Fortnight Publications Ltd.

O'Neill & Lord Brookeborough

Author(s): Alistair B. Cooke
Source: Fortnight, No. 51 (Nov. 30, 1972), pp. 7-9
Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25544365
Accessed: 17-11-2017 08:52 UTC

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FORTNIGHT 7

"I am not at all convinced about ... the
challenge to our intelligent, cultured and
Christian civilisation because of people
viewing the BBC. We are an adult
responsible society, an iltelligent and
discerning society and our people will not
be brainwashed." Deputy Treacy.
"It is all very well to criticise by
comparing RTE with other stations,
particularly with such great sporting pro
grammes as "Match of the Day". I
wonder if such a programme on Irish
soccer would have the same audience as
the English programmes. For instance
would a match between Shamrock Rovers
and Sligo Rovers attract many viewers?"
Deputy Belton (FG).
-\
HERE 1$ THE .
MEWS ? WRITTEN
"There will have to beDemocracies bulwarks were a little
negotiations
between RTE and BBC/UTV on
suspect last week-end, whenthe
the Govern
establishment of a national
ment sacked thetelevision
RTE Authority, and RTE
network . . . There must be an
staff responded entirely
by depriving the nation of
different approach." Deputy Desmond
radio and television during a rather
(Lab.). critical period.
ONtill &Lond Biookeborough Alistair B. Cooke
implies that exercises in public relations
Was Terence O'Neill the progressive for the benefit of his supporters were a
liberal man he now makes out to be? waste of time, suitable only for untrust
Alistair Cooke, prompted by O'Neill's worthy people, with ulterior motives like
recently published biography, examines Mr. Faulkner. Instead of explaining care
O'Neill's record and his relationship with
the traditional hard line Unionism carried
fully to the Unionist party why the govern
ment had to recognise the I.C.T.U. in
out by his predececessor, Lord Brooke 1963, he set off on the first of several

AND READ BY
borough. jaunts to America, where he was snubbed
by President Kennedy. Although only a
Politics breed some curious customs. war-time officer, he had more of a military

John MARY One of the most harmful is the assumption

that far-sighted statesmen exist, and that
bearing than any other of Ulster's soldier
premiers. He tended to treat his party in

\ -CM
they bring forward policies which deserve
the support of all reasonable men.
attracting criticism only among the selfish
and irresponsible elements in society.
All our history contradicts this view. In
the British parliamentary system (even as
applied to Ulster) sound measures win
approval, not because of their inherent
virtues, but because clever politicians fix
up a situation in which an opposition
cannot flourish. In the one essential
respect politics never change: a Prime
Minister's opponents are always seeking
to replace him and are not fussy about
their methods. Any modern political
leader can set his civil servants to work on
producing bright ideas and impressive
much the same way as the Grand Old
Duke of York treated his troops,
expecting them to follow wherever he led.
He regarded the Ulster Unionist Council
as a relic of the past without any real sign
ificance, and not as a vital link which kept
the party leadership in close touch with
local Unionist communities throughout the
province. His idea of a good party meeting
was one in which 'there were enough
people of good sense to back me up", so
that he could ignore signs of dissatis
faction, however ominous. It is hardly sur
prising that effective control over large
sections of the party tended to slip into
other hands. After 1966 Mr. Craig set out
to capture the Unionist right while the

I" ' V J
pieces of legislation. That is the least of centre came increasingly within the orbit
his functions. The real test comes when he of Mr. Faulkner, leaving O'Neill to talk
has to get that legislation accepted by his rather self-indulgently of his plans for
party that
and parliament, and make the retirement in autumn 1969. There are few
"The narrow-minded view allowing
opposition
what was referred to here as look ridiculous. On such
a "foreign signs that he ever thought seriously about
occasions virtuosity
influence" in through television is isa alot
priceless
ofgift. A the possibility of becoming a distinguished
Prime Minister
damn nonsense . . . some ofwho sets outpro
the to implement non-partisan, almost non-party, figure
a definitethose
grammes, particularly and unalterable
from programme until events in late 1968 (and Mr. Wilson)
over a number
Northern Ireland, show a far of years is his own worst
higher forced him to assume that role (to-day he
enemy. Changing circumstances are bound is inclined to treat the 1920 Act as
degree of Irish culture than anything put
to destroy
on by RTE." Deputy Tully both his plans and his
(Lab.). Ireland's greatest grievance). Before 1969
"I have often wondered what adver
reputation. he simply wished to be a successful, if
tisers did before RTE These
was reflections were prompted by a
founded." slightly unusual. Unionist Prime Minister,
Deputy Burke (FG). study of The Autobiography of Terence but failed to grasp how that quite modest
O'Neill (Rupert
"Our identity as a nation is in Hart-Davis,
some ?2.25), objective might best be attained. The main
whose chief interest lies in its omissions. result of his efforts was the emergence of
danger of being submerged in an insipid
mid-Atlantic mediocrity He
by doesthe
not describe his attempts to
increasing a situation in which opposition of all kinds
emphasis on urbanisationprepareand
the ground for liberal reform in
commer found it easy to flourish. Prime Ministers
cialism." Deputy Burke.Ulster. On the contrary he strongly are not appointed to do such things.

