Red hands across the sea
Sir: In your issue of 25 April Mr Quintin Hogg in his article on Ulster stated that 'the treaty represents a compromise desired by, literally, no one'. Surely the situation is that the ireaty and the Government of Ireland Act 1920 created conditions which were very favourable to the Protestant majority and the present troubles arise as a result of efforts to change that position. Natives of Lon- donderry such as myself have suflered severely from the establishment of the border but our loss was necessary in order to provide Belfast's gain.
I. R. L. Cuningham 36 Regent Street, Cambridge
Sir: Mr Quintin Hogg's article (25 April) is one of the best that I have seen on Northern Ireland for a long time. But something more than individual exhortations is required if we are ever to see that much-needed trans- formation of the Irish mentality. In my view it is the responsibility of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches to take the lead in eradicating The politico-religious divide.
They could take the lead, if the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Methodist Church and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church were to issue a common pastoral letter, to be read in all churches at the prin- cipal service on a particular Sunday. in which it would be made clear that a Pro- testant is not, by virtue of his religion, re- quired to uphold, any more than the Roman Catholic is required, by virtue of his religion, to be opposed to, the political unity of these islands. Furthermore, a man is no less an Irish patriot if he upholds a political union of the English, Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh under the common title of British than is a Republican who desires political separation. These points granted, any politi- cian can then argue about the pros and cons of separation or a larger union without reference to sectarianism or racialism.
I would, therefore, respectfully suggest that the Archbishop of Canterbury, in con- junction with the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, leaders of the English Free Churches, and the Roman Catholic bishops of England. Scotland and Wales, impress upon the churches in Ulster the desirability of issuing a common pastoral letter along the lines which I have indicated.
W. A. Miller 150 West Circular Road, Belfast 13 Sir: Mr Quintin Hogg in his article 'Red hands across the sea' (25 April) stands to be corrected. His assertion that 'Carson fought for a United Ireland under the Westminster Parliament' is in fact incorrect. What Carson opposed during that unfortunate period of English history, 1912-14, was not home rule for the South of Ireland but the fact that the Protestant minority in the North should have been included as part and parcel of the settlement with Redmond and the Irish Na- tionalists. He did not oppose Home Rule providing the North could have been ex- cluded, though of course his view of which counties constituted the North was con- siderably more than the present six county set up we have at the moment! On the con- trary the people who opposed any form of Home Rule including home rule for the South, were the Tory extremists (which at that time included virtually the whole of the Tory party as well as its leadership) to whom any loss of part of the Empire was anathema
to their imperialist sentiments. It was they who cynically played the Orange card in the hope of preventing any form of home rule. Perhaps, sir, Parnell was right, in retrospect, when during the abortive first Home Rule Bill in 1886 he opposed partition because this would lead to exploitation of the Protestant minority in the South and the Catholic minority in the North, whereas in a United Ireland the Protestants would have been large enough to prevent any such discrimination.
D. G. Leslie Hertford College, Oxford
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