Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Well, Where Do We Go from Here?Author(s): Calvin MacneeSource: Fortnight, No. 80 (Mar. 22, 1974), p. 2Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25544948 .

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2/F0RTNIGHT

Well, where do we go from here?

Good question, now that just about

everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. But it's easily answered. Onward, ever onward. There may be guns to the left and guns to the right, but there is no

retreating now, even if there were any

parties to the Executive who might want to. Certainly there are some who would like to mark time and hope that some

thing might turn up in the form of a

Paisley conversion, but they are unlikely to get their way. Liam Cosgrave has said the word, the law commission is within a

few weeks of reporting, and the message from Stormont is that all systems are go, for a pre-summer ratification of Sun

ningdale. It's a dangerous business, of course,

but not much more dangerous than any other, as the Executive see it. If they go ahead, regardless, they are daring the

Loyalists to do their worst, and stop what

they thought their votes could, but couldn't. But having stopped it, by strikes, violence or whatever, what then?

They still come back to dealing with the British Government and the SDLP, and

only Paisley?or, more likely?West, believes that the terms would be to the Ulster-firsters advantage.

ALTERNATIVE ESCAPISM If they don't go ahead, or try to pause

for a while for the electorate to catch up, the Sunningdale package could be re

turned to its senders here and now. The SDLP might try to soldier on, hoping that RTE had lost all those tapes insisting on the package nature of the

pact, but it would be difficult to contra dict the Republican claim that they wanted their jobs more than their new Ireland. The Unionist population would

probably breathe a sigh of relief, but it would be turning its back on the best

relationship it was ever likely to get from the South, and bidding goodbye to all those social reforms which Sunningdale has spawned. The North would go back into its shell again, and instead of the

Unionists splitting asunder it would be the SDLP which might go to the wall,

with far more disastrous results. Sun

ningdale is the reality, that North and South must come closer together, pain ful as it may be, while anything else is

dangerous escapism. i_;_

f Cabin I

Macnee^

SPECIAL COURT LAW So it's still odds on that the power

sharing vehicle set in motion last June, and further developed in November and

December, will finally leave the Assem

bly line in the next couple of months. (It has to, before July, for if the Emergency Provisions Act, sanctioning internment, is renewed then, it would be almost

impossible for the SDLP to sign.) Just

two important unsolved issues, extradi

tion and the slow British response to the

SDLP's demands for more boldness on

the internment front, could blow things off course, That, and a few more week

ends like the last. On the extradition

question, those who were at Sunningdale are regretting that the Irish didn't work

out some solution between them?short of full-scale extradition, but infinitely better than nothing?instead of bowing to the typical British compromise of a

law commission. On it drags, while the

politicians are filling in the vacuum by either insisting, like Roy Bradford, that

it's extradition or nothing, or, like

Garret FitzGerald, ever the master of

tact, that it's anything but extradition.

Expectations are being built up in the North which seem bound to be dashed, because of the distaste, on both sides of

the border, for the other's special courts.

Anything less than extradition is going to disappoint, although a better vehicle

than Eire's special courts for getting convictions?if that is where fugitive IRA offenders would be tried?could

hardly be imagined. Internment is another matter defying

solution while the Pr~vos keep up their

military offensive, and only capable of

real movement when they start talking. The feelers have been extended from

Stormont Castle, hinting of political recognition, only to bring the kind of reaction which says "We settle on our

terms or else." If they moderate their

demands, and their bombing, some kind of easement, in return for political recognition, may be possible. But this time the Provos will want the credit, no

the SDLP, and how this can be arranged in a manner which wouldn't scream to the world of sell-out is something which is exercising a few score minds. A few

others, politicians mainly, are hoping that in the next batch of releases, when

they come, Stormont Castle won't try another fast one, letting out the danger

men in the vain hope that they will convert the current leadership, and

leaving the little fish inside.

DE FACTO COSGRAVE To plump, or not to plump, for

ratification, that is the question, and

there are more faint hearts than nerves

of steel at the moment. It could be a

question of sacrificing a few lives now, to

Protestant anger, in the hope of saving a

few hundreds in the years to come, and it is not a choice any politician wants to

make. But there is considerable force in

the argument that as soon as people see

what little there is to fear from a

Sunningdale Council of Ireland, with those famous executive powers pared down to the bare minimum, they'll

begin to come round, just as they have

begun to come round?News Letter included?to power sharing.

The problem is to fill the gap between the decision to go ahead, and the time

when fresh elections could safely be

held, and this is where the British and

Irish Governments must play their part. So far we've got a factual recognition of

the factual position from Cosgrave? something which would have been im

possible without Sunningdale?and there must be a few more straws to throw in the wind. The Contraception Bill will

help, so will the law to raise the age of

criminal responsibility, and now that

Conor Cruise is angling to thrust BBC TV down good Irish throats, the censor

ship laws begin to look stupider than ever. Every little will help, including a

flying column that actually makes con

tact with the enemy, but of course the

constitution is the big bluebottle in the ointment. It would be nice, but not

likely, if the Southern Government could

promise a revision willy nilly. But cer

tainly as soon as the ink is dry on

Sunningdale Mark II that all-party committee will have to say how soon

their thoughts on the new Irish constitu tion will be ready.

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