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 8_ THURSDAY, 30th NOVEMBER, 1972

Graham and Brian Maginess who

4 not really equal to the task. No refere
to the incident appears in the O'
memoirs. Yet he does not hesita
denigrate his predecessor on the flim
evidence: his account of Lord Br
borough's resignation rests main
hearsay and conflicts sharply with
Brookeborough's cogent version of
same events.
Lord Brookeborough was the last Pr
Minister who had a firm and tradit
understanding of his responsibil
towards his party. When movem
began which threatened to make
Unionists look eccentric and unfit
government, he acted swiftly to supp
them. He performed wonders in restr
ing the wayward genius of Edm
Warnock who could have upset
existing party system to no g
O'Neillin
There is a school of thought, fostered now claims that he could not
advantage. In the late fortie
some universities, which insists that
stop to demolished
conciliate people because so much the case for dominion stat
intrigue is a thoroughly discreditable
precious time had been lost under
as his
put pre
forward in the Unionist Counc
business. In fact it is a fundamental
decessor. Lord Brookeborough, he says,
McCoy. He did not set his face ag
element in any political activity. O'Neill
achieved nothing of any value change:
after 1946
on the contrary no-one was m
plunged into intrigues with all the
whenenthus
he forced a pro-Catholicanxious
Education
to put the life of the province
iasm and lack of sophistication of a
bill through parliament in thesounder
teeth of
economic basis. (At the Min
character in a John Buchan thriller. ('Jim from his own party. of
opposition TheCommerce
myth in 1940-3 he had b
was able to hide behind his newspaper
of Ulster's wasted years has always formed faced by problems whic
constantly
while the flood-lights were turned on .part
a large . . of the case for O'Neill, and his
flected the dependence on a narrow r
mercifully he was not detected. latest revelations will be of
. . The taken by enterprises, and this stat
industrial
night before, however, we were everyone
nearlyto the left of Mr. Faulkner as
affairs worried him greatly). But a
scuppered"). He went to great confirmation
lengths to of what they already believe
all he sought to ensure that the gov
ensure that none of his Cabinet (and want to believe). It wouldment
colleagues of course
kept fairly closely in step wit
found out in advance about the Lemassto expect that O'Neill
be logical made a
predominant body of opinion in the p
meeting at Stormont. But more of fruitless attempts toout
pressing
number showof the
doors. Whatever the British
tasks, which called for the most
partycareful
where its duty lay between thethis is an extremely difficult
may say.
intrigue, were almost entirely neglected.
alleged onset of reactionary conservatism
which calls for quite unusual talents. M
O'Neill would have been well-advised
in 1946 toand his own succession in 1963.
over, it was bound to become the m
listen to leading moderates But like what
Jack O'Neill was actually doing
concern of a sensible and realistic P
Sayers who urged him to form a distinct
throughout much of that periodMinister
was sitting
like Lord Brookeborough
liberal group .in the Cabinet and party, at
quietly (quite
so Lord Brookeborough's properly) had little time
right
hand more
that his power might rest on a much as his second in command. In thein speculations about the pol
indulging
stable political basis. In practice the only
absence of presided
of the Prime Minister he the future, whose character none c
group which O'Neill ever mobilised
at Cabinet meetings with efficiency
foresee.and
In the United Kingdom succes
consisted of three extremelyconfidence,
able civil giving cause for complaint on have never taken it upon t
politicians
servants, Messrs. Malley. Black
onlyand
one occasion when he became
selves to sacrifice the present in the h
Bloomfield, any of whom in another
involved in a rather silly rowof
with Ivan glory a generation later.
winning
context could have played theNeill.
part No-one
of a saw in him the makings of a
A government which was exceptiona
Kissinger. These men were brilliant
closer toyoung liberal. He even neglected
responsive to Unionist feeling at the
O'Neill than any of his ministers,
toand took
lend a helping hand to the progressive
roots was bound to be receptiv
decisions on major questions of policy.
cause in time of grave crisis. The greatestfor change. In 1950 the me
pressure
challenge that Unionist liberals
Naturally this drift towards a presidential to had to
Unionist reformers was clear: all t
system of government wasface
greatly
during the Brookeborough
hadregime
to do was to go out and remoul
occurred
resented by members of the Cabinet who at the end of 1959 when the
outlook of the party at large. Ind
showed their disapproval by startingCommittee of the there
Standing Unionist
is no other obvious way of effec
intrigues of their own. The chief
Council and the Orange Order debated
transformations under a one-party go
complaint to be made against Mr.
the question of admitting Catholics
menttowithout
the losing that precious t
Faulkner as regards his conduct
party.after
In the end the right-wing scored a But in 1950 little use was
stability.
1963 is not that he conspired against
notable victory. Throughout ofthe
the con
favourable opportunities. O'N
O'Neill (that was inevitable), but that heO'Neill remained firmly
troversy in the
and liberalism had not yet discovered
failed to despatch a weak Prime shadows,
Minister leaving the brunt of the liberaland after 1963 a very differ
another,
once and for all before 1969. campaign to be borne by set Clarence
of conditions applied.

