[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.
Would he yield it now for nationalization? I put the question up to William
O'Brien, the lame, never-smiling tailor who is secretary of the Irish Labor
party. He said that the farm hand should be taken into consideration.
The farm hand would profit by nationalization. At present he is condemned
to slavery. At a hiring fair--called a "slave market" by the labor
unions--he stands between the mooing cows and snorting pigs and offers his
services for sale for as little as $100 a year. He may wish to get more
money. But his employer is also very often his landlord. What happens? In
the spring of 1919, 35,000 farm hands went on strike. Lord Bellew of
Ballyragget and Lord Powerscourt of Enniskerry used the eviction threat to
get the men back to work, and in Rhode, evictions actually took place.
The small farmer on bad land would profit by re-distribution. Many such
live in the west and northwest of Ireland. Take a farmer of Donegal. There
there's stony, boggy land. Fires must be built about the stones so that the
soil will lose its grip upon them and they may be hauled away to help make
fences. Immovable boulders are frequent, so frequent that the soil cannot
be ploughed but must be spaded by hand.
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