Fortiter in re, suaviter in modo
While Miss Bernadette Devlin is in America devoting herself to the noble task of strengthening the British balance of payments by extracting a million valu- able dollars for repatriation to the United Kingdom, back in Ulster the serious business of defusing the incipient civil war continues.
The period since last week's Downing Street meeting between the governments of Britain and Northern Ireland has seen more than a mere breathing space, im- portant though that is. The much-needed reorganisation of Ulster's police force— hitherto no docile creature of the Unionist oovernment at Stormont, but a semi- autonomous power in the land—is well under way, with the 'B' specials in par- ticular being gently defanged. An impar- tial inquiry into who did what to whom— and when—during the recent riots is about to begin. And an outstandingly able British civil servant now sits in the Northern Ireland Prime Minister's office. Much of this is a bitter pill for the Ulster Unionist party and its Protestant supporters to swallow. As Mr Phelim O'Neill, now a member of Major Chichester-Clark's cabinet, wrote in the SPECTATOR earlier this year: 'It might be thought that fifty years of absolute power might lead from time to time to some feeling of magnanimity towards the Opposition. In fact the reverse is true and arrogance has triumphed . . . one conse-
quence of having a government to whom it has never occurred that a time might ome when they might have to sit on the ther side of the house in opposition [is hat] this removes, in a parliamentary ense, all inhibitions against setting pre- dents in office which could be used
• gainst you when in opposition.' It is this ast of mind, the inevitable product of alf a century of one party rule, that the ormont establishment and its supporters re now having to unlearn. It is not easy. Indeed, the threat of the present uneasy ace in Ulster being upset by a violent rotestant backlash is a very real one. t is far from clear how long Major hichester-Clark will be able to continue 0 play what this journal last week escribed as the Husak role. It is far from lear whether his Unionist colleagues, any of whom are by no means happy t the extent of his abdication to West- mster power already, will continue to uPport him—or, if they do, whether they
will be able to carry the great majority of the Protestant community with them.
So far, there is cause for hope. The British troops may be welcomed by the Catholics of Belfast as a protection against the partisan 'peacekeeping' of the
'B' specials; they also symbolise for the ordinary Protestant Ulsterman a reassur- ing defence against the threat of the IRA. Thus the most obtrusive sign of the
British presence in Ulster remains broadly acceptable to both sides. Again, while Mr Craig or Mr Faulkner or any other ambitious Ulster Unionist politician can readily envisage the popular following he might achieve by breaking away from the Chichester-Clark/Husak line and jump- ing onto the Paisleyite bandwagon, the in- centive to do so is somewhat qualified by the knowledge that at the end of the day. instead of finding himself leading a new government at Stormont, there may be no Stormont left for him to lead. And, above all perhaps, there is the healthy prophylactic of fear: the fear of the ordin- ary people of a repetition of the wave of violence, destruction and bloodshed they have so recently seen; the fear of norm- ally hawkish political leaders on both sides of unleashing forces over which they will have no control.
But these remain frighteningly fragile safeguards in a potentially explosive situa- tion. There is a small minority of extrem- ists on both sides who are well armed, reckless and without scruple. There is no shortage of communal distrust for these people to exploit. And the calibre of the men of Stormont (again, this applies to both sides) is not, in general, impres- sive: they are far more likely to blunder into disaster than to bring it about by design. Yet a Westminster takeover, al- though it could become inevitable (or. rather, the only viable alternative to com- plete abdication, which is out of the ques- tion) and although it might in more tran- quil times probably even be desirable, in present circumstances it would certainly lead to an armed Paisleyite revolt and quite possibly to a full-scale civil war with British troops in the firing line. Stormont may be dependent on Westminster to maintain law and order; but Westminster depends on Stormont to make that possible without bloodshed.
That is why it is so important now that the guiding principle of Britain's Ulster policy should be forther in re, sturdier in m'do. Major Chichester-Clark must be spared every avoidable humilia-
tion and every possible embarrassment as he implements the substance of the Downing Street agreement. So far this course has been followed: Mr Callaghan, for one, is well aware of the fate that has attended those Minister who, over the past hundred years. have plunged (or been plunged) headlong into the Irish question.
General Freeland's decision to 'stock- pile' the 'B' specials' arms instead of disarming them, and to disperse the men rather than disband them, represents the sort of face-saving, velvet glove approach that is essential. In the same way Mr Callaghan would be well advised to allow Mr Oliver Wright discreetly to perform his tasks in Major Chichester- Clark's office. avoiding at all costs the pointless provocation of actually station- ing a British Minister in Ulster.
So far, in fact, the only governmental gaffe has been Mr Wilson's ill-advised im- plication. on the night of the Downing Street agreement, that the 'B' specials were to be disarmed. But this slip could prove a harbinger. Mr Wilson is above all else a party politician. So far the one good thing about the flare-up in Ulster is that it occurred at time when parlia- ment was in recess and party politics out of season. But this is now coming to an end : the party conference season is only a month away. From now on the tempt- ation to play party politics with Northern Ireland (to which so far only the Liberals, who fortunately don't matter, have suc- cumbed) will increase.
For Mr Wilson. there will be the tempt- ation to delight the alienated Labour left and woo the Catholic Irish vote in Eng- land with the type of self-righteous speech he has hitherto reserved for the Rhodesian issue after the failure of an attempted sell- out. For Mr Heath, there will be mounting pressure to attack the government just because it is the Government and in trouble, and to support the Conservatives' Ulster Unionist colleagues in any battle they may choose to wage. Yet if the his- tory of Anglo-Irish relations have shown anything. it is the disaster of allowing them to become the stuff of British party politics. This must not be allowed to occur again. It is the responsibility of the Government and Opposition alike to do everything they can to prevent it.
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