Page:Schüller - Jim Connolly and Irish Freedom (1926).djvu/14

resolves itself in the last analysis into a fight for the mastery of the means of life, the sources of production in Ireland. Who would own and control the land? The people or the invaders; and if the invaders, which set of them—the most recent swarm of land thieves, or the sons of the thieves of a former generation? These were the bottom questions of Irish politics, and all other questions were valued or deprecated in the proportion to which they contributed to serve the interests of some of the factions who had already taken their stand in this fight around property interests."

The result of this was that very many struggles for freedom failed because they did not carry with them the working masses, for

"the producing classes could not be expected to rally to the revolution unless given to understand that it meant their freedom from social as well as from political bondage."

This, however, does not give quite a clear interpretation of the failure of the national struggle. A further reason was to be found in the leadership of this struggle. The rich bourgeoisie, bound by a thousand ties to the ruling class in England and terrified of the class struggle, betrayed the struggle for national liberty; the middle and petty bourgeoisie wavered helplessly and sought a peaceful compromise in the most constitutional manner possible, always in fear that their agitation might cause the working masses to raise the social question.

"The spokesmen of the middle class, in the press and on the platform, have consistently sought the emasculation of the Irish National Movement, the distortion of Irish history, and, above all, the denial of all relation between the social rights of the Irish toilers and the political rights of the Irish nation. It was hoped and intended by this means to create what is termed 'a real National movement,' i. e., a movement in which each class would recognize the rights of the

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