no person in ireland seems to have exact information about the volunteers, their aims, or their numbers. we know the names of the leaders now. they were recited to us with the tale of their execution; and with the declaration of a republic we learned something of their aim, but the estimate of their number runs through the figures ten, thirty, and fifty thousand. the first figure is undoubtedly too slender, the last excessive, and something between fifteen and twenty thousand for all ireland would be a reasonable guess.
of these, the citizen army or labour side of the volunteers, would not number more than one thousand men, and it is with difficulty such a figure could be arrived at. yet it is freely argued, and the theory will grow, that the causes of this latest insurrection should be sought among the labour problems of dublin rather than in any national or patriotic sentiment, and this theory is buttressed by all the agile facts which such a theory would be furnished with.
it is an interesting view, but in my opinion it is an erroneous one.
that dublin labour was in the volunteer movement to the strength of, perhaps, two hundred men, may be true—it is possible there were more, but it is unlikely that a greater number, or, as many, of the citizen army marched when the order came. the overwhelming bulk of volunteers were actuated by the patriotic ideal which is the heritage and the burden of almost every irishman born out of the unionist circle, and their connection with labour was much more manual than mental.
this view of the importance of labour to the volunteers is held by two distinct and opposed classes.
just as there are some who find the explanation of life in a sexual formula, so there is a class to whom the economic idea is very dear, and beneath every human activity they will discover the shock of wages and profit. it is truly there, but it pulls no more than its weight, and in irish life the part played by labour has not yet been a weighty one; although on every view it is an important one. the labour idea in ireland has not arrived. it is in process of "becoming," and when labour problems are mentioned in this country a party does not come to the mind, but two men only—they are mr. larkin and james connolly, and they are each in their way exceptional and curious men.
there is another class who implicate labour, and they do so because it enables them to urge that as well as being grasping and nihilistic, irish labour is disloyal and treacherous.
the truth is that labour in ireland has not yet succeeded in organising anything—not even discontent. it is not self-conscious to any extent, and, outside of dublin, it scarcely appears to exist. the national imagination is not free to deal with any other subject than that of freedom, and part of the policy of our "masters" is to see that we be kept busy with politics instead of social ideas. from their standpoint the policy is admirable, and up to the present it has thoroughly succeeded.
one does not hear from the lips of the irish workingman, even in dublin, any of the affirmations and rejections which have long since become the commonplaces of his comrades in other lands. but on the subject of irish freedom his views are instantly forthcoming, and his desires are explicit, and, to a degree, informed. this latter subject they understand and have fabricated an entire language to express it, but the other they do not understand nor cherish, and they are not prepared to die for it.
it is possibly true that before any movement can attain to really national proportions there must be, as well as the intellectual ideal which gives it utterance and a frame, a sense of economic misfortune to give it weight, and when these fuse the combination may well be irresistible. the organised labour discontent in ireland, in dublin, was not considerable enough to impose its aims or its colours on the volunteers, and it is the labour ideal which merges and disappears in the national one. the reputation of all the leaders of the insurrection, not excepting connolly, is that they were intensely patriotic irishmen, and also, but this time with the exception of connolly, that they were not particularly interested in the problems of labour.
the great strike of two years ago remained undoubtedly as a bitter and lasting memory with dublin labour—perhaps, even, it was not so much a memory as a hatred. still, it was not hatred of england which was evoked at that time, nor can the stress of their conflict be traced to an english source. it was hatred of local traders, and, particularly, hatred of the local police, and the local powers and tribunals, which were arrayed against them.
one can without trouble discover reasons why they should go on strike again, but by no reasoning can i understand why they should go into rebellion against england, unless it was that they were patriots first and trade unionists a very long way afterwards.
i do not believe that this combination of the ideal and the practical was consummated in the dublin insurrection, but i do believe that the first step towards the formation of such a party has now been taken, and that if, years hence, there should be further trouble in ireland such trouble will not be so easily dealt with as this one has been.
it may be that further trouble will not arise, for the co-operative movement, which is growing slowly but steadily in ireland, may arrange our economic question, and, incidentally, our national question also—that is if the english people do not decide that the latter ought to be settled at once.
james connolly had his heart in both the national and the economic camp, but he was a great-hearted man, and could afford to extend his affections where others could only dissipate them.
there can be no doubt that his powers of orderly thinking were of great service to the volunteers, for while mr. larkin was the magnetic centre of the irish labour movement, connolly was its brains. he has been sentenced to death for his part in the insurrection, and for two days now he has been dead.
he had been severely wounded in the fighting, and was tended, one does not doubt with great care, until he regained enough strength to stand up and be shot down again.
others are dead also. i was not acquainted with them, and with connolly i was not more than acquainted. i had met him twice many months ago, but other people were present each time, and he scarcely uttered a word on either of these occasions. i was told that he was by nature silent. he was a man who can be ill-spared in ireland, but labour, throughout the world, may mourn for him also.
a doctor who attended on him during his last hours says that connolly received the sentence of his death quietly. he was to be shot on the morning following the sentence. this gentleman said to him:
"connolly, when you stand up to be shot, will you say a prayer for me?"
connolly replied:
"i will."
his visitor continued:
"will you say a prayer for the men who are shooting you?"
"i will," said connolly, "and i will say a prayer for every good man in the world who is doing his duty."
he was a steadfast man in all that he undertook. we may be sure he steadfastly kept that promise. he would pray for others, who had not time to pray for himself, as he had worked for others during the years when he might have worked for himself.
