A case for hanging
Colin Welch
V ive out of six Ulster Secretaries will vote (or, by the time you read this, will have voted) against the restoration of capital punishment. Not surprising that they should have an opinion nor, knowing who they are, that it should be what it is.
What is a bit surprising is that they should think fit to express it, even at length. Had I served as Ulster Secretary with as little suc- cess as they had (I would partially except the sturdy Mr Mason, who, for all his defects, at least avoided doing anything catastrophically silly, apart from De Lorean), I would deem a period of silence most appropriate to me. If I had found the province a shambles, had presided over a shambles and left it a shambles, as bad or worse, I would wonder whether I had got it all exactly right. I might be in a mood to listen and take advice rather than to pon- tificate on.
What is even more surprising is the weight attached by others to these Secretarial opinions. It is not as if these gentleman presided over a model province in which • law and order was efficiently restored and maintained. That large parts of Ulster live normally in a state of peace and tranquillity at once astonishing and fragile is not to be denied. Not to be denied either, however, is that this is due less to rigorous maintenance of the law than to the pacific and law-abiding nature of the local communities concerned. The widespread daily prevalence throughout much of Ulster of sectarian violence, of strife and killings, of kidnappings, bomb outrages, armed rob- beries and torture would not normally seem a good argument for the abolition of hanging, nor a tribute to the sagacity and resolution of those who have presided over it.
Fanatical abolitionists might perhaps seek to dismiss these horrors as embarrassing local side issues, deplorable to be sure, but in no way outweighing the great general benefit of being rid of the hangman. Others might more reasonably argue, as they do, that hanging would make things worse in Ulster, in particular that it would turn murderers into martyrs and thus advance their filthy cause. Well, I ask them, how do they know?
Mgr Edward Daly, Catholic Archbishop of Londonderry, has said that the hanging of terrorists would exacerbate 'an already explosive and dangerous situation' and would have 'dreadful consequences'. Again, how does he know? Hanging cer- tainly cannot be blamed for the explosions and dangers and dreadful consequences which have already taken place. The IRA has apparently threatened reprisals, in par- ticular the hanging of hostages. To be swayed by such threats would be cowardly; it would also reinforce the conviction of the IRA (and the grim suspicions of its op- ponents and victims) that it is already a great power in the land, with the right to veto whatever displeases it, and that its future must accordingly be judged bright. Incidentally, if hanging would be so advan- tageous to the IRA, why do they oppose it? Or don't they? We owe our knowledge of their threats to leaked government in- telligence, which may well serve abolitionist masters.
Of all the five Secretaries, none was distinguished before he took over for any special knowledge of or concern for Ulster or Irish history and aspirations. They were just posted there, as to Energy or the En- vironment. If they have since learnt much about the province and come to care for it, they have given little sign.
On arrival they took over such parts of the accepted wisdom as seemed to them convenient, including the martyrdom myth. Myth? Not wholly. Certainly the Irish cause has been irrigated with the blood of mar- tyrs. Yet far outnumbering in fact the remembered and venerated martyrs are ter- rorists and murderers executed not only by the former British authorities in Dublin but by their independent successors, notably by Mr Cosgrave and Mr de Valera. The names of these terrorists are mostly forgotten, their crimes remembered, if at all, with disgust or a shrug of the shoulders rather than warm approbation. The Irish attitude to these failed martyrs is in fact not so far from our own. It is as great a mistake to suppose that the Irish are utterly different from us as to suppose that they are exactly the same. We British often deal with them as if we believ- ed both things at once. We often also assume the Irish to lack all understanding of the State's need to use lawful force to de- fend itself. This would be a strange lack in the compatriots of, say, Burke, nor is it confirmed by their own management of their own affairs. They know well how and when to knock heads together. About us, they're not so sure.
Another argument against hanging is ad- vanced by Mr Prior. It is that it would 'adversely affect' co-operation with the security forces and reddce the number of confessions. In particular 'supergrasses' might be less likely to talk if they knew that, as a result of their loquacity, former col- leagues would hang. This argument seems to me double-edged. First, if it has any force against hanging, it must also have force against every other sort of punish- ment — the less punishment, I agree, the less force. A bizarre logic here exposes itself: in order to learn more and more about the IRA we engage to punish it less and less for whatever wrongdoings are thus revealed. In the end, a reductia ad absur- dum, in which perfection of intelligence is combined with perfection of impotence, with all known and nothing to be done about it.
Another snag strikes base spirits like myself, namely that, were I a 'supergrass', I would be more rather than less likely to 'sing' if I were reasonably certain that those whose crimes I exposed would swing for them, that they would never be released to revenge themselves and that, of their males outside, such as had not been already hung would risk the rope should they try anything nasty against me or my family.
We are here near one very seldom rehearsed advantage of hanging, which is that each terrorist hung is one terrorist the less. It is another part of the accepted wisdom that the supply of Irish terrorists is inexhaustible, that Ireland is a teeming womb of terror, the mother of horrors unending. Does the Irishman exist who will assure me that this is no insult, but a fair and just picture? Hang one, we are told, a hundred others will spring forth to replace him. Again I ask, how on earth can we know? When, as now, so much evil can be done at such disproportionately little risk, the supply of terrorists indeed seems inex- haustible. Is it? OK, Pearse was ready to die, as were others. This does not mean that all Irishmen are always ready to die, or that many share Pearse's macabre obsessions. Unless I err, Pearse wasn't even Irish, or not much so.
If you have with mounting indignation or gloating approval followed me thus far, you must have assumed me 100 per cent pro hanging terrorists in Ulster. In fact I'm not. I don't know enough about it to be sure: who does? I recognise difficulties which I haven't referred to. Some of the aboli- tionists' arguments impress me. But these last, though advanced only by a privileged and articulate minority of the great and good, have so dominated the debate that I thought it only right to try, however inade- quately, to redress the balance.
There is a case for hanging in Ulster, though it seems incapable of expressing itself; and whatever Parliament has decid- ed, that case will exist as long as the present unholy mess continues there. There is even a little more to be said. The reintroduction of hanging in Ulster would powerfully suggest, what nothing else could suggest and what is (alas) with good reason often doubted there, that the continual shedding of hum- ble innocent blood there is a matter of deep concern to us, is felt by us to be, as it is, an absolute disgrace and a stain on our national honour. It would suggest, what no assemblies or other frivolous constitutional gimmicks can suggest, that the powers that be actually care. The effect on Ulster morale, which is much lower than most of us here realise, might be prodigious,
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