THE WORKERS' REPUBLIC

Like the countess, the Irish Labor party wants a workers' republic. But it
wants a republic first.

The Irish Labor party has been accused of accepting Russian roubles, of
hiding bags of bolshevik gold in the basement of Liberty Hall. Whether it
has taken Russian gold or not, it is frankly desirous of possessing the
Russian form of government. James Connolly, who is largely responsible for
the present Labor party in Ireland, was, like Lenin and Trotsky, a Marxian
socialist, and worked for government by the proletariat. The Irish Labor
party celebrated the Russian revolution by calling a "bolshevik" meeting
and cheering under a red flag in the assembly room of the Mansion House.
And in its last congress, it reaffirmed its "adherence to the principles of
freedom, democracy, and peace enunciated in the Russian revolution."

How strong are the revolutionaries? The Irish Labor party is new but it
already contains about 300,000 members.[1] It plans to include every worker
from the "white collar" to the "muffler" labor. And the laborers alone make
up seven-eighths of the population. For while there are just 252,000
members of the professional and commercial classes, there are 4,137,000 who
are in agricultural, industrial and indefinite classes[2]--most of the
farmers are held to be laborers because outside the great estates, holdings
average at thirty acres and are worked by the holders themselves.[3]

There's the revolutionary rub. The Irish farmers make up the largest body
of workers in Ireland. The Irish farmer sweated and bled for his land.