Manichaean Enoch
Sir: Mr Powell's review (September 25) depends on a Burkian arrangement of draperies to conceal prospects even more disagreeable than those he unveils.
We are entitled to take from his wording the belief that reforms, civil rights and improvements should be denied (as a tactic) to the minority in Northern Ireland; that reasonableness, compromise and fair play should be left in abeyance, but that this policy should not be confused with repression. This is a feeble disclaimer. Unfortunately it is unclear, given the alternatives posed of self-assertion or dissolution of the state, whether this policy is temporary: from the Manichaean dualism of the terms of the review, one rather thinks not. The state, improperly so called, on whose behalf Mr Powell is an advocate cannot nor will not avoid the suppression of the minority. Mr Powell has been often enough in Fermanagh to know that. He gives the impression, however, that the symmetry of his logic takes precedence over prudence or probability.
He is, however, unenlightening, if emphatic, when he considers the position of Westminster in all this. Why is it so important that Stormont in its aboriginal, unreformed condition should be supported at all costs against Mr Powell's fellow-subjects? Why should Parliament make itself coresponsible for the debasement of standards of government in Northern Ireland? Why should they help to pay for it? Why should they send an army to defend it? Above all, why should they not exercise the right to scrutinize the proceedings of a subordinate Parliament?
Charles Clarke Palmer's College, Grays, Essex
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