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Deja VuSource: Fortnight, No. 45 (Sep. 7, 1972), pp. 8-9Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25544225 .

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8 THURSDAY, 7th SEPTEMBER, 1972

they were assuming that Fianna Fail would follow any leader, and that its Dail

majority would keep the wild men in office. (In arithmetical terms, Lynch, Hillery and a few others would have had to vote for Haughey or Blaney if they

were to become Taoiseach.)

The alternative view, that the Govern

ment was guilty of sins of omission or commission or both, that it should go to the country, and that Fianna Fail might even work out its own salvation in

opposition, apparently found no support whatsoever inside Fianna Fail.

On the straight issue of accountability for public money, the Committee report is

damning. Thus it notes that the Minister for Finance had given ?500 to Captain

Kelly from the Fund for the North when

the terms of the Fund did not justify it. Nor had the Captain given any satisfactory explanation of what he had done with ?500 of the taxpayers' money.

Actions such as these indicate just how weak the democratic tradition can be in Irish public life-as does the role of Mr.

Gibbons in not reporting his suspicions to Mr. Lynch before he did ('he did not ask me', was Mr. Gibbon's explanation), and

indeed the role of Mr. Lynch himself for not having suspicions.

The depressing fact that the revealing of these shortcomings failed to bring down the Government suggests that an alter

tradition, alien to true parliamentary

democracy, and based on power for

power's sake alone, also exists in Ireland.

DEJAVU If you have a feeling that we have all

been here before, you are quite right. Mr.

Whitelaw's round table conference dates back to 1917. On that occasion it was an all-Ireland affair. But not to worry. The

participants were the same: the Unionists, the Nationalists and in between as nice a

bunch of moderates?in the form of the Southern Unionists?as anyone could widh for. It was not just the political parties, though; the representatives of local government were in there too, a

move that the West Ulster Unionist Council might well recall to their

advantage. Even the rendezvous was on

the same level?the Regent House Room

in Trinity College, Dublin?where the

HecAnciInchon rvwxteJS'

Atfgfa SCHEME %%

delegates could supposedly get away from the pressures of politics and the press.

There was a security problem too to get out of the way, though not at the same level of seriousness. But the British

Cabinet duly obliged by ordering an

amnesty of 'political' prisoners just before the convention was due to begin, to clear

the air and allow the politicians to work out a settlement in the best possible atmosphere. There's a good thought for

Mr. Heath and his colleagues. The similarities may be too close for

comfort. The Convention was not a

success. It started work in July 1917, and

dragged on until April 1918, absorbing a

great deal of political time and energy with very little to show for it at the end. The two sides had as little in common when it came to the essential issues as

they do now: the Ulster Unionists a close knit group giving nothing away; the

Nationalists more divided amongst themselves, but-equally intransigent when

it came to bartering away at what they

regarded as their birthright, a sovereign and independent parliament for the whole of Ireland.

The personalities on the various sides

pale into insignificance before this clash of fundamental attitudes: Barrie and

Montgomery for the Unionists; Redmond, Murphy and the Bishop of Raphoe for the

Nationalists, with Midleton for the Southern Unionists as a kind of honest broker in between. Neither side was any more in control of their constituency than Messrs. Faulkner and Fitt. Each was for

ever looking over its shoulder at the

running the ultras were making while they

were away. And the Unionists kept rushing off home to consult their

colleagues whenever there looked to be

any chance of anyone agreeing to a

compromise. The big issue in 1917 was taxation:

whether the proposed Irish parliament was to have the power to raise customs

duties and so to protect itself against discriminatory or unrealistic policies on the part of the Imperial authorities. But like the present day argument over

security there .was more to it than mere

taxation. When it came to brass tacks the

two sides were more interested in the

symbols of independence and the Imperial link than in detailed economic arguments.

The Southern Unionists produced scheme after scheme, and spent a great deal of

time and energy going back and forth

among the delegates signing up support. But all it took was a good emotional

speech on the floor of the Convention for the two sides to line up in their accustomed ranks. A conclusion of sorts

was reached in the end. A number of

compromise motions were finally

approved by a slender majority composed of the Southern Unionists and the less

demanding Nationalists. The minority, described by Plunket as 'an alliance

Bolshevik bishops' was a mixture of Unionists and extreme Nationalists. The basis of the motions which were finally passed was Lloyd George's suggested compromise: customs were to remain with

the Imperial Parliament until after the war, when a Royal Commission would be

summoned to suggest a more lasting

settlement; the Unionists were to be

granted a larger number of seats in the new Dublin parliament than their numbers merited; and there was to be an

Ulster Committee with power to veto any moves which they felt not to be 'consonant with the interests of Ulster.'

