But there were not wanting men on both sides who saw the necessity of union in the face of a common danger for the furtherance of a common purpose, who taught that if Labour should pledge itself to Ireland, Ireland should also pledge itself to Labour. This union when it came about was mainly due to James Connolly and P. H. Pearse. James Connolly had been for several years the acknowledged leader of Irish Socialism. His book on _Labour in Irish History_ written in 1910 is recognized as a standard work: his _Reconquest of Ireland_, his pamphlet _The New Evangel_, and his articles in _The Irish Worker_ were widely read and had great influence among Irish Nationalists who belonged to the Labour movement. His attitude to the two main Irish parties was one of hostility: he was hostile to the Unionists as representing the party of tyranny and privilege, to the Home Rulers as the followers of a policy which was "but a cloak for the designs of the middle-class desirous of making terms with the Imperial Government it pretends to dislike." To ardent and vague talk about "Ireland" and "freedom" he opposed the cool and critical temper of one who was accustomed to look stern facts in the face: "Ireland as distinct from her people," he wrote, "is nothing to me; and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for 'Ireland,' and can yet pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and the suffering, the shame and the degradation brought upon the people of Ireland--aye, brought by Irishmen upon Irish men and women--without burning to end it, is in my opinion a fraud and a liar in his heart, no matter how he loves that combination of chemical elements he is pleased to call 'Ireland'." Connolly believed in Irish Nationality, but he would not have been satisfied with the right to wear the badges of independence; a national flag, a national parliament, a national culture were in themselves nothing; but if they meant the right of the common men and women of Ireland to control their own lives and their own destinies then they meant everything in the world to him. Like Wolfe Tone he believed in "that numerous and respectable class, the men of no property"; to secure their rights in Ireland he was ready for anything. The national mould in which his Socialism came to be cast did not always appeal to his followers and associates: they regretted his increasing devotion to Irish Nationalism and his apparent indifference to pure Socialism; as one said later, "The high creed of Irish Nationalism became his daily rosary, while the higher creed of international humanity that had so long bubbled from his eloquent lips was silent for ever." As a matter of fact he tested alike theoretical Nationalism and theoretical Socialism by the facts; Nationalism, to be worth anything, must secure the rights of the common men and women who make up the bulk of the nation: Socialism, to be worth anything, must secure the rights not of "humanity" but of the human beings