FROM THE ARCHIVES:Labour leader Jim Larkin attended his first meeting of the Irish Trade Union Congress in 27 years to advocate the affiliation of his Workers' Union of Ireland to the body. He easily dominated the proceedings but, as this report explains, he didn't stay too long because of the tablecloths. –
JOE JOYCE
AFTER AN absence of twenty-seven years, Mr James Larkin TD yesterday returned as a delegate to the Irish Trade Union Congress, which commenced the formal business of its forty-third annual meeting, in the Town Hall, Dundalk.
The meeting had not been long in progress before it knew that Mr Larkin was there, and throughout the morning session his was the dominating personality in the hall.
Dramatically he withdrew at the outset of the afternoon session as a protest against the tables being covered with cloths which, he said, had been made in Japan.
In the morning Mr Larkin had fought for over half an hour to expedite the acceptance of the affiliation of his organisation, the Workers’ Union of Ireland. (He was present at the meeting as a delegate from the Dublin Trades Council.) Time after time Mr Larkin was in conflict with the chair. He expressed vigorous and original views upon every motion that came before the meeting, and if at times the applicability of his remarks was not transparently clear, he always was interesting.
The afternoon session seemed colourless without him, until all the leading lights of the Labour movement joined vigorously in a debate on the merits and demerits of the “managerial system” in local government.
When the meeting was discussing a memorandum on unemployment, which came up in the consideration of the report of the National Executive, Mr Larkin called attention to the cloths.
In this country, he said, they made the best linen in the world, and yet they were expected to sit before the shoddy [cloths] on the tables. It was the sort of stuff that was produced under sweated conditions in countries like Italy and “that other den of infamy”, Germany. It was outrageous to have it there, and unless it was removed he would refuse to sit there in the afternoon.
“This stuff was made in Japan,” declared Mr Larkin. He strode from one end of the hall to the other, and produced the label of origin from a part of the cloth. “I would go in my bare skin before I would wear an imported piece of cloth,” he added.
When the Congress met after lunch Mr Larkin rose. He wanted to make an explanation. He found that it was not the local people who were responsible for the decoration in the hall; that others were responsible and they had made no explanation. He would withdraw from the Congress.
The chairman, Mr J Hurley, TD, said that the whole matter arose over the rush of the holiday week-end. The cloth had been ordered in Dublin, and brought down there. It was not the responsible officials who were to blame, but the rush. Mr Larkin then walked out of the meeting.