Industry and the Partition of Ireland

[Cumannach]

Comrades,

It's a subject I've been thinking about and reading up on for a while on and off- the role of Capitalist Industry in the splitting up of the Irish nation. Any insights that other comrades could offer or literature they could refer me to would be much appreciated.

So far, my understanding of the issue is somewhat as follows;

The most industrialised and perhaps only, very significantly, industrialised part of Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century was north east Ulster.

Now the impression I'm getting from what I've read, is that basically, the reason for this, is that in Ulster, they cultivated linen (flax) whereas elsewhere in Ireland for some reason they were pursuing woollen manufacture. Obviously, the successful development of the Irish woollen industry was contrary to the interests of the English bourgeoisie who were the very product of wool, and was thus destroyed, by banning exports of it from Ireland in the earlier stages (c.1700) and finally by forcing the Irish to let English woollen manufactures into Ireland while the native industry was still recovering from the earlier blows and could not compete with the more advanced English industry (c.1800). Apparently, the linen manufacture did not threaten English interests since England was focused on wool and not producing linen. And so on the basis of linen, other industries where able to grow in the North East, whereas in the rest of the country the wool cloth industry was wrecked and so industry did not grow. It is just a happy coincidence for England that the linen business blossomed right in the most heavily planted part of Ireland with a legacy of identity crisis that the English could play on.

Of course there are many problems with this account, which I hope other comrades might shed some light on.

1.Why was linen not produced in the rest of the country, especially after the destruction of the wool cloth industry?
2.How were the Ulster bourgeoisie able to compete with the English in other industries, such as shipbuidling? Was this capital english-owned?

[Dóchas]

im not sure about some of the facts but i know for definite that the division is more along religious than political lines. like when the catholics were driven out of Wolfe's shipyard (i think) and the gerrymandering of votes as well as the law that you had to own a house to vote. i wish i was more informed on this area and ill definitly be following this thread

[Cumannach]

Also comrades can I just ask a related question-

Does anyone know if there is available anywhere online Marx's work on the history of Ireland leading up to the act of Union? The title escapes me but it was in draft form, but highly finished and very detailed; typically brilliant incisive historical writing from Marx, and very valuable since such good marxist history is quite scarce.

I've searched the Marxist Internet Archive and I'm sure it's not there; they only have the various draft speeches which contain (very valuable) historical sketches of Ireland.

I came across the work in a printed volume of collected works. It's quite pertinent to the subject of this thread. Any ideas?

[PRC-UTE]

You are correct to read Irish history and development as one of two sets of bourgeois classes, one centered around Belfast and tied to the empire and the other smaller, less tied to the empire and based primarily in Dublin.

1.Why was linen not produced in the rest of the country, especially after the destruction of the wool cloth industry?

This is just an educated guess, not a definite answer: I don't think there was capital for industry to form in the south and the superstructure of that society prevented it. Ulster, primarily east of the river Bann benefited from comparatively modern tenet rights and other capital-forming relationships. Whereas the south was continually squeezed and was coming from a position of less infrastructure.

In fact the same situation existed within Ulster. As I said east of the Bann which was Unionist and Protestand was much better off than west of the Bann. Britain identified keeping the Catholic/nationalist population in a state of underdevelopment as key to its interests in Ireland.

2.How were the Ulster bourgeoisie able to compete with the English in other industries, such as shipbuidling? Was this capital english-owned?

Very good questions. I suspect that the top tier of the Unionist bourgeoisie were more a land owning class than industrial, but I will dig deeper and try to find out some concrete info for you.

[ComradeOm]

Does anyone know if there is available anywhere online Marx's work on the history of Ireland leading up to the act of Union?

I know that Marx wrote numerous articles on Ireland but I've not heard of a complete work. Let me know if you find it, I'd definitely be interested in poring over it

As for your question on Ulster, I found Connolly's writings on partition to be very interesting and you might find them likewise. I don't have time to summarise them here but the most relevant essays/articles are - North-East Ulster, The Liberals and Ulster, Labour and the Proposed Partition of Ireland, Ireland and Ulster: An Appeal to the Working Class, and The Exclusion of Ulster

Now I think one of those deals with the economic basis for partition and the state of Ulster industry. I read an excellent history of this once and if its not one of those articles then I'm struggling to remember where it was...

