Ulster: historian’s harsh solution

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34129, 15 April 1976, Page 13

Ulster: historian’s harsh solution

( By

CHRISTOPHER WALKER,

oi "The Times," through N .Z.P.A.)

BELFAST, April 14. ’ The Provisional I.R.A. and the Left-wing pressure groups which advocate British withdrawal from Northern Ireland have gained an unexpected and respectable ally in A. .J. P. Taylor, the noted historian. In a long interview broadcast from Dublin by the Irish State Radio, Mr Taylor said that the British presence in Ireland had helped to create the conflict in the past, and was now onlv serving to continue it He suggested that the best : solution would be an armed push bv the Irish nationalist maioritv which would be strong enough to drive the 1

million Ulster Protestants out of Ireland altogether. He cited the expulsion of 3 million Germans from Czechoslovakia at the end of the last war as an example or how such a harsh and seemingly unacceptable solution had eventually proved successful. His controversial views came as the withdrawal of the 15,500 British troops was about to be debated formally for the first time in the House of Lords. On the possibility that such a withdrawal would lead immediately to civil war, Mr Taylor said that if the Protestants embarked on a policy of massacre, the Roman Catholics would have to leave Ulster. “After all, the British withdrawal from India, : which is universally praised I

as one of the greatest strokes of our policy, was followed by the death of at least 1 million people, and the reason there were so many was because the withdrawal had dragged on,” he said. “If the British had withdrawn in, say, 1922, instead of 1947, the number of those killed would have been much less.”

“Every day the British stay in northern Ireland is likely to increase the number who will be killed in the end, because there is no doubt, whatever British governments say now, there will come a time when the British people will not be prepared to go on having young Englishmen killed for a cause which does not concern them in the slightest. “What we have, after all, is an incipient civil war. To

put it brutally, if there were a civil war in Northern Ireland, and I am not convinced that there would be, quite a lot of people would be killed, and the war would be decided within a few months. Spread over the years, probably more people would have been killed.” Mr Taylor said that he was not worried that his view was close to that of the Provisional I.R.A. Already the prospect of the Lords debate is causing concern to politicians in Ulster, for it comes at a time when there is a widespread belief that a withdrawal is eventually planned, despite repeated Government denials. It is certain that the outcome will be closely monitored by the Provisionals, who are demanding a declar-

i .ation of British intent to i withdraw as the main part of their policy, backed by .(violence in Northern Ireland and on the mainland. : The Lords motion, put (down by Lord Bradwell, will 'be strongly opposed by Lore H Dunieath, the chairman ol ■ the security committee ol rthe moderate Alliance Party. ;j In a statement issued ir j Belfast, he said: “At a time i when the Provisional I.R.A iis escalating its campaign ;iand at a time when the security forces are having : some success, in my view it I is irresponsible to raise this , issue. AH it will do is tc i undermine their work beinj; . done to defeat the terrorist: in Northern Ireland, and tc give them a false belief thai I public opinion in Great Britain shifting in favour of t ((withdrawal.”