BRITAIN’S ATLANTIC BASTION

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 210, 2 June 1944, Page 5

BRITAIN’S ATLANTIC BASTION

The Ulster Bridgehead OUR DEBT TO NORTHERN IRELAND (By “Outpost.”) Few people perhaps realize how great, is the debt of the British Empire and Its Allies in the present war to Northern Ireland, better known as Ulster. Accompanying this article is a map showing her strategic position. A study of the sea lanes over which, since the war began, thousands and thousands of imen and millions of tons of war material have been transported across the Atlantic from Canadian and American ports, and of the air bases from which protective cover for convoys and tide war on U-boats is maintained by the Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force, emphasizes the immense strategical importance of Ulster. Northern Ireland is Britain’s Atlantic bastion for defence. It is also the vital bridgehead between Britain and North America. Great naval bases, British and American, have been established there: ideal training grounds for both British and American troops have been provided. The first contingent of United States troops to enter the European theatre of the war landed in Northern Ireland in January, 1942. It was from a Coastal Command station" in Ulster that the German battleship Bismarck —afterward sunk —was “spotted.” Study the map again, this time in the light of what might have been the position had Ulster, been under the control of the Government of Eire, which elected to stay neutral when war broke out, and refused the Allies the use of the valu-. able strategic ports of Southern Ireland. Fortunately for Britain, the Empire, the Allies, and the Great Cause, Ulster, independent of Eire, stood loyal to Britain, honouring her allegiance to the British Crown. Ulster’s flag is the Union Jack. Its currency is British currency. It Is part of the fiscal union of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It pays the same rate of national taxation as Great Britain. In short—Ulster is British. When in May, 1943, the then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Mr. Andrews, relinquished his position—his successor is Sir Basil Brooke—he received from Mr. Churchill a letter of appreciation, the following extract from which demonstrates the British Prime Minister's profound gratitude for the help given by Ulster in the war:

After your long services to Northern Ireland as Minister of Labour and as Minister of Finance (he said), you became Prime Minister in December, 1940. That was a dark and dangerous hour. We were alone, and had to face single-handed the . full fury of the German attack, raining down death and destruction on our cities, and, still more deadly, seeking to. strangle our life by cutting off the entry to our ports of the ships that brought us our food and the weapons we so sorely needed. Only one great channel of entry remained open, because loyal Ulster gave us the full use of tbe Northern Irish ports and waters, and thus ensured the free working of the Clyde and the Mersey. But for the loyalty of Northern Ireland and its devotion to what has now become the cause of 30 Governments or nations, we should have been confronted with slavery and death, and the light which now shines so strongly throughout the world would have been quenched.

Having given so much in loyalty and service to the Empire, strengthening still more the bonds of union, the Ulster people are determined to preserve their political integrity and their allegiance to the Crown. The great question at issue between Eire and Northern Ireland is “Partition”—whether Ulster should be merged within the territorial and political sovereignty of Southern Ireland, ns contended by the De Valera Government of Eire; or remain independent of Eire, retaining the British connexion, as firmly resolved upon by the Ulster people themselves. In the midst of war this resolve remains prominently .in mind against tiny revival of the partition issue when peace returns.