Winning the election
From Lt Col H. B. Petty Sir: In your article ' Winning the Election' (October 2) you remark that "the continuation of the Irish mess . . . will do the Government no good."
The Government is spending millions in fruitless efforts to restore law and order in N. Ireland and the British taxpayer expects more in return than the recent trite communiqué. What is needed is an unequivocal statement that the Government's goal is a completely independent and united Ireland. This would take the wind out of the IRA's sails as it is only because they voice the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of Irishmen, whose aspiration is just this, that their violent methods are condoned. But the British government must also make clear our determination to destroy the IRA so that negotiations for unification can take place in an orderly manner. If these negotiations are violently obstructed by either Protestants or Catholics the culprits must be dealt with like the IRA.
Irish people appreciate ruthless measures. But they also appreciate justice. The political separation of a part of their island from the rest at the behest of a minority, living in the North, whose religion and way of life are intensely antipathetic to their own does not seem to them a just arrangement; nor would it seem so to the British taxpayer were he fully acquainted with all the facts.
H. R. Petty Novar, Edgar Road, Winchester
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