The Theory of Minorities in Classical Marxism :Mr. J. Hales, was the Council's Secretary of the International Working Men's Association. In the first International and in the Hague Congress, !872, He proposed a resolution about nationality of Irish on which Mr. F. Engels said that the real purpose of the motion, was to bring the Irish sections intosubjection to the British Federal Council, a thing which the Irish people would never consent, and which the council had neither the right nor the power to impose upon them.....The Irish formed a distinct nationality of their own, and the fact that they used the English language could not deprive them of their rights. Citizen, Hales had spoken of the relations of England and Ireland being ofthe most dyllic nature ..... But the case was quite different. There was the fact of seven centuries of Englishconquest and oppression of Ireland, and so long as the oppression existed, it would be an insult to Irish working men to ask them to submit to a British Federal Council.The motion was asling the conquered people to forget their nationality and submit to their conqurers. It was not internationalism, but simply prating submission. If the promoters of the motion were so brimful of the truly international spirit, let them prove it by removing the seat of the British Federal Council to Dublin and submit to a Council of Irishmen. In a case like that of the Irish, true Internalism must necessarily be based upon a distinct national organisation, and they were under te necessity to state in ...their rules that their first and most pressing duty as Irishmen was to establish their own 5 national Independence.Thus we have Engels' concerning opinion about the nationalism of two million Irish men and women like Puerto Ricansof US.
