Unionists Forever—and Ever
A Correspondent in Northern Ireland writes: A visitor to Belfast last week-end might be excused for not realising that a General Election was imminent. The citizens of Belfast themselves were hardly aware of it. Few posters were to be seen near the city centre, and candidates appeared almost to have given up public meetings, so little interest did they arouse. At the only one I saw, a republican tricolour was flying from the platform : it had attracted a few children and half-a-dozen policemen,. The fact is that nobody in Belfast bothers his head about the election.
The only incident Worth mentioning in the campaign has been the withdrawal of Dr. Irene Calvert's candidature. Her manifesto created the same kind of interest as Mrs. Eirene White's did in England a month ago: that is td say, people applauded her courage, but nobody thought it would have the least effect. Nor has it. Dr. Calvert's complaint was that Stormont is only an expensive rubber stamp for registering Westminster's decisions. Everybody in Northern Ireland knows that. There have even been one or two half-hearted moves in the Unionist party to' secure greater degree of home rule (though nobody cared to call it by that name). The projects have been hurriedly sat upon by the Unionist Party HQ, which remains convinced that the present system represents the best guarantee of continued British support.
The result will be known by the time this is in print. But of course it has been known for 'years. The Unionists will win two-thirds of the seats. They always do—and they have been longer in power than any other democratically elected government. Unless the South makes a radical change in its anti-partition line, the same result may be expected indefinitely.
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