Mr Whitelaw's emetic demulcent
The Government's White Paper on Ulster makes the best of a bad job. If anything is going to work a cure, then the mixture made up by Mr Whitelaw and his aides, principally Lord Windlesham and Mr David Howell, looks most likely to do the trick. What in fact is proposed is that the present direct rule should be replaced by a kind of colonial rule, with the principal powers reserved for the Irish Secretary who will become, in effect, the Governor of Northern Ireland with a seat in the British Cabinet. The outstanding merit of the colonial system is its constitutional flexibility. Ulster may eventually move towards joining the Republic of Ireland in a new United Ireland; it may instead move towards independence; it may seek complete integration within the United Kingdom; or it may decide that none of these outcomes is possible and that it is best to jog along with the rather muddled but workable arrangements described in the White Paper. The Government's proposals, if able to be put into effect, will not hinder and may well assist whatever kind of resolution of Ulster's tragic plight may eventually be brought about by the passage of time, and the changing of minds, myths, generations and circumstances. The set-up envisaged is open-ended, and this is its greatest single virtue. It does not, as did Stormont (which is now gone forever unless an independent Ulster revives it outside the United Kingdom), impose or propose any permanent, inflexible, hidebound establishment.
No one knows whether the new scheme will work; and everyone knows that any scheme might not work. Any system of government can only work by consent. Even totalitarian dictatorships employing the most tyrannous methods of rule can only sustain themselves if the mass of people are prepared to be cowed and if a substantial minority are willing to be thugs of the state. In the kind of society tolerable to the British and Irish, a small minority can wreck any political arrangements, however sensibly and sensitively they may be constructed, by destroying the peace of the realm. The early reactions to the White Paper from Ulster have not been particularly encouraging — but then nothing that comes out of Ulster is particularly encouraging. Mr William Craig has said that the White Paper "is absurd. It is neither fish nor flesh and offers the worst of both worlds"; but it looks as if his followers will contest the elections to the proposed new assembly. It seems likely, too, that the Catholic minority will have and take the opportunity of voting. A scheme which pleased Mr Craig could not work because it would sustain and increase Catholic opposition and thereby also nurture the IRA; likewise, a scheme which pleased the IRA would inevitably provoke violent opposition from the UDA 'loyalists.' Mr Whitelaw has produced a mixture which both these majorities can swallow. The doubt must reamin whether they will be allowed to swallow it by their own violent and extremist minorities, Mr Whitelaw realises better than anyone that his scheme, or any other, can be wrecked, provided that the wreckers act with the Consent and connivance of a substantial part of their own community. Thus far, the wreckers have been able so to act. Neither community has, thus far, been so sickened by violence that it has spewed out its own violent men. Mr Whitelaw's mixture, provided the communities swallow it, and if it is to work, must be in this. sense emetic. It must also be demulcent; and it will be no mean feat of political chemistry if Mr Whitelaw's mixture proves itself to be both emetic and demulcent at the same time in its effects on the two bodies politic which make up Northern Ireland. In hoping that Ulster will swallow his mixture, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has appealed to reason and moderation. Neither reason nor moderation are attributes readily associated with Ulster politics, but there is nothing else to which he can appeal, as he recognises well enough: " One has to try to devise a plan," he said, introducing his proposals, "which is reasonable, a reasonable plan which can be worked, it they have the will, by reasonable people ... No constitution in the world will be successful if the people working under it are determined not to work it. On the other hand, if there is goodwill and people are reasonable, then I am convinced these proposals can be worked." It could not have been put plainer. If the goodwill and the reasonable people are lacking, and the new proposals are not worked, then sooner or later the British public will become itself sick of directly ruling and subventing Northern Ireland, and will demand that it be left to stew in its own juice.
There are one or two flaws in the White Paper. It was obviously necessary to discard the office of Governor, for the Irish Secretary will also be the governor in effect, ruling with an executive in whose selection he will have a hand, and which will be very much like a colonial legislative council drawn from the elected assembly. Now that the Governor is to be discarded and no further appointments are to be made to the Privy Council of Northern Ireland, it seems foolish that existing members of that Privy. Council should retain their existing rank, style and obligations. It is unfortunate that Ulster's representation at Westminster is not to be increased; Ulster should be represented there on precisely the same basis as the other parts of the United Kingdom; and Mr Whitelaw should certainly change his mind on this; score. The biggest flaw is an issue dodged. "The re-creation of inter-communal confidence," the White Paper recognises, "is bound to be a long and slow affair. There is no single means by which it can be accomplished. But the Government is convinced that, if the tragic events of recent times are not to recur, means must be found to create a greater sense of community in the minds of the rising generation. One of the obvious factors is the high degree of education segregation." The Government sees the nettle. It does not grasp it. What is required is the secularisation of education. The present division into ' maintained ' (largely Roman Catholic) and ' transferred ' (largely Protestant) schools should be done away with, and religion should be excluded from the curriculum and left to the churches to teach and to preach.
This said, the White Paper remains an excellent job. Whether it will work depends not on the British Government but on the people of Ulster, who have to decide whether or not Ulster itself is to work. There is no reason why it should not do so: for the genius of Mr Whitelaw's emetic demulcent is that it could start an end to violence and start a beginning to peace while at the same time allowing everyone to pursue his political purposes and ends without recourse to or threat from violence.
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