servile class in Ireland? For, disguise it how we will, our present
industrial system is practically a form of slavery for the workers,
differing in externals only from the ages when the serf had a collar
round his neck. He has now freedom to change from master to master, and
can even seek for a master in other countries; but he must, in any
case, accept the relation of servant to master. The old slave could be
whipped. In the new order the wage slave can be starved, and the fact
that many of the rulers of industry use their power benevolently does
not make the existing relation between employer and employed right, or
the social order one whose permanence can be justified. Men will gladly
labor if they feel that their labor conspires with that of all other
workers for the general good; but there is something loathsome to the
spirit in the condition of the labor market, where labor is regarded as
a commodity to be bought and sold like soap or candles. For that truly
describes how it is with labor in our industrial system: we can buy
labor, which means we can buy human life and thought, a portion of God's
being, and make a profit out of it. By so selling himself the worker is
enslaved and limited in a thousand ways. The power of dismissal of one
person by another at whim acts against independence of character, or the
free expression or opinion in thought, in politics, and in religion. The
soul is stunted in its growth, and spiritual life made subordinate to
material interests. To deny essential freedom to the soul is the
greatest of all crimes, and such denial has in all ages evoked the
deepest anger among men. When freedom has been threatened nations have
risen up maddened and exultant, and the clang of martial arms has been
heard and the stony kings of the past have been encountered in battle.
In Ireland we shall have our greatest fight of all to gain this freedom:
not alone material independence for man, but the freedom of the soul,
its right to choose its own heroes and its own ideals without let or
hindrance by other men.