Corbyn vs Keir Hardie

[jondwhite]

A comparison between Corbyn and Keir Hardie

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/jeremy-corbyn-no-keir-hardie-8527317

[ALB]

Couldn't read that but there were other articles in the press yesterday  comparing of the two, e.g. here:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3718044/Watch-Corbyn-Labour-party-pioneer-Keir-Hardie-branded-enemy-state-considered-life-prison-ministers-newly-published-archives-reveal.htmlA bit far-fetched as there was not the slightest chance of it being acted on as the Liberal government of the day depended on the support of Labour and Irish Nationalist MPs. And the last time the 1797 Mutiny Act was used was in 1834 to transport the Tolpuddle Martyrs to Australia.

[alanjjohnstone]

Perhaps the Daily Record might compare Hardie with Farage.  Speaking of the Poles at Glengarnock, he said "their habits are very filthy, six or seven males occupying a one-roomed house, and having women to cook for them" Keir Hardie argued: “It would be much better for Scotland if those [Scottish emigrants] were compelled to remain there[in Scotland] and let the foreigners be kept out. Dr. Johnson said God made Scotland for Scotchmen, and I would keep it so.”  According to Hardie, the Lithuanians migrant workers in the mining industry had “filthy habits”, they lived off “garlic and oil”, and they were carriers of “the Black Death”.  He described the typical Irish immigrant coal-miner as having "a big shovel, a strong back and a weak brain" He suggested that the employment of foreigners by British employers should be prohibited, unless they were political exiles or had fled from religious persecution or if they came from countries where the wage rates were the same as in Britain.Instead of directing his wrath at the capitalist class which exploits and takes advantage of the lack of working class unity, Hardie simply parrots the commonly held mis-conception that it is the poor unfortunate immigrant who is responsible for wage cuts.Members of the capitalist class don't stay put. They travel freely round the world, from London to Paris, from grouse moor to ski slope, from Caribbean island to Mediterranean cruise, from the chateau in Switzerland to the ranch in Arizona. And no-one dreams of telling them that they can't. Like many laws enacted by the ruling class, restrictions on the crossing of borders really only hit at members of the working class. The apologists for capitalism who try to foment ill-feeling towards "foreigners" landing here, whether they come to escape persecution, or to obtain slightly higher wages, never attack those many members of the upper class who swan about the world as if there were no such thing as state boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Any comparison between Corbyn and Hardie, other than the conviction that capitalism can be run in the interests of workers, is extremely tenuous, at least judging by what we know so far of Corbyn's views.Time after time Hardie fed workers the lie that they were part of a 'nation' and as such were bound up in the quarrels of their masters. Not 'International Working Class Solidarity' but 'Class Collaboration' was his rallying cry, for Hardie was a patriot and proud of it.

Keir Hardie wrote:

I am not a pro-German", he wrote, "and still less am I a pro-Russian. I am a pro-Briton, loving my country and caring for her people. Any war of aggression against the rights and liberties of my country I would resist to the last drop of blood in my veins. (Pioneer, Merthyr. 22nd August 1914)

  and…

Quote:

I have never said or written anything to dissuade our young men from enlisting; I know too well all there is at stake. But, frankly, were I once more young and anxious to enlist, I would resent more than anything the spectacle of young, strong, flippant upstarts, whether MPs or candidates, who had the audacity to ask me to do for my country what they had not the heart to do themselves. (Pioneer, 28th November 1914)

The Kier Hardie Myth

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Perhaps the Daily Record might compare Hardie with Farage. Speaking of the Poles at Glengarnock, he said "their habits are very filthy, six or seven males occupying a one-roomed house, and having women to cook for them"(…)According to Hardie, the Lithuanians migrant workers in the mining industry had “filthy habits”, they lived off “garlic and oil”, and they were carriers of “the Black Death”.

In what year did Hardie make these remarks and by "Poles" and "Lithuanians" did he mean "Jews" fleeing from areas that were then part of Tsarist Russia?