[Cumannach]

ComradeOm,
The work is "Ireland from the American Revolution to the Union of 1801" (Marx, 1869). It appears in Volume 21 of the collected works of Marx and Engels from Progress Publishers (Moscow), the collection which is actually on the MIA but with not every work actually online as of yet- including this unfortunately. The notes in the printed volume, state that Marx wrote it in October/November 1869 in preparation for the forthcoming debate on the Irish question in the general council of the International. It wasn't published in English till 1978, in a book of M&E's Irish writings (also by Progress pub.).

It's a good forty+ pages of the volume. Like I said it is 'from the preparatory materials' in draft form, but still very readable- more so than the irish historical sketches of Marx's speeches. It goes into great detail, describing the parliament, the volunteers, less so the rebellion and finally the union. I found it very valuable and Marx made many new points concerning the events, - well new to me, I haven't read alot about grattan's parliament.

[Cumannach]

This is just an educated guess, not a definite answer: I don't think there was capital for industry to form in the south and the superstructure of that society prevented it. Ulster, primarily east of the river Bann benefited from comparatively modern tenet rights and other capital-forming relationships. Whereas the south was continually squeezed and was coming from a position of less infrastructure.

This one of the reasons commonly given in the literature. However, it's challenged by some, most interestingly I thought by Eoin O'Malley in an article in the 'Economic and Social Review' back in 1981, which I might refer to quite a bit. Basically, he argues; there was in fact plenty of capital outside of the north-east, as evidenced by not only the woollen industry before the Union, but also by a growing cotton manufacture (which in 1781-6 was as large as Scotland's) neither of which were centred in Ulster, as well as other industries such as brewing and distilling. He argues citing other studies that the land-tenure system did not make enough of a difference to be a whole explanation as to why linen manufacture did not grow to the same extent elsewhere than Ulster, and then suggests, it simply happened to begin first in Ulster, grew strongest there first, and thus remained relatively concentrated there. He also suggested further research may be required!

[Cumannach]

I thought I might point out the interesting differences in opinion between Marx and Connolly regarding the development of Irish Industry.

This is Marx's view; First speaking about the early development of wool manufacture;

"1698. The Anglo-Irish Parliament (like obedient colonists) passed, on the command of the mother country, a prohibitory tax on Irish woollen goods export to foreign countries.
1698. In the same year, the English Parliament laid a heavy tax on the import of the home manufactures in England and Wales, and absolutely prohibited their export to other countries. She struck down the manufactures of Ireland, depopulated her cities and threw the people back upon the land."

(Outline of a Report on the Irish Question to the Communist Educational Association of German workers in London-1867)

Then later on he says

"From 1783 legislative independence of Ireland, shortly after which duties were imposed on various articles of foreign manufacture, avowedly with the intention of enabling some of her people to employ some of their surplus labour, etc.

The natural consequence was that Irish manufactures gradually disappeared as the Act of Union came into effect."

(Ibid)

I presume in this draft he meant that the abolishment of these protective duties following the Union caused the manufactures to disappear, to make sense with his following remarks; He then provides a statistical table of Irish industry at the time of the Union and some years after it for example;

In Dublin

Master woollen manufacturers -1800- 91 -1840- 12

Hands employed -1800- 4,918 -1840- 602

"Every time Ireland was about to develop industrially, she was crushed and reconverted into a purely agricultural land."

(Ibid)

Marx's view therefore seems to me to be clear enough; the decline of Ireland's Industry and failure of it subsequently to industrialize significantly was due to the ability of the English bouregoisie to prevent the nascent Irish bourgeoisie from putting up any protection of their industries against the more advanced English industries, which had grown up with help from their State which had banned Ireland from competing with it in foreign exports. Marx ignores the North-East however, although apparently it wouldn't affect the argument, because the manufacture there was not just cotton and wool but also linen, which the English were not manufacturing themselves. This of course is the standard line of the whole repeal movement is it not?

