THE IRISH BORDER

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 40, 17 February 1939, Page 10

THE IRISH BORDER

ABOLITION QUESTION

CLEAVAGE OF IDEALS

ULSTER'S ATTITUDE

(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London

Representative.)

LONDON, January 26. Reasons why "Northern Ireland does not respond to the persistent invitations to abolish the border and unite with the South," were given by Sir Basil Brooke, Bart., Minister of Agriculture for Northern Ireland, when he addressed a meeting at Manchester following the recent bomb outrages in England by members of the Irish Republican Army.

"It is not simply stubbornness," said Sir Basil. "It is not unreasoning bias. Xou can, if you like, call it hardheadedness, because it is in part due to an immunity from the hypnotic power of such mystic phrases as 'racial unity' or 'Gaelic-speaking union,' which are often used as catchwords in this controversy.

"The southern Irishman speaks of the border as a searing scar across the soul of Ireland. He regards it as something shameful and unnatural. The Ulsterman is more practical. He recognises, both from personal experience and from a study of history, that many have found something in? herently unsatisfactory about a divided country. So much he admits. He realises the affinity between geography and politics and the trouble caused when their tug is in different directions; he remembers Ulster being described as a 'geographical, not a political, expression.'

FACING THE FACTS.

"But he also faces facts. He knows that a united country is only desirable, only ultimately possible, when there exists among the inhabitants a fairly large common denominator of ideals and outlook. He can point to the disastrous failure that has overtaken the various attempts, some of them recent, to impose unity on two peoples that were fundamentally different. He can point, equally, to the succcess of partition where there has existed among the inhabitants of any geographical area a cleavage of ideals too radical for compromise.

"Belgium, for instance, gained its .independence rather more than a hundred years ago, after centuries of foreign domination, but no one now suggests that its. separation from Holland is an outrage. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were once united but are now separate and happy countries. And then the Ulsterman asks himself if a conformity of ideals and outlook exists as between "North and South in Ireland today.

"He answers this question by saying: 'If the Ulster Unionists were forced into an Irish Republic and severed from their kith and kin in England and Scotland, they would have precisely the same grievance as the Sudeten Germans have. . . .

The iame economic and sentimental motives which made the inhabitants of Carlsbad wish to belong to the German Reich would make the Ulster Unionists wish to be restored to the King, if they were brought into a United Ireland against their will.'

DIVISION THERE ALREADY,

"He might add that it is the attitude of the Government of Eire that has made the border a political and an economic boundary. It was they who imposed Customs duties, not we. However, as things are, the border does perform a useful and a necessary service. Far from being unnatural or artificial, it symbolises a real cleavage. It divides, but the division is there already, and to talk of partition being the cause of this division is to put the cart before the horse. Partition merely recognises the differences which exist between North and South;, it does not create them. Nor would its abolition remove them. "Let me give you some examples 01 these differences, using, as far as possible, the actual words of Mr. de Valera an d I will quote only his considered statements—and of impartial or even of anti-partition commentators. Here is an account from 'The Times' of part of Mr. de Valera's address to the Ard Fheis or Fianna Fail Parliament last to a leading article in the "Irish Times," which advocated^ the abandonment of the polite but futile fiction that Britain is a foreign country, Mr de Valera went to some pains to prove to his audience that Britain was a foreign country. He indicated that if and when partition should come to an end, the existing relations between Eire and the Commonwealth would be maintained as a concession to sentiment in the North. But the association would be very loose at the best. After the ending of partition the next step would be to make Ireland a Gaelicspeaking country.' "These remarks, I may say, were made less than six months after the conclusion of the Anglo-Eire Agreement". A few days later, addressing the Literary and Historical Society of University College, Dublin, Mr de Valera amplified them to the extent of saying that they (in Eire) 'had got indepedence, but it might not be m the | national interest of the country to say Ithat they had an independent Republic. 'There was an element which did not iwant that. But in order to work towards that it seemed necessary to have an association with the Commonwealth, for which he was sorry.' "We are often told by well-meaning people that if we waived our desire to remain part of the United Kingdom, everything in the garden would be lovely. Judging from the remarks of Mr. de Valera, does this look likely? Has not every step his State has taken since the Agreement last summer been to draw further and further away from Great Britain and the Commonwealth, though without openly declaring the Republic?

SACRIFICES FACED BY ULSTER,

"Supposing that we did decide to join with Eire, what would be our position? Here is a summing up of the sacrifices that the abolition of the border would involve for the Ulsterman

" 'By the abolition he gets rid of the Customs frontier between the six counties and the rest of Ireland, but he erects a new Customs frontier between himself and the more important markets of Great Britain. He ceases to be a member of the Protestant Ascendancy in a Protestant State, and becomes instead a member of the Protestant minority in a State which is essentially Roman Catholic in its outlook. These sacrifices a conscientious man might feel bound to make with a cheerful heart, but when he is required to sacrifice also his British citizenship and his pride in the British traditions and the English conquest, conscience refuses any longer to give a clear guidance. ... It will appear, therefore, that the Ulster Protestant is held back from uniting with the 26 counties not merely by sheer cussedhess, ignorant bigotry, or English intrigue, but by reasons of weight and substance reinforced often by strong and deeply-rooted feelings.' .

"That appreciation of the position, which I think is fair and to the noint, was written by the Irish correspondent of the 'Manchester Guardian.' You notice that it stresses the economic, as well as the personal, reasons behind

our determination to hold firmly to out heritage.

"Ulster's population is little less than that of that most important Dominion, New Zealand, but her trade is worth considerably more, and comes to some v

£110,000,000 annually. In 1937 she bought from you £39,000,000 worth of goods. The Ulsterman is certainly one of your best customers, and per head of our population we buy more British goods than any other part of the Empire—twice as much as New Zealand, four times as much as Eire, six times as much as Australia, seven times as much as South Africa, twelve times las much as Canada. She is not a beg|gar at your door. She pays the same j taxes, shares in the cost of our mutual defence. Geographically, she is no further from your shore than Liverpool from Manchester. She is blood of your blood. Why should she leave you?.*