Meanwhile we must notice the Report of the Labour Party
Commission on Ireland. It would not be easy to draw up a less helpful Report. The Commission begins by insisting on the principle of " self-determination," and ends by saying that there must be " no partition." But these two phrases are a flat contradiction. Self-determination is a woolly phrase which hides many practical dangers, but let us accept it, if only because it is a necessary part of the political currency. With what justice can it be argued that Ireland must have " self- determination," but that self-determination must be withheld from the passionately loyal and earnestly religious and very prosperous community in the North-East of Ulster which absolutely refuses to submit itself to a Dublin Parliament ? Yet that is what the Labour Commission proposes.
Previous page
