a n Willie pull
he strings?
2r's election results are neither as good as was hoped for nor Id was feared. Had Fauiknerite Unionists, pledged to try lake the White Paper proposals, particularly the new AshiY and council of ministers, work, received a few more seats the. „ • adsleyite and Craigite Unionists, bent upon a wrecking received a few less then a most desirable state of affairs, .11st,er's standards, would have been reached. As it is, the wreckers (DUP being Paisley's Democratic Unionist Y and VUP Craig's Vanguard Unionist Party) received eight seven votes respectively, and these fifteen, together with the ,verPnionists returned who have declared opposition to the Lie ''aPer produce twenty-seven Protestants who would hith ev lave mainly been regarded as right-wing unionists, against T official Unionists and one unofficial but pro-White 4.upionist. 23-27 is the state of the official Faulknerites the rest; and had these figures been the other way round lie Y nlight well have been had the official Unionists fielded a rri list of candidates), then a muted triumph would have been afned. However, since the Alliance Party scraped together t,:?.ts, the Northern Ireland Labour Party (which favours L:Isish connection) one, and the newish Social Democratic nnatrur Party (representing moderate Catholic opinion) a er-n..anit nineteen seats, there are more than enough members ,,--„.1-11'vAssembly to make it work. Whether it will work will ate — 'ess on the wreckers than on the ability of the Secretary , sixpiVir Whitelaw, and the leaders of the official Unionists, tioarid the Alliance parties in contriving some kind of lo,involving a genuine sharing of power. DUP-VUP and ch anti-White Paper unionists sustain an opposition of 27 aYWell dwindle but could possibly increase), against a e 'al,Poalition of 51 (which likewise could move up or down Political process gets under way).
u already three clear determinations and a fourth more n'letu one. The first is the destruction of the monolithic sk`i?artY, which, until Direct Rule, had exercised power urea since the division of Ireland and the creation of tet The second is the creation of the SDLP as the unix, representative voice of the Catholic minority, with poli,s s°reover, and declarations and a title which are not themiesterctarian. The third, which is the corollary of the second, is uction of Sinn Fein, of the Republican Clubs underWhich _ascribed organisation electioneered, and' of any justified lavivh‘atever on the part of the IRA, whether Provisional or e represent the Catholic minority of the north. The sizePoll the failure of the IRA "spoil your vote" campaign, any Inability on the days proceeding polling day, on polling pleneCirl the day of the count, to stage any spectacular piece lir:lace or destruction or to achieve any substantial degree of bi i alike attest to this. The SDLP, with great courage ylear,,,t°0k on the wild men and shattered them. This does )cra. wat violence will end; but it brings to an end any iniena,c, or nationalist justification the men of violence may olic 3' have claimed, and it renders less defensible the "-ommunity, which clearly desires an end to violence as uarv as all but the most extreme Unionist fanatics, offering daentd__Protection to the terrorists. The fourth, and more vumination is represented by the eight votes the Al liance Party secured, mainly as a consequence of ProportionalRepresentation.
The new Assembly cannot meet until the final stages of the Westminster legislation under which it will operate are concluded and the Royal Assent received. This is expected to come about before the end of the month, and it will meet as soon as possible thereafter, probably in the Stormont building but with a new seating plan to be devised by Mr Whitelaw, and initially with a set of rules provided for it by a clerk chosen by the Secretary of State. After it has elected its own chairman or Speaker, however, the Assembly will be free to determine its own rules. Before then,the jockeying will have begun: indeed it has now begun.The various groups have yet to determine their new leaderships; their attitudes towards issues will depend in part upon their attitudes towards those who emerge as their leading opponents and supporters; horse-trading is a particularly Irish delight, and there will be plenty of that going on; and in all this activity, presiding over it with all the skill he can muster and all the patience he can sustain and all the deviousness he can effect will be the misleadingly benign Mr Whitelaw, pulling the strings, juggling, taming the lions, cracking the whips and behaving as best he may as master of the circus.
He is not only circus-master. He is also paymaster, and this in two manners. First, to some extent at least he will have effective power to distribute the jobs or' ministries 'that are to be handed out: a chief executive, and about seven or eight council members with departmental authority and responsibility for the main domestic activities that are to be delegated back to Ulster. These ' ministers' will be paid around the Parliamentary Under-Secretary-of State level, and they will have official cars as well. The Secretary of State thus has considerable patronage at his disposal, and this should not be discounted. Way and above this, however, is the power of-the British subventions to Ulster. Technically, there is until March 31 of next year for the Assembly and the Secretary of State to agree upon a power-sharing system based upon the White Paper. However, the British Government in the shape of Mr Whitelaw is most unlikely to permit negotiations and dealings to go for anything like so long as that. If, by October-November at the latest, no viable regime has emerged or been put together, then the Assembly will be told by the Secretary of State in the bluntest terms that Britain will not continue to cough up the cash. He will mean what he says; and his object will be to bring home to the Ulster public that the responsibility for the cash-flow drying up will be directly placed upon those whose political activities within the Assembly have been such as to prevent the White Paper system from being given a chance tok work, Bluntly, the wreckers will be blamed, in an effort to wreck the wreckers. The British authorities think that Paisley and Craig and their supporters have never believed that Britain would, in fact, cut off the cash however much British spokemen might threaten. The Secretary of State will make it abundantly clear that this belief is erroneous.
It is to be hoped that sense will prevail. Much good sense has come out of the South since its election. In a speech which is a major contribution and which effectively recognises Northern . Ireland as a political unit, the Taoiseach, Mr Liam Cosgrave, has declared that the South must be prepared to recognise the right of the two communities in Northern Ireland to set aside their differentviews of the eventual shape of Irish political institutions, and to establish institutions that will provide the North with a system of government designed to reconcile the two communities in peace and harmony. We shall not be found wanting in this regard."
There are, thus, grounds for hope. But time is short, is running out. If opinion in Ulster drifts outwards to the extremes then the future is black; if the Labour Party fails to sustain the bi-partisan approach that has lasted since 1969 by seeking, for instance, to force a timetable for the withdrawal of British troops and thereby ,convincing the IRA that they have divided the English and thereby conquered, then the future is black and blood-red; if the troops are withdrawn then nothing can prevent a massacre. If nothing at all happens, then life will go on in Ulster as it has been going on for four year's, darkly, bloodily, tragically, humanly. Mr Whitelaw now bears the greatest burden any Englishman carries. Everyone of good sense and lacking malignity, with a broad and not a narrow view On politics, must wish him well in the hazardous endeavour which he now attempts.
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