IRELAND : THE NEW PHASE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In your leading article under this head in your issue of January nst, you seem to suggest that it would be a good thing if Northern Ireland could be persuaded by the British Government to join with Eire in forming a United Ireland once more, and that this might be brought about if the problems of trade and defence were satisfactorily solved.
Does not the root cause of Ulster's refusal, however, lie in the fact that the course of the Irish Free State ever since its creation in 1921, and especially lately under Mr. de Valera's rule, has been steadily away from the British connexion ; so that it is now for all practical purposes an independent republic outside the British Commonwealth of Nations, and how can any British Government, which presumably wishes to see that Commonwealth preserved, seek to persuade Ulster (if that were possible) to put herself outside of it by joining with that republic ?
That is no doubt a desirable object from Mr. de Valera's point of view, but surely we British people should be glad and proud that Ulster has such loyalty to the British Crown and connexion that she repudiates any suggestion that she should secede (which is what it amounts to) in order to attain the sentimental ideal of a United Ireland : and we should rather encourage her in that loyalty than seek to drive her
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