Miss Devlin Attacks Govt

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32077, 27 August 1969, Page 13

Miss Devlin Attacks Govt

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

PHILADELPHIA, August 26.

Miss Bernadette Devlin, the fiery young Northern Ireland civil rights leader, alleged last night that the Ulster Government was deliberately trying to divide Roman Catholic and Protestant low-income groups. Miss Devlin, at 22 the York today to attend another

youngest member of the British Parliament, told an enthusiastic rally of 3000 people in Philadelphia that the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland was seeking social and economic justice for both Protestants and Roman Catholics, and an end to mass unemployment

But she feared that the Unionist Government had no wish to 1 reduce unemployment “because it provides cheap labour.” During a whirlwind day of activity, Miss Devlin was personally greeted by the Mayor of Philadelphia (Mr James Tate) at the city hall, where she was the guest-of-honour at a reception; toured a Negro slum area; and recbrdetKseveral radio and television broadcasts before attending the rally. Miss Devlin, who arrived in the United States last Thursday, was visaing Philadelphia on a nation-wide tour to raise SUSIm for the riot-torn areas of Northern Ireland. She will return to New

rally and to meet the United Nations Secretary-General (U Thant). Miss Devlin was cheered when, last night, she compared the Unionist Government to the Russian hierarchy. “The Ulster Government adopted the tactics of the Rus-

sians in Czechoslovakia, pushing the people to the limit of their patience, and then attacking them,” she told the audience, even' member of which had paid SUSS to attend the fund-raising rally. “We don’t want to be a great nation,” Miss Devlin declared. “We will never send a man to the moon. We don’t want to. We want a country from which people will not have to emigrate any more.” Earlier, in New York, Miss Devlin had called for the dissolution of the Unionist Government, and its replacement with a republic made up of Ireland’s 32 counties, “based on liberty for all persons, regardless of their religious or political persuasion."