16. RECORD OF MARX'S SPEECHES ON THE POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT WITH RESPECT TO THE IRISH PRISONERS
FROM IHK MINUTES OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL MEETINGS
OF NOVEMBER 2.'i AND 30, 18(">9
[I]
Cit. Marx. Cit. Mottershead has given a history of Gladstone. I could give another, but that has nothing to do with the question before us. The petitions which were adopted at the meetings were quite civil, but he found fault with the speeches by which they were supported. Castlereagh was as good a man as Gladstone and I found today in the Political Register**[2] that he used the same words against the Irish as Gladstone, and Cobbett made the same reply as I have done.
When the electoral tour commenced all the Irish candidates spouted about amnesty, but Gladstone did nothing till the Irish municipalities moved.
I have not spoken of the people killed abroad, because you cannot compare the Hungarian war with the Fenian insurrection. We might compare it with 1798'[1]*"' and then the comparison would not be favourable to the English.
I repeat that political prisoners are not treated anywhere so bad as in England.
Cit. Mottershead is not going to tell us his opinion of the Irish; if he wants to know what other people think of the English let him read Ledru-Rollin'[1] and other Continental writers. I have always defended the English and do so still.
These resolutions'[5] are not to be passed to release the prisoners, the Irish themselves have abandoned that.
It is a resolution of sympathy with the Irish and a review of the conduct of the government, it may bring the English and the Irish together. Gladstone has to contend with the opposition of The Times, the Saturday Review, etc., if we speak out boldly; on the other side, we may support him against an opposition to which he might otherwise have to succumb. He was in office during the Civil War and was responsible for what the government did and if the North was low when he made his declaration, so much the worse for his patriotism.
Cit. Odger is right; if we wanted the prisoners released, this would not be the way to do it, but it is more important to make a concession to the Irish people than to Gladstone....[484]
Cit. Marx had no objection to leave out the word "deliberately", as a prime minister must necessarily be considered to do everything deliberately.48D
[II]
Cit. Marx said if Odger's suggestions were followed the Council would put themselves on an English party standpoint.[486] They could not do that. The Council must show the Irish that they understood the question and the Continent that they showed no favour to the British Government. The Council must treat the Irish like the English would treat the Polish.
Endnotes
[2] Marx means an extensive amnesty granted by President Lincoln in A 863 and President Johnson in 1865 to persons who had fought in the US Civil War on the side of the South.
[5] This refers to the Aliens Law adopted in Belgium on September 22, 1835 and prolonged every three years. Despite the widespread protest campaign in the press and at meetings, it was renewed at the end of June 1865. In May 1868, the Belgian Government, for fear of fresh mass action, prolonged it without discussion in the Chamber of Deputies.
[484] In the Minutes of this meeting published in Reynolds's Newspaper, November 28, 1869, the concluding sentence of Marx's speech is given as follows: "The question was which was most important — to conciliate the Irish or make this resolution acceptable to Mr. Gladstone."
[486] 48fi In contrast to Marx, who sought to expose the colonialist policy of the English Government, Odger demanded that the expressions used by Marx in the draft resolution on Gladstone's policy should be toned down. Otherwise, as Odger explained, the Council would fail to secure the release of the prisoners. He reminded the Council members that, in his replies to the petitions, Gladstone had expressed dissatisfaction with the sharp tone of some of them. Odger justified and defended Gladstone's policy. This was an attempt by reformist trade union leaders i/220* to reduce the resolution, a document exposing English policy and expressing solidarity with the fighters for Ireland's independence, to a humble appeal to the ruling classes for clemency.
[1] In the autumn of 1867 the General Council of the International Working Men's Association launched a widespread campaign among the English workers in support of the Irish national liberation movement led by the Fenians. The memorial written by Marx was an integral part of this campaign. The Fenians were Irish revolutionaries who named themselves after the "Féne"— a name of the ancient population of Ireland. Their first organisations appeared in the 1850s in the USA among the Irish immigrants and later in Ireland itself. The secret Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, as the organisation was known in the early 1860s, aimed at establishing an independent Irish republic by means of an armed uprising. The Fenians, who expressed the interests of the Irish peasantry, came chiefly from the urban petty bourgeoisie and intelligentsia and believed in conspiracy tactics. The British Government attempted to suppress the Fenian movement by severe police reprisals. On September 18, 1867, the Fenians made an armed attack on a prison van in an attempt to liberate Kelly and Deasy, two of their leaders. The latter managed to escape but a policeman was killed during the clash. Five Irishmen (Maguire, Condon, Larkin, Allen and O'Brien) were charged with murder and brought to trial. Although there was no direct evidence, they were sentenced to death. Maguire was subsequently pardoned, and Condon, as an American citizen, had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. The others were executed. The Fenian trial in Manchester aroused a storm of protest in Ireland and England. On the insistence of Marx, the General Council of the International began, on November 19, a discussion on the Irish question during which the leaders of the international proletarian organisation expressed their solidarity with the struggle of the Irish people for independence and condemned the position of the reformist trade union leaders who, in the wake of the English bourgeois radicals, denied the right of the Fenians to resort to revolutionary methods in the struggle. The discussion was scheduled to continue on November 26 (see this volume, pp. 189-93), but when the news of the conviction was received, the General Council convened a special meeting on November 20 and addressed a memorial to the Home Secretary asking for the commutation of the death sentence. The British Government ignored the memorial. Because of opposition from the trade union leaders, the English labour press did not publish the memorial in its original wording. A report on the special meeting of the General Council, published in The Bee-Hive, No. 319, November 23, 1867, only summarised it, and named the General Council members who had signed it. The French translation was published by Le Courrier français, No. 163, November 24. In English the memorial was first published in full in The General Council of the First International. 1866-1868, Moscow, 1964. This document is also preserved in the form of the manuscript copy made by Mrs. Marx which fully coincides with the text entered into the Minute Book. Written as an article, this copy was apparently to be sent to the press. In this volume the memorial is reproduced from this copy.