Labour of love

Labour’s role in the formation of the first Dáil is often misunderstood – their standing down at the birth of democracy in Ireland was a strategic move fuelled by patriotism

BRENDAN HALLIGAN

THE LABOUR Party’s role in the first Dáil is generally misunderstood and sometimes misrepresented. According to conventional wisdom, the Labour Party withdrew from the 1918 general election under intense pressure from Sinn Féin; as compensation for standing aside it was fobbed off with a Democratic Programme which fell far short of its own beliefs; and, finally, it has suffered ever since for having sidelined itself at the moment our parliamentary democracy was being born. Each of these propositions is untrue.

When viewed in the circumstances of the times, the decision to withdraw comes across as a conscious, if painful, act of patriotism which subordinated the interests of the working class to that of national independence. It was a highly conscious decision by a group of people who knew they were changing their minds on electoral strategy within the space of only six weeks.

At the beginning of September 1918, everything had seemed settled when the annual conference of the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress decided to contest the long-awaited general election. A manifesto had then to be drawn up; Tom Johnson, hero of the anti-conscription campaign, appointed as full-time political organiser; and the Trades Councils asked to nominate candidates. A few weeks later, Johnson had even asked Sinn Féin to withdraw from four Dublin constituencies, lest they split the progressive vote.

But what happened during the month of October is key to understanding the rationale for the decision to reverse party policy on such a fundamental issue. A war that had seemed destined to drag on forever came to an abrupt end due to the complete collapse of the German armies on the Western Front. Germany sued for peace and an armistice was agreed for November 11th.

The impending general election immediately took on an entirely new complexion. Instead of being a conventional contest between competing parties and ideologies, which is how the Labour Party had described the election in its manifesto, it would, instead, be the prelude to a historic peace conference at which the fate of nations would be determined.

Faced with an unprecedented opportunity to press Ireland’s case for independence, it was essential that it be backed up by an unambiguous verdict of the people. In effect, the general election had been transformed into a plebiscite on national independence for Ireland. And everyone knew it.

The Labour leaders reacted with speed and courage. They called a special conference, to be held immediately after the Sinn Féin Árd Fheis – hardly a coincidence. They agreed among themselves that the party had to withdraw from the election and Johnson, by now a paid official of the Congress, was designated to outline the rationale for the new strategy, which was adopted by the National Executive Committee on the morning of the special conference. That afternoon, Johnson presented the statement to the delegates assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin.

He opened by saying the unexpected call from Germany for an armistice had brought the country and the party face to face with a crisis. It had been expected there would be two general elections, the first during the war and the second in peacetime. But events had determined there was to be only one election. Of equal importance was the fact that there would only be one issue before the people – self-determination.

“A call comes from all parts of the country,” he said, “for a demonstration of unity on the question.”

The core message was then presented in language so clear that it could not be misunderstood. The workers, he said, joined earnestly in this desire and would willingly sacrifice for a brief period “their aspirations towards political power if thereby the fortunes of the nation can be enhanced”. In the ensuing debate there was opposition to the proposal on the grounds that the class interest should be pursued, that withdrawal would send the wrong message to Protestant workers in the North and, finally, that lack of parliamentary representation would weaken the hand of Irish Labour at the forthcoming congress of the Socialist International.

But sentiment ran in support of the Executive. The issue had, in reality, already been decided in the Trades Councils, the basic unit of the party. None had put up candidates and most had conveyed the message that Labour should support the demand for national independence by giving Sinn Féin an unimpeded run against Home Rulers and Unionists. In replying to the debate, Johnson insisted the decision taken six weeks earlier had been the right one – at least up to two weeks earlier, when sudden developments had changed history. But now they were reacting to “the logic of circumstances”. The great majority of the delegates agreed and the decision to abstain from the election was adopted by 96 votes to 23, a four-to-one majority that could not be challenged.

What emerges from this extraordinary episode is quite different from that portrayed in most histories of the time. We see trade unionists cast in the role of nation builders. For one supreme moment these ordinary people held the destiny of the country in their hands, and they responded unselfishly and with vision. They did not regret their deed. Subsequent conferences applauded and endorsed it. This is the background to the Democratic Programme and its provenance can only be understood in terms of the ongoing collaboration between the Sinn Féin and Labour leaderships which had flowered during the exhilarating campaign against conscription earlier in the year and had now reached its high point. Equally, the Programme has to be evaluated in terms of what the establishment of Dáil Éireann was intended to achieve and the particular purposes for which the document was framed.

The opening session of the first Dáil was consciously structured as a constituent assembly which founded an independent state and gave it a constitution. The order of business was deliberately sequenced in terms of a Declaration of Independence followed by a constitution, a Message to the Free Nations, asserting independence and a Democratic Programme, expressing the political and social principles of the new State. The four documents formed a composite whole, and to allege that one of them was mere window dressing not only denigrates the nobility of the occasion but diminishes the status of its author.

As he recounted himself, Johnson wept tears of pride as the Programme was solemnly read out. If later commentators dismiss it as a sop then that is belied by Johnson’s spontaneous reaction and its persistent use by the party for solemn purposes. Its significance lay in the commitment to a political morality which reflected Labour’s social philosophy and ennobled the new State at its moment of creation. The declaration that “all right to private property must be subordinated to the public right and welfare” proves that the thrust of Johnson’s draft was preserved, as his tears testified. The commitments on children, the poor, the aged and the sick, as well as to “lasting improvement in the conditions under which the working classes live and labour” remained intact.

As for the belief that Labour has suffered electoral hellfire for having transgressed in 1918, that is not how the party saw it, and neither do the facts support it. Municipal elections were held in January 1920 and because proportional representation (PR) was being used for the first time, the leadership believed the election could be safely contested without splitting the progressive vote. The results were a triumph for the Labour Party. The Irish Times of January 19th, 1920 produced a table summarising the results which showed the Labour Party with 324 seats, compared to 422 for Sinn Féin and 297 for Unionists (almost exclusively from the North East). The Nationalists trailed at 213.

“We are the second largest party in the country,” exulted the Congress president in opening the annual conference later in August.

That this was no fluke, or once-off, was shown in the first general election of the Irish Free State. All of the candidates put forward won a seat in the Dáil, except one, and it was generally accepted in hindsight that the party had underestimated its electoral support. With more candidates it would have won more seats, similar to what happened, decades later, in the 1992 election.

Why is it then that the three discredited propositions survive as the received wisdom on the Labour Party and the first Dáil? The answer lies in a failure to comprehend the political effects of the extraordinary collapse of the central powers in October and how it changed the context for the subsequent general election. The answer equally lies in the mistaken analysis of the weakness of the Labour vote. It was not the poverty of subsequent Labour leadership or the party’s lack of ideology or policies; it was, and is, the legacy of the terrible Civil War. The Labour leaders of 1918 understood well the power of nationalism; their words bear reading and re-reading. It is right to set the record straight at this time of commemoration.

January 21st, 1919 was the day on which history turned. The Labour Party played its part, a part of which it can be proud.

Brendan Halligan was appointed political director of the Labour Party in 1967 and was general secretary from 1968 to 1980. He was successively a member of the Senate, the Dáil and European Parliament from 1973 to 1984.