THE IRISH MESS
The Government now must act
There is no sign of an end to the troubles (as we may as well get used to calling them again) in Ireland. For four years a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has been tormented by violence. Troops of the British army endeavour to keep an unruly peace. Daily and nightly these troops are fired on, and open fire themselves. It is commonplace for children and youths and women to hurl stones and abuse at soldiers. Rioting of one sort or another is constant. There are great areas in Belfast, and smaller areas in Londonderry, in which no Queen's writ effectively runs, however often troops make sallies through such hostile territory. From time to time television viewers in England see British troops cowering behind plastic shields while identifiable children and youths fling stones at them. We see commandeered vehicles fetching new stones — reinforcements of ammunition — for the youngsters. We see vehicles seized and burned. We see marchers shouting slogans and singing songs, and we see their opponents jeering and provoking. Sometimes we hear words supposedly comforting being delivered from the local politicians of the Northern Ireland Parliament at Stormont. We seldom, of late, have heard words from our national politicians at Westminster. It may be that the Prime Minister is in constant touch with developments in Northern Ireland. It may be that the Home Secretary, whose technical responsibility the province is, maintains a constant search for a solution to the seemingly intractable problem, It may be that the Foreign Office, which in practice seeks to guide the politicians at Stormont on lines amenable to London and at the same time to advise the Army in Ulster and officialdom in Whitehall about how to play the Irish game, has some scheme in mind to be produced, like a rabbit out of a hat, at some opportune moment. But it seems safer to reckon that nobody has any idea what to do about the Irish mess, and that the authorities merely go on from day to day hoping that it does not get worse and that the army will get used to it and that the British public will forget about it.
One thing is quite clear : Northern Ireland is not being properly governed at present. A properly governed community does not require the constant use of troops, of CS gas, of bullets. A properly governed community does not tolerate the existence within it of a guerrilla force able to operate with comparative impunity. A properly governed community is not forever rioting and encouraging its children to take sides in violent sectarian strife. Moreover, since the present troubles are themselves the consequence of past governance, since, that is the Stormont regime had not succeeded during the past fifty years of its existence in eliminating the sectarian (or racial, or nationalist) divisions or in makigg them tolerable enough for violence to be eschewed, the conclusion must be that Northern Ireland has not been properly governed since its formation. The experiment of handing over a considerable degree of internal self-government to the Six Counties, and equipping that area with its own representative parliamentary institutions and with powers far exceeding those of domestic country councils, is now quite clearly seen to have failed.
And another thing is clear : and this is that the present British government shows no signs of doing much about it. It is astonishing that we should be sending high powered emissaries, both official and unofficial, and of one kind or another, to Rhodesia in order to arrive (or not) at some kind of settlement with Mr Smith's government in that distant place over which the British government has never exercised any direct authority whatsoever while, if appearances are anything to go by (and in this case they are), doing nothing much to arrive at any kind of settlement in that integral part of this realm, the Six Counties of Northern Ireland. There is something wrong with our priorities.
The Spectator has suggested more than once that a Round Table conference be called. An article in these pages argues for a standing conference, somewhat on the lines of the SALT; and if such a standing conference could be set up following a Round Table conference then so much the better. It is abundantly clear that a diplomatic initiative is required. It is also abundantly clear that such an initiative should come from the British government. It may be — and many will argue that recent events have established this beyond reasonable doubt — that the immediate situation in Northern Ireland is such that summary powers of internment and of preventive detention should be exercised forthwith in order to clear the streets of the ringleaders of violence. But this will yield no long-term solution: the heavy hand of England has many times been applied to Ireland, and there is no reason to think it will work this time when it has failed invariably in the past. The present situation, with British troops acting as an army of occupation within the home territory of the United Kingdom, offers no longterm solution either. The continuing lack of good governance in Northern Ireland as proved daily by blood, is the responsibility of the British government. It is time our government acted responsibly towards Ireland and, as a first step convened a conference of all interested parties to meet and to begin the necessary explorations. Such explorations will be long, tortuous and arduous : but there is no alternative to them but violence being answered with force which itself breeds further violence. The present situation in Northern Ireland has become intolerable, and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland must now act swiftly and decisively to restore peace and order within the confines of its direct authority and responsibility, however si Ich peace and order is to be found.
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