The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-12-14

But what has Larkn and the Dublin
strike to do with all this? Pretty much
what the Maine had to do with the Span
ish-American war. What had the passing
cart to do with the landslide? Very little.
Any other cart, bearing any other name,
would have started it. A little industrial
dispute arose in Dublin. Some men struck.
Others were locked out. Promptly un-
related workers everywhere in Dublin,
men and women, too, refused to touch
tainted" goods. This was ''syndicalism,'
they said, and they would fight it, Work
ers elsewhere, looking on, saw their fell
lows in trouble-didnt know the facts
didn't want to know anything but that
their fellows were in trouble; and ceased
work or sent material aid. There was
nothing particularly new in it, except the
instant answer Winch men and women
made that an injury done to their own
kind was blow struck at them. Logic
and political economy were derided with
blazing insults. Were they draught beasts,
never to be credited with human feel
ings except when called, in bitter re-
proach, enemies of the welfare of the
state? Then damn the state. What was
new was the immediate recognition of
widespread kinship. and the spontaneous
assumption that kinship was all that mat
tered.
Still orthodox politicians and the party
press saw nothing but some unusual heat
In a usual industrial dispute which would
end, they thought, like all others, when
one side saw the struggle was unprofit-
able. Profit again! There are people
who will never understand that man will
sometimes, in illogical indignation, strike
down the hand offering him safety and
the price of peace. What shall a man
profit" was once asked, and answered.
That is, after all. not transcendental phi
losophy, but good sound sense, under
standable by any dirty fellow with din
ner pail. 1t is only men like Murphy,
the millionaire, leader of the Dublin enr-
ployers, who makes the mistake of sup
posing humanity can be always bribed or
starved into submission. Such men are
the foolish and unconscious precipitators
of revolutions. They have been so long
in finance that they reckon men as dol
lars.
1t was in this sleepy, material way that
England watched the beginning of the
Dublin affair. The London press did not
even think 1t was worth while sending it's
Representatives at first, except to watch
for baton charges. But the little rift
started by Larlxin at Dublin has devel-
opened into a class cleavage which has
spread and deepened through Britain.
Things will never be the same again. 1t
will destroy the liberal government; it
may do what Sir Edward Carson never
could have done, prevent an Irish Par
lament for many years; for the old po-
litical landmarks in Ireland have gone for
ever through this Dublin strike, and the
party cries forgotten Through nation
alists, Catholics. Orangemen, unionists
and home rulers, change is passing
which is rapidly levelling and oblterating
the ancient divisions. A year ago one
could have named confidently the politics
and creeds of all those one knew In
Ireland. But many of them have since
heard a new avatar, have left church and
party, and have gone to the standard of
a new host, its banner ragged shirt, un-
der which poets, dockers, clerks, factory
women, professors and men of science,
journalists, agricultural laborers and the
sons of old country families all passion
ate, all speaking as those speak who have
found salvation, declare they will form
a new Ireland, the cooperative common
wealth, leach for ALL and all for each"
Well, that is better than ''the devil take
the hindmost,' which is what modern So
cial philosophy amounts to in practice
Larkin, for his part, was no more than
the unconscious agent in all this. / don't
think he quite knew what he was doing.
He is a big, vital man. loving and kind.
and not at all learned, but as Jealous for
the welfare of his unfortunate fellows as
any Salvation Army captain. They see