Threading the Maze
From Mrs H. Quinn
Sir: As a professed Liberal who voted Liberal in the last election I feel it incumbent on me to say that I entirely disagree with Lord Beaumont's article 'Threading the Maze' (November 2) and indeed am amazed that it has emanated from the pen of a Liberal Peer. Firstly, Lord Beaumont makes no criticism of the system by which prisoners are put into the Maze, often on oral evidence and suspicion rather than the sort of evidence that would have to be produced before a Jury. How can we possibly take South Africa to task over their systems of imprisonment on suspicion for ninety days before coming before a court when this system which operates the Maze is practically identical?
While not defending murderers and bombers who are in the Maze 1 have heard it reliably stated that it is not only "thugs" who are imprisoned there but ordinary citizens who are often schoolteachers or students. If everyone was really a known "thug" how could Mr Merlyn Rees propose as he did originally before the recent bombings and murders to let out various prisoners on a kind of parole with sponsors standing surety for them? How much • knowledge of Northern Ireland has Lord Beaumont, because this is needed in evaluating affairs there. 1 speak as one who knew it well before the present emergency arose and lived in it, and still has relatives there.
I would also like to ask why is it the Liberal Party has never thought fit to concern itself with the fact that there is no Race Relations Act in Northern • Ireland which might have prevented much of the discrimination practised , against Catholics in the area of jobs and housing? The Act did not come into force in 1968 because the Stormont Parliament refused to have it. What might it not have prevented in the way of recruitment to the IRA may be a matter of speculation. Certainly it has been said that the introduction of internment was the best recruitment sergeant the IRA ever had, and it has lately been condemned as serving no useful purpose by all political parties including the moderate alliance.
The Liberal Party must surely justify its great past when in the struggle over Home Rule it was prepared to give Ireland self-government. Perhaps it may solve the dreadful impasse into which Ulster affairs are now come.
Hannah Quinn
65 Drayton Gardens, London SW10
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