[Anonymous]

The Lithuanians were mainly Catholics.http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/immig_emig/scotland/strathclyde/article_2.shtml

[SocialistPunk]

Keir Hardie wrote:

I am not a pro-German", he wrote, "and still less am I a pro-Russian. I am a pro-Briton, loving my country and caring for her people. Any war of aggression against the rights and liberties of my country I would resist to the last drop of blood in my veins. (Pioneer, Merthyr. 22nd August 1914)

I'm sure what he really meant was, that he would resist til the last drop of working class blood was spilled.

[ALB]

Thanks, Matt, I see. "Poles" and "Lithuanians" are the same. The date seems to have been 1887 when he was a leader of the Ayshire miners. That's only five years before the founding of the ILP and his own elections as an MP.According to this site, his views were in line with those of the union's members, not that that makes them any more acceptable of course.http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/467.htmlSearching on the internet I see that far right groups have taken up these quotes, arguing that Hardie was right.This site  gets the date wrong, though theoretically possible as Hardie was born in 1856 and started working in the mines at the age of 10:

Quote:

A local newspaper on the 8th of November, 1867 quoted Keir Hardie (miners’ organizer and future Member of Parliament) in a speech to a miners’ meeting: “These men (Lithuanians) I am informed, are growing fat on four shillings a week. Their chief item of diet is said to be garlic fried in lamp oil.” Hardie also alleged that the Poles had brought “Black Death” and “immorality” to Scotland and stated that “decent men are not going to be turned adrift to make room for beastly, filthy foreigners without knowing the reason why.”

.

[Anonymous]

ALB wrote:

http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/467.htmlSearching on the internet I see that far right groups have taken up these quotes, arguing that Hardie was right.

Yes I saw that myself. Ferr scunnerred I was.

[alanjjohnstone]

As you say, when Hardie referred to Poles, he meant Lithuanians who worked in the Scottish coal pits.As our Courier blog pointed out though, locals attitudes did change for the better. 

Quote:

At the beginning of the 20th century in Lanarkshire, there was much vitriol against Lithuanian incomers. They were employed in the iron works and the coal pits, and they too were accused of wage-cutting and scabbing. Nevertheless, the Lanarkshire County Miners’ Union, in the space of some 15 years, went from offering support to miners willing to strike against Lithuanian workers to demanding that Lithuanian miners in Lanarkshire should not be deported. During those 15 years, the Lithuanians had joined the union in large numbers and were active in it. Unionisation was the key to improved relations between the Lithuanian labour force and the LCMU. Once the Lithuanians began to respond positively to local strike demands, the other allegations made against them were simply not an issue. The adoption of a more class-conscious attitude and the strength of their newfound loyalty to the union was in part due to the fact that the union had taken some very positive steps to encourage Lithuanian membership, such as printing the rules in Lithuanian and offering entitlement to claim full benefits.

 I forget the original sources for the blog posts but probably as Matt said when i was trawling the net. Perhaps, those right-wing websites should be reminded of how the Lithuanians were integrated by union solidarity. 

[alanjjohnstone]

"The Lithuanians were mainly Catholics."As were the many Irish who were also brought in to work the mines. Many associate Glasgow with religious bigotry but the deepest Orange Lodge/ Rangers strongholds are in Lanarkshire and West Lothian, not as commonly held – Glasgow, and most likely the bitter legacy of the divide and rule of the employers and mine-owners in that area, a division that sadly exists right up today. 

[Anonymous]

There was a recent programme on Scotlands first oil industry ,the oil being shale oil, which made the point about resentment against the Irish,without dwelling on the continuing, if diminishing, bigotted religious legacy. It was still quite sound about the eventual union activity, but this was too near the end, when crude oil was becoming king. I realise you won't be able to view it  Alan,but someone else might want a look.Scotland's First Oil RushThe story of the shale oil industry and its impact on the community of West Lothian.http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07cb31r/scotlands-first-oil-rush

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Perhaps, those right-wing websites should be reminded of how the Lithuanians were integrated by union solidarity. 

The comments were closed, or I would have did my usual. 

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