On December 16, Karl Marx delivered a lecture to the London 
German Workers’ Educational Society on the conditions in 
Ireland, in which he showed that all attempts of the English 
government to Anglicise the Irish population in past centuries had 
ended in failure. The English, including aristocrats, who immig- 
rated before the Reformation were transformed into Irishmen 
by their Irish wives, and their descendants fought against England. 
The brutalities of the war against the Irish under Queen 
Elizabeth, the destruction of crops and the displacement of the 
population from one area to another to make room for English 
colonists did’ not change anything in this respect. At that time, 
GENTLEMEN and MERCHANT ADVENTURERS received large plots of land on 
condition that they would be colonised by English people. In 
Cromwell’s time, the descendants of these colonists fought with the 
Irish against the English. Cromwell sold many of them as slaves in 
the West Indies.* Under the Restoration, Ireland received many 
favours. Under William III, a class came to power which only 
wanted to make money, and Irish industry was suppressed in 
order to force the Irish to sell their raw materials to England at 
any price. With the help of the Protestant Penal Laws,°** the new 
aristocrats received freedom of action under Queen Anne. The 
Irish Parliament**? was an instrument of oppression. Catholics 
were not allowed to hold public office, could not be landowners, 
were not allowed to make wills, could not claim an inheritance; to 
be a Catholic bishop was high treason. All these were means for 
robbing the Irish of their land; yet more than half of the English 


 See this volume, pp. 288-89.— Ed. 


318 Appendices 


descendants in Ulster have remained Catholic. The people were 
driven into the arms of the Catholic clergy, who thus became 
powerful. All that the English government succeeded in doing was to 
plant an aristocracy in Ireland. The towns built by the English have 
become Irish. That is why there are so many English names among 
the Fenians. 

During the American War of Independence the reins were 
loosened a little. Further concessions had to be granted during the 
French Revolution. Ireland rose so quickly that her people 
threatened to outstrip the English. The English government drove 
them to rebellion and achieved the Union*” by bribery. The 
Union delivered the death blow to reviving Irish industry. On one 
occasion Meagher said: all Irish branches of industry have been 
destroyed, all we have been left is the making of coffins. It became 
a vital necessity to have land; the big landowners leased their lands 
to speculators; land passed through four or five lease stages before 
it reached the peasant, and this made prices disproportionately 
high. The agrarian population lived on potatoes and water; wheat 
and meat were sent to England; the rent was eaten up in London, 
Paris and Florence. In 1836, £7,000,000 was sent abroad to absent 
landowners. Fertilisers were exported with the produce and rent, 
and the soil was exhausted. Famine often set in here and there, 
and owing to the potato blight there was a general famine in 1846. 
A million people starved to death. The potato blight resulted from 
the exhaustion of the soil, it was a product of English rule. 

Through the repeal of the Corn Laws Ireland lost her 
monopoly position on the English market, the old rent could no 
longer be paid. High prices of meat and the bankruptcy of the 
remaining small landowners further contributed to the eviction of 
the small peasants and the transformation of their land into sheep 
pastures. Over half a million acres of arable land have not been 
tilled since 1860. The yield per acre has dropped: oats by 16 per 
cent, flax by 36 per cent, potatoes by 50 per cent. At present only 
oats are cultivated for the English market, and wheat is imported. 

With the exhaustion of the soil, the population has deteriorated 
physically. There has been an absolute increase in the number of 
lame, blind, deaf and dumb, and insane in the decreasing | 
population. 

Over 1,100,000 people have been replaced by 9,600,000" 
sheep. This is a thing unheard of in Europe. The Russians replace 
evicted Poles with Russians, not with sheep. Only under the 
Mongols in China was there once a discussion whether towns 
should be destroyed to make room for sheep. 


Appendices 319 


The Irish question is therefore not simply a question of 
nationality, but a question of land and existence. Ruin or revolution 
is the watchword; all the Irish are convinced that if anything is to 
happen at all it must happen quickly. The English should demand 
separation and leave it to the Irish themselves to decide the question 
of landownership. Everything else would be useless. If that does not 
happen soon the Irish emigration will lead to a war with America. 
The domination over Ireland at present amounts to collecting rent 
for the English aristocracy.