LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters from Constantine FitzGib- bon, Tony Palmer, J. A. G. Grif- fith, Rear-Admiral Sir Anthony Buzzard, Ganesh Lall and others.
Going into Europe
Sir: In arguments against Britain's entry into the EEC, there is one parallel in the history of the British Isles which I have drawn elsewhere, but which seems suf- ficiently important to bear repeti- tion.
In 1800 my forebear, John Fitz- Gibbon, Earl of Clare, then virtual dictator of Ireland, bribed and bullied the Irish Houses of Par- liament into surrendering Irish sov- ereignty by passing the Act of Union with Britain. His motives, I am sure, were entirely honourable and patriotic. They also corres- ponded in an almost uncanny fashion with the motives that orginally inspired the creators of 'Europe'. Where they feared inter- national communism, he feared international jacobinism. Where they saw, and the English mar- keteers still see, greater material prosperity within a larger frame- work, so did he with the Scots precedent in mind. In social, and perhaps even in artistic, fields he saw a further advantage in Ireland's entry into the United Kingdom. And for a dozen or so years the Union was, from all these points of view, a success. Britain's signa- ture of the Treaty of Rome might well, similarly, produce short-term benefits.
But, like the Act of Union, it
contains no escape clause. We can- not foresee the future, but what if it, too, results in a massive emi- gration of talent and treasure? If the Eurocrats turn out, a genera- tion hence, not to be well-disposed to the new, comparatively weak, member of their Union? If they evolve a political, social or econo- mic ideology that the English hate and would jettison? Would the miserable history of Ireland in the century before the Treaty have to be repeated, in order to throw off the yoke of foreign domination? Indeed, with modern technical devices for oppression, could it?
I myself am emotionally a Euro- pean in every sense. However the implicit and explicit surrender, sooner or later, of sovereignty by Britain, or by my own country, Ireland, would seem to me quite incredibly dangerous a step to take for the sake of a little immediate commercial profit—which is in itself doubtful. If you stay out. so presumably do we. If you go in, it seems we must too. We know a very great deal about how Acts of Union affect minority powers. Please stay out.
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