Ulster H. Montgomery Hyde. MP
Arms for Oblivion D. M. Mackinlay, Samuel Landman
The Derided Kenneth Robinson, MP. Dr. Basil Lee Spreading Capitalism Sir Toby Low, MP Paul Slickey Rowan Ayers, Bennitt Gardiner And Now Nyasaland Dr. Monica Fisher Toynbee's Greece John White Pullman Service Vivian Ellis The Road to Mumbles Pier Leslie Hunter Telling the World Norman Tiptaft Taper Mrs. R. M. Chambers
ULSTER
SIR,—Your correspondent Mr. Watt, who describes himself as Secretary of the Ulster Labour Group in London, seeks to attribute to me a large share of the blame for the continuance of religious bigotry in Northern Ireland, because, according to him, while I deplore this bigotry in private, at election times 'all qualms and susceptibilities are forgotten in the rush for votes.' In this he does me an injustice and his organisation a disservice.
He makes the general charge that speakers on my election platform 'played up the very opinions and prejudices' which I now deplore. I challenge him to quote a single sentence from any speech of mine or any speech delivered in support of my candidature which falls into this category.
During my three electiod campaigns in gelfast I always took the greatest possible care to see that no such charge could be brought, and my platform party was invariably chosen with that object in view. I imagine Mr. Watt is aware that elections in Ireland, whether in the North or the South, are much more lively affairs than the polite pillow-fights we arc accustomed to in Great Britain. I cannot absolutely guarantee that in the heat of the moment something may not have been said that was calculated to wound the feelings of subscribers to the minority faith. But by and large I believe that I did succeed in keeping religion out of my campaigns. But I was no more responsible for the song-singing females who followed me around than Mr. Watt is for the Communists who support Labour candidates at their meetings.
I do not think that I ever waved a horseshoe, as Mr. Watt suggests in his letter, although I certainly wore one round my neck for luck. But I do admit to waving that characteristically Irish piece of wood called a shillelagh. Admittedly too it was decorated with red, white and blue ribbons. However, this was designed not to excite religious animosities but simply to emphasise the advantages of preserving the British connection, which is the basis of Unionist doctrine. In my submission this is just as legitimate as waving the red flag, which I have seen done at Socialist elec- tion meetings.
Mr. Watt refers to the fact that I have lost the Unionist nomination for a safe seat. 1 lost it by a relatively narrow majority (171 votes to 152) at a meeting deliberately packed by my opponents dur- ing my absence on an official parliamentary tour. The reason for my carefully engineered defeat was that my views on such questions as capital punish- ment, the Wolfenden proposals and the return of the Lane pictures to Dublin had made me unpopular with the party caucus.
I am not in the least ashamed of the line I took in any of these questions, least of all the last. If more Unionists and Nationalists could co-operate on such issues as the Lane pictures, as I have done, there would be much less sectarian bigotry in Northern Ireland, in spite of the cheap gibes of Mr. Watt and people like-him.—Yours faithfully,
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