax was L290,000,000 and Ireland’s proportion was slightly less than for the income tax.[4] Second, what capital there is, is not effectively organized.  The first national commercial association is just forming in Dublin.

Whether the future prove the numerical strength of labor or not, the leaders are determined that labor will be organically strong.  It is developing a pyramid form of government.  Irish labor fosters the “one big union.”  In some towns all the labor, from teachers to dock-workers, have already coalesced.  These unions select their district heads.  The district heads are subsidiary to the general head in Dublin.  When each union inside the big union is ready to take over its industry, and their district and general heads are ready to take over government there will be a general strike for this end.  The strike will be supported by the army—­the Citizens’ Army of the workers.

“There you have,” said James Connolly, who promoted the one big union, “not only the most effective combination for industrial warfare, but also for the social administration of the future."[5]

“Certainly we mean to take over industry by force if necessary,” affirmed Thomas Johnson, treasurer of the Irish Labor party.  He is a big-browed man with thick, pompadoured, gray hair, and the aspect of a live professor.  Some people call him the coming leader of Ireland.  In answer to my statement that it wouldn’t be a very hard job to take over Irish industry, he smiled and said:  “That’s why we welcome the entrance of outside capital into Ireland.  The more industry is developed, the less we will have to do afterward.”

THE REPUBLIC FIRST

Labor agrees with Sinn Fein not only that Irish industry must be developed but also that Ireland must have independence.  After the national war, the class war must come.  First freedom from exploitation by capitalistic nations, and then freedom from capitalistic individuals.  Many socialists, it is said, do not understand why Ireland should not plunge at once into the class war.  It was a matter of regret to James Connolly that many of his fellow socialists the world over would never understand his participation in the rebellion of 1916.  Nora Connolly, the smiling boy-like girl who smokes and works by a grate in Liberty Hall, says that on the eve of his execution, when he lay in bed with his leg shattered by a gun wound, her father said to her:  “The socialists will never understand why I am here.  They all forget I am an Irishman.”