The case for law and order
Law and order never seemed to make much headway as an election issue last month. This is not to say that public feel- ing on the issue played an insignificant part in the outcome of the election: it was probably one important element in the nation's decision. But not much of a de- bate developed. The mere phrase law and order' was turned into a fashionable joke. The politicians who tried to articulate public concern ran the risk of being de- picted as repressive reactionaries. The late government's weakness over the South African cricket tour appeared to have been accepted by many as a tolerable con- cession towards securing a quiet life. There was not much electoral mileage to be had from the matter: such was the general view.
If that view (like many others about the election) was in fact mistaken, then so much the better now. For whereas the new government has, eschewed precipitate ac- tion on most fronts, the country has been llarshly jolted by events into facing the gravest threat to law and order which the United Kingdom has suffered for genera- tions. The situation in Northern Ireland is one of almost unrelieved gloom, and it is deteriorating. Large parts of the city of Belfast have in recent days been reduced to a battlefield, with civil order in collapse and the streets lit_up by blazing buildings and echoing to the sound of gunfire. If this is not yet full civil war. the distance from it is not great. This weekend. with its traditional programme of passionate Protestant demonstration, will clearly brine a critical moment.
In this ugly situation the Stormont gov- ernment's reforming programme seems to offer puny remedies. It is creditable as far as it goes. Mr Maudline has made it plain that the Westminster government will give full support. but events for the moment seem to have moved far beyond it. The immediate problem is whether or not Northern Ireland can remain a community at all in the normal sense of the word, whether or not it will dissolve into a blood- stained (and impoverished) lawlessness. All that is keeping Northern Ireland from disaster now is a relatively small force of British troops with as dist-istefal a hob of pe,,,Iceeping as could well be imagined.
There seems little doubt that many more troops will have to be sent in if some sort of peace is to be ensured. This is not a military commitment for which the pub- lic of this country is properly prepared, for politicians of all parties have under- standably sought to avoid extreme-sound- ing statements. Neither is it a military commitment for which the British Army is well prepared. for the concentration of a substantially increased portion of its man- power in Northern Ireland could make havoc of treaty commitments to NATO and elsewhere. But it is a call which the new government at Westmifister looks like having to face. The Army's swoops upon illegal arms in Belfast have uncovered a shocking arsenal, but no one pretends that they have yet dealt with this threat. The reduction in the fire-power of extremists on both sides is clearly of the first impor- tance. but it is doubtful whether the pre- sent number of troops can carry it out adequately. And if it is not carried out. and the armed extremists proceed to battle as the present indications suggest they might, then the scale of Army operations could become appalling..
It may be that the violence of recent days has at last brought the realities home to the public in this country. It is a fact that in the past 'he real gravity of this emergency on British soil has been little appreciated. The same can even be said _ of the people of Northern Ireland itself. 'Perhaps we are all at fault in Northern Ireland.' said one Ulster Unionist MP the other day in the House of Commons, 'for allowing this inflated bubble to expand to its present size without having pricked it long ago.' He was referring specifically to Mr Ian Paisley. He might have spoken of the whole monstrous bubble of hatred and violence which disfigures the Province.
The present situation is a monument to long years of inertia and indifference, years in which the evils which could des- troy the community were permitted to flourish.
There is a hard lesson in this. It is the lesson that freedom and order and the decencies of life arc not things to be taken for granted, even in as favouied and for- tunate a country as England. In any com- munity hatred or violence may grow to threatening proportions if apathy permits them to do so. The people of this country, and their representatives, now have the dreadful example of Northern Ireland to remind them of the price that may ulti- mately be demanded when the rule of law is subordinated to the demands of intol- erant factions.
By coincidence. while Parliament was debating the state of Ulster last Friday. a judge. was passing severe sentences upon six students who had taken part in the violent demonstrations against the Greek regime at a Cambridge hotel earlier this year. There has been much debate upon the question of whether these prison sen- tences were too severe or not. Clearly, to send undergraduates to prison for terms of between nine and eighteen months for acts which. however deplorable. had the colouring of a protest against tyranny is a very grave step. And vet, when all regret at the personal tragedies inseparable from such sentendes has been expressed, it has to be said that punishment of real severity must he administered when political pro- test takes on a riotous, destructive and dangerous form. This country cannot afford to he indulgent towards acts which tend to poison society with the habits of intimidation and violence. Motives are irrelevant. The fact that in these Cam- bridge cases the offenders came from the privileged minority enjoying higher edu- cation constitutes no sort of argument for special leniency. either.
In Northern Ireland the pattern of pro- test has moved on from the 'demo' to a terrible violence. Tt is a development which can never be ruled out in any society which shows itself to be slothful in de- fence of its peaceful freedoms and that unfashionable phrase. 'law and order'.
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