BELFAST UNREST

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 35, 11 February 1943, Page 5

BELFAST UNREST

Allegations By Successful Election Candidate POLITICAL. TERRORISM Rec. 1.30 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 10.

The West Belfast bye-election reresulted as follows: —Mr. J. Beattie (Lab.), 19,936; Lieutenant S. K. Cunningham (Unionist), 14,426; Mr. W. M. Milton (Ind. Unionist), 7551; Mr. Hugh Corbin (Repub.), 1250. Fiftyfour per cent of the electorate voted. The vacancy was due to the death of Captain Crawford Brown, Conservative.

Mr. Beattie said that "the two main reasons for my victory over the reactionary forces were: It is a symptom of the general feeling of political unrest throughout Northern Ireland. All sections are sick to death ' of the dictatorship of the Unionist party, which has held on to the reins of office by perpetuation of old feuds and ancient hatreds.

"The result of the election proves that the decision to postpone a general election in 1943 in Northern Ireland was in defiance of the wishes of the bulk of the people. "West Belfast in recent years has been a scene of what can be described as a system of political terrorism unequalled even in the Ghettos of occupied Poland. Armed police, in incessant night an,d day raids and searchees, have turned the phrase 'sanctity of the home' into a grim joke. The wholesale internment of young men, sometimes on the flimsiest excuses, has fomented disorders resulting in deaths and destruction of property. There are now about 500 young men imprisoned without the semblance of a "The situation in West Belfast has been boiling up for some time and unless I can secure some improvement by exposing these things, there is no knowing what may happen."