PM FOR ULSTER?
Mr Callaghan and Mr Wilson are to be congratulated on their decisions to visit Ireland; and it is probably best that their visits should be separate. Mr Maudling, as Home Secretary the Cabinet minister directly responsible, has not been in Ulster since March this year, on which occasion he addressed both Houses at Stormont. Lord Carrington had made several visits : there can be no criticism of the Secretary of State for Defence on this score. Sir Michael Fraser, deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and effective boss of the party machine, went across in the middle of last year, when he talked to the Grand Council of the Ulster Unionists. Shortly before the General Election Sir Alec Douglas-Home also visited Ulster. The successive Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland frequently come, or are summoned, to London; and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland came for talks at Chequers. When, however, the question is asked of Mr Heath,, When did you last visit Ulster?, the answer appears to be in the midsixties, when Mr Heath paid a private visit to Mr Robin Chichester-Clark MP, brother of Mr Faulkner's predecessor at Stormont Castle, Major James Chichester-Clark, now Lord Moyola. Mr Heath has not only not visited Ulster since becoming Prime Minister; he does not seem to have been in the place in an official capacity since becoming Leader of his party; and he has not set foot in Ireland in any capacity whatever since well before the troubles began in 1968. His absense is remarkable.
It can easily be argued that Mr Wilson's style of government involved altogether too many trips away from London; and certainly no one would suggest that it is either necessary or desirable for the Prime Minister of the day to dash around the world chasing bloody crises like a trigger-happy photographer. Each Prime Minister is entitled to his own style; and it is not in itself a criticism of Mr Heath's style to remark that had, say, Sir Winston Churchill been Prime Minister at any time during the present Ulster crisis then nothing whatever would have kept him from visiting Northern Ireland. Mr Heath's inclination is very much to let his Ministers get on with their jobs; and this, together with Mr Maudling's own style, which is to say the least relaxed, nroduces the impression of an Administration whose Irish policy is to close its eyes, shut its ears, and hope that the problem will disappear. No doubt this impression is false, in that the Administration is far more concerned than it looks; but, false or not, this is the impression which the Administration leaves behind, and this is the impression which is received by the public mind.
Being a Prime Minister is not only a matter of picking men and making decisions and refusing to be deflected. The Prime Minister is also the man who occupies the principal position in the country : his duties are not only managerial and executive and decisive, but are also ceremonial, representative and demotic. Whether, by visiting Ulster, the Prime Minister would make himself better informed and more able to grasp the urgency and tragedy of the Irish mess, is doubtful : since Mr Faulkner replaced Major Chichester-Clark Mr Heath has insisted that all the papers dealing with Ireland pass through his hands. But public gestures are, from time to time, required; and the dignity of his office may be diminished if such gestures are not made. The Prime Minister should visit Northern Ireland.
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