[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have read with
interest your article on the above subject. May I be allowed to disagree with your last para- graph? You say that there is "almost an exact analogy" between the position of Egypt and the Sudan, and that of the Free State and Northern Ireland. There is no doubt a very slight analogy between the two positions when they are very closely compared, but to state that there is
" almost an exact analogy is, to say the least of it, grotesque.
The Free State Government, unlike the Egyptian Govern- ment, are not insisting that there shall be no boundary, or that the Northern Government should be subordinate to their authority. They are merely insisting on the carrying out of Clause XII. of the Irish Treaty, which provides that the Boundary Commission (when it is set up) "shall ascertain the wishes of the inhabitants. . . ." Nothing, to my mind could be more simple or more explicit, and it really looks as if those who, like yourself, are defending the Ulster ease, are piling up a camouflage of side issues in the hope that the main issue will be sufficiently hidden to be altogether overlooked. The Free State Government do not, as you suggest, wish " Ulster " to be coerced by the British Government. They merely want the Treaty carried out. And can you argue that they are wrong ? Writing as a Protestant who has lived in the North of Ireland for the past thirty years, I believe that most people here are sick of the Boundary Problem. The sooner Sir James Craig appoints a Commission, the better. If he still refuses to do so, the British Government have only one honourable course open to them, that is to appoint a representative ffr him after having passed the necessary
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