But with the Unionists voting solidly against every motion that was put to make

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FORTNIGHT 9 it quite clear that they agreed to nothing and the Sinn Feiners pursuing their

campaign outside the framework of the Convention the final report of the Convention was scarcely worth the paper it was written on. The one thing that was

not widely discussed wps the eventual Solution' which was imposed by a

reluctant Westminster, that of partition. The historians of the affair have tended

to take refuge in the fund of good stories which the Convention provides. The

Chairman, Sir Horace Plunkett, was a

well-meaning and long-winded gentleman who had devoted his life to the foundation of the agricultural co-operative movement in Ireland. He bombarded the delegates

with memoranda, and at one stage even

set ah 'examination paper' on the

essentials of the fiscal issues to the two main sides. But every time that the Convention looked like approaching some kind of agreement, he would adjourn for lunch or for a constitutional and the chance slipped by. When the delegates resumed the party whips had drilled their

supporters back into line. For the rest it was a series of cocktail parties and

dinners; visits to Cork and Belfast to show the two sides how the other half lived; the occasional trip to London to sound out the attitude of Lloyd-George and the Cabinet; and unending speeches and lobbying. The

proceedings were only occasionally enlivened by some delightful intervention

by George Russell (AE), or Mahaffy, the Provost of Trinity.

There may be some consolation for Mr.

Whitelaw and his advisers in this sorry story. The dangers of an open-ended conference have apparently been realised.

This time there is a precise time limit, and the Government has explicitly stated that the ultimate responsibility for any settlement rests at Westminster. Most of

all, though, they must be relying on the fact that Mr. Whitelaw himself is to take the chair. If he cannot achieve complete success, he may at least be able to head off the kind of stalemate which the Convention of 1917-18 produced.

SIDELINES

Hiding the Cash There's a quid or two to be made by an

enterprising bookmaker on the great whitewash stakes. First Compton, and then Widgery, and now the Public

Accounts Committee in Dublin. Compton and Widgery perhaps had the edge on the

Dublin men in unearthing the facts. Not a

word to identify the various Northern

politicians who keep turning up in the

story. But when it comes to a nice turn of

phrase there is little to choose between them. Some fancy Compton's "ill

treatment/brutality" distinction. Others

prefer Widgery's "bordering on the reckless" for the shoot down in Glenfada Flats. But how's this for plain fudging: 'Colonel Hefferon's evidence on his

knowledge of this fund and of Captain Kelly's connection with it was

unsatisfactory. But while Colonel Hefferon would appear from part of his

evidence to have had knowledge of

Captain Kelly's use of money from the fund to finance arms purchase, and while

Captain Kelly stated in general terms that he was authorised by the Director of

Intelligence in this matter, no evidence was presented to the Committee, even by Captain Kelly himself, that this operation was initiated on Colonel Hefferon's

authority or orders, nor in the view of the Committee did his detailed accounts of his communications with Colonel Hefferon

justify his statement that he was

authorised by Colonel Hefferon in this matter." The rules for the race, of course,

prescribe blinkers to exclude any unnecessary speculation about

involvement higher up on the political ladder.

There's also good honest money to be made in the modern UVF these days. For

instance there's the ?5,000 a time charge for interviews with Ulster's loyal son,

Gusty Spence, who was snatched from Her

Majesty's prison service a few months ago when they'd let him go home for the weekend. So far, despite the added incentive of a training programme thrown

in with the interview, only Granada TV have taken them up on the offer. A little more publicity and maybe the Americans will be ready to bite.

Was it just chance that the reports of

the Most Reverend Bishop of Ardagh and

Clonmacnois, Dr. Daly's contribution to

the Social Study Conference at Falcarragh last month were much shorter in the

North than in the South? The Irish Times

dutifully printed the address in full,

including the bits about the prohibition on

divorce and contraception being socio moral issues about which the great

majority of Irish people are deeply concerned, lest the teenagers be led

astray. Certainly not matters on which

constitutional amendment are needed

according to Dr. Daly. But the copy sent to the Irish News and the Belfast

Telegraph didn't give so much prominence to this, or else it was not considered as

newsworthy as the bits about unification and all that. And if you think it worth

writing to deny that there was any intention to mislead us poor misguided sinners up here, Dr. Daly, perhaps you could say what you feel about ~Mr.

Spencer's claim that the ne temere decree on mixed marriages is slowly throttling the

Protestant community in the South. Or is

that too part of the deep, earnest and

ineradicable commitment of the true

Irishman? Is forcing the minority to

emigrate Unionist style any worse than

forcing them to bring up their children

Catholic style if they should chance to fall

in love with a real Irish girl? There's more

to Civil Rights than meets the Bishop's eye.

We might learn a little from foreign events at the moment and get a few tips on helping to solve our 'problems'. One 'Sidelines' correspondent reports that Idi

Amin suggested he might be able to get the British government out of a mess if

they sent him a delegation to discuss the Northern Ireland situation. The same

correspondent, rather wickedly I thought for one who belongs to one of our

moderate non-sectarian political parties, said that Amin might indeed have

something to contribute if his notion to solve the problem was for all British pass port holders to be expelled from Northern Ireland.

It used to be possible for reasonable

people to deny the usual Unionist

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