Connolly's viewpoint, I can't fully get my head around. In "Labour in Irish History" he devotes much of chapter 5 and 6 to the question;

First in chapter 5 he argues that Grattan's parliament which had forced England to allow it it's independence had no role in the prosperity of that time. He says;

"...we must emphatically deny that such prosperity was in any but an infinitesimal degree produced by Parliament. Here again the Socialist philosophy of history provides the key to the problem—points to the economic development as the true solution. The sudden advance of trade in the period in question was almost solely due to the introduction of mechanical power, and the consequent cheapening of manufactured goods."

(Labour in Irish History)

He says it was simply the new productive forces that arose which allowed for the prosperity- but ignores that this new industry was aided by tariffs on foreign imports - indeed he flatly denies there were such tariffs as Marx describes above- or that's my reading of it. Can anyone resolve this?

Later he attributes the decline to the fact that once coal became part of the new industries, Ireland was at a disadvantage for having no native supplies and could thus be undersold- an argument which doesn't seem to make any sense since the expense of imported coal was not that greater and coal only factored in a small way into the capital expense in the manufacture and also because Ireland had it's own advantage of cheaper labour. Lastly, it also ignores Ulster! He says it largely didn't matter therefore that control of the tariffs was taken away from the Irish bourgeoisie;

"A native Parliament might have hindered the subsequent decay, as an alien Parliament may have hastened it"

(Ibid)

I have more points on this subject but maybe some other comrades have something to add first.

[Cumannach]

I think I'll just quote the rest of what Connolly says about the matter in chapter 6;

Although he is at pains not to give any credit to Grattan's parliament, presumably because he doesn't wish to align himself with the successors of the Irish parliamentarians of the 18th century, the bourgeois Home Rulers, in the end he concludes;

"That the Act of Union was made possible because Irish manufacture was weak, and, consequently, Ireland had not an energetic capitalist class with sufficient public spirit and influence to prevent the Union."

(Labour in Irish History)

"An Ireland controlled by popular suffrage would undoubtedly have sought to save Irish industry, while it was yet time, by a stringent system of protection which would have imposed upon imported goods a tax heavy enough to neutralise the advantages accruing to the foreigner from his coal supply, and such a system might have averted that decline of Irish industry..."

(Ibid)

So in the end he does admit in a roundabout way that Ireland did not industrialise simply because England would not allow it to, insomuch as Ireland would be her competitor.

Perhaps I'm mistaken in this comrades, but I'm guessing that Connolly's antipathy towards the traditional nationalist view of the Union and it's effect on Irish Industry is because it is, or was, the standard narrative of the bourgeois Home Rule movement, which Connolly was not interested to align himself with. Does anyone have on opinion on this?

[PRC-UTE]

I think I'll just quote the rest of what Connolly says about the matter in chapter 6;

Although he is at pains not to give any credit to Grattan's parliament, presumably because he doesn't wish to align himself with the successors of the Irish parliamentarians of the 18th century, the bourgeois Home Rulers, in the end he concludes;

"That the Act of Union was made possible because Irish manufacture was weak, and, consequently, Ireland had not an energetic capitalist class with sufficient public spirit and influence to prevent the Union."

(Labour in Irish History)

"An Ireland controlled by popular suffrage would undoubtedly have sought to save Irish industry, while it was yet time, by a stringent system of protection which would have imposed upon imported goods a tax heavy enough to neutralise the advantages accruing to the foreigner from his coal supply, and such a system might have averted that decline of Irish industry..."

(Ibid)

So in the end he does admit in a roundabout way that Ireland did not industrialise simply because England would not allow it to, insomuch as Ireland would be her competitor.

Perhaps I'm mistaken in this comrades, but I'm guessing that Connolly's antipathy towards the traditional nationalist view of the Union and it's effect on Irish Industry is because it is, or was, the standard narrative of the bourgeois Home Rule movement, which Connolly was not interested to align himself with. Does anyone have on opinion on this?

well,he's right to pass on Grattan and mention the lack of popular suffrage as a weakness. Grattan's parliament was elite Prods only.

[Cumannach]

Well if no one has anything to say about the industrialization question, then let me ask this;

What are the dominant marxist explanations of the Partition of Ireland?

The simplest explanation I can think of goes like this;

Why did the British withdraw from the 26 counties but not the 6 North Eastern ones?