[at Easter 1912. He cleverly manipulates Ulster Protestant…]

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at Easter 1912. He cleverly manipulates Ulster Protestant symbols but it is not for Ülster that he is urging them to fight: "Once again you hold the pass. The pass for the Empire. You are a besieged city, the timid have left you, but you have closed your gates."

The third Home Rule bill received the royal assent but the outbreak of the imperialist war in 1914 suspended its implementation. The effects of the war, the Russian revolution and the revolutionary waves. that swept Europe showed even the Tory party that they old sabre longer that way.

'This great advance in democratic sentiment, as the Times so delicately put it, had to be placated while support for Carson appeared as a provocation to it.

Sensing that unionist support in Britain was not what it had been before the war, the Ulster unionists accepted ironically what they had resisted for thirty years, Home Rule for themselves. Charles Craig, the brother of Northern Ireland's first prime minister, expressed their dilemma in the Commons on the 29th March 1920, when he said:

"We would much prefer to remain part and parcel of the United Kingdom. We have prepared and we have made our Province prosperous under the union and under the laws passed by this House. We do not in any desire to recede from a position that has been in every way satistactory to us. But we have many enemies in this country and we feel that an Ulster without a parliament of its own would not be in nearly as strong a position as one in which a parliament has been set up.

Leaders executed The Easter Rising and the execution of its leaders created such a revulsion against English rule that the nationalist party of Redmond, completely tied to British strategy, was swept to oblivion. Supplanted by Sinn Fein it prosecuted a war against the British that as it proceeded took on more of a social character, stimulating Griffiths and Collins to settle on terms no less humilating than had been . offered to Redmond's party, while also abandoning the nationalist population of Ulster, leaving it trapped inside Carson's sectarian Protestant state.

Racialist state

By the racialist criteria upon which the Orange state was founded the counties of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan had too large a nationalist population to be easily contained. Thomas Moles, the Unionist MP for Belfast Ormean, put the position to the protesting protestants of the border counties with brutal frankness when he said:

"In a sinking ship with life boats sufficient for only two thirds of the ships' company were all to condemn themselves to death because not all could be saved?"

Within the six county coalition of sectarian surgery the unionist leaders addressed themselves enthusiastically to the task of creating what Prime Minister Sir James Craig called "a protestant state for protestant people".

Redrawn boundaries This required the drastic redrawing of local government boundaries to convert areas with nationalist majorities into loyalist strongholds and a protestant-only militia, the 'B-specials' whose reputation for sectarian violence acquired in the first year of their existence, they lost only when they were abolished in 1969.

The entire purpose of a parliament at Stormont for what was supposed to be an integral part of the United Kingdom was well illustrated by the disclosure of the Minister for Agriculture in 1927 that:

"I have 109 officials and as far as I know there are four catholies, three of whom were civil servants handed over to me before I began."

With the state secure and the consequent threat to the union receding, the class antagonism within unionism more easily came to the surface. In 1921 P.J. Woods stood as an independent unionist against the "clique" that ran Ulster and took a safe seat from the Unionists.

In the general election of 1925 the unionist seats in Stormont were reduced from 40 lo 32, Labour gaining three and independent unionists winning four.

Determined to stop the rOt, Prime Minister Craig revealed an unsuspected capacity for irony by choosing July 12 1927, the day protestants celebrate the securing of their political freedom, to announce that he had abolished their proportional method of representation.

"We in Ulster are and ought to be happy community. Adversity has taught us the value of unity. Unity has brought us to our present state of peace and contentment, Mr. Devlin and his party (the Nationalist farty) are the natural opposition. Why then should any loyalist constituency add strength to it and weaken the influence of my colleagues and myself."

The industries of linen and shipbuilding upon which Belfast prosperity actually rested (although it should not be overlooked that up to 1926 agriculture was the largest single employer of labour) were in decline from the time that the Northern Ireland state was created. While 226.4 million square yards of linen were woven in 1912 by 1961 this had fallen to 59.8 million square yards. Shipbuilding too declined with the recession in world trade.

So while the economy in the South of Ireland slowly stagnated behind tariff walls Ulster capital was carried through the inter war years on the crutches of British subsidies. At more or less the same time, the bourgeoisie of Dublin in 1958 and Belfast in 1957 were obliged to acknowledge that their attempts to develop their own capitals had failed.

No less was it recognised in the North East that foreign capital had to be wooed to the Province. A Government sponsored report suppressed for two years because of its pessimism stated in 1957 that: 1) the basic cause of export of capital from Northern Ireland was low expectation of profit from domestic investment. 2) greater scarcity than in Great Britain for profitable openings for new and enlarged undertakings. 3) narrow economic base placed a question mark against the long term viability of the Province. 4) constitutional status of the Province was uncertain.

But if the bourgeoisie in Dublin and Belfast saw their future prosperity in exactly the same way, as dependant upon their capacity to create the conditions that would attract foreign investment then the original 'rationality" for a partitioned Ireland no longer existed. And Britain's changing relationship to the South and the North made her consider a marriage between these two satellites.

Not only was the South providing a significant percentage of England's food, but England's declining capital was finding limited but profitable markets in the Republic. As the profitability of British capital declined, the urge to off-load the burden of subsidising wellare, social security, industry and defence in the North became attractive.

Bring changes

A reforming group in the Northern Ireland cabinet emerged under O'Neill's leadership to bring about the necessary changes. The composition of this group is significant. It comprised politicians who were in the future to violenty oppose one another. It numbered Brian Faulkner, William Craig, Roy Bradford, Robin Baillie and Terence O'Neill This structure of patronage which tied the protestant working class to Ulster Unionism by allocating jobs as a reward for "loyalty' , was so powerful in Ulster because of the nature of Ulster labour capita, intensive units. But smali, local tamily the new capital that was entering the Province (while Ulster capital declined) was export orientated and capital intensive.

As unemployment rose in this period so too did its companion sectarianism. At 7th century flags-a Loyalist procession the fifty year commemor ation of the signing of the 1912 Covenant in October protestant workers marked the occasion with the first serious sectarian rioting in twenty years.

Against this background Paisley raised the cry that O'Neill was "betraying union. ism", And Paisley on this question was essentially right for what the Unionist bour geoisie was trying to do was to structure a new relation. ship with imperialism while abandoning its petty-bourgeois and proletarian allies to the cold winds of the world While Paisley was marshal ing his followers under seven. teenth century flags it was twentieth century conditions that were driving them to his banners.

No future Seeing their mass base deserting them the unionisi leaders one by one abandon ed their leader O'Neill. Bul the repudiation of O'Neil was in no way an abandon ment of his politics. Witt Ulster capital visibly disap pearing in front of their eye: the Unionist bourgeoisie could háve no future unles: they could turn themselve: into a junior partner ol imperialist interests operating in the Province.

Same fate

Having brought aown onl leader they had no alternativi but to back another with thi same policies who ha nothing more to do tha await the same fate. Thu Neill was toppled by Faulkner who was toppled by Craig, who was brought dow by the very same forces hi mobilised against Faulkner.

The split in Loyalist rank: between Paisley and Craig was explained by bourgeor philistines as one between i clerical bigot and a contriti extremist won to **moder ation"

For materialists the differ ence was one between a bour geois who could accomodati to imperialism and a petty bourgeois who could not.

Thus in Ireland the crisi of political leadership is on which • engulfs the politica struggles of both the workin class and capitalist class alike How this accelerate tensions in both the Loyalis and nationalist camps is th subject of a later article.

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