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 FORTNIGHT 9
We should not allow O'Neill's recent
aberrations to blind us to the close resemb
lences that once existed between him and
Lord Brookeborough. They shared a taste
for foreign travel. They both agreed that a
Labour government at Westminster was in
the best interests of Ulster. Brooke
borough preferred Attlee to Churchill,
who (he suspected) had never really
reconciled himself to the partition of
Ireland. O'Neill found Macmillan too
delphic, but immediately came under the
spell of Harold Wilson ('his public image
does not do justice to the real man',
according to the O'Neill memoirs). It was
probably O'Neill's one-sided relationship
with Wilson (who was hardly aware of its
existence) that caused him to depart from
the Brookeborough tradition in the
management of affairs. For instance, while
Brookeborough had spent much time
thinking of ways to increase the wealth
of the province, he always remained
conscious of the great problems that
seemed to have no solutions. O'Neill,
however, frequently spoke as if an
economic miracle lay just around the
corner. He came to accept Wilson's belief
that the essence of good government in
the 1960's lay in the creation of a rising
tide of prosperity (or growth, as it was
called in the jargon of the day). Once that
had been achieved other difficulties would
simply melt away. Thus, inequality (in
England) and bigotry (in Northern
Ireland) could be brought to end without
much direct assistance from politicians.
Charitable people will wish to
exonerate O'Neill, believing that he sac
rificed position and authority for the sake
of a cause. Liberal-minded historians are
particularly good at defending Prime
Ministers who split their parties on the
grounds that such acts of recklessness
require some special moral quality denied
to other politicians and lesser mortals. In
the case of O'Neill, however, one has to
ask whether he represented anything
worth suffering for. The issue is far from
clear. The more one searches for the firm,
tangible centre of O'Neill's programme
the harder it becomes to find. There was
no master-plan for Ulster, economic policy
apart. His liberalism consisted largely of a
number of well-publicised acts of
kindness. There were handshakes for
priests, and smiles all round. More
positive opportunities for doing good were
rejected, as in the case of local govern
ment reform which the O'Neill adminis
tration firmly refused to take up while it
retained freedom of action. His decline in
1968-9, and subsequent conversion to
radicalism, cannot be explained as the
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result of some long-standing committment
to restructure society. We must look
instead to his wholly admirable, if limited,
attempt to improve the atmosphere in
Ireland which went badly wrong because
the ground had not been properly
prepared.
It is a delusion to pretend that anything
significant can be achieved under a party
system without a firm basis of support in
OurManlnSberia
Tom Hadden
Tom Hadden, our managing editor, is on
an extended foreign tour of Russia, the
Far East and Melanesia. In this issue he
gives some personal impressions of his
journey through Russia on the Trans
Siberian Railway.
Most of us have got some outlandish
notion or other that we never quite get
round to. One of mine has always been the
Trans-Siberian Railway. Now that I have
done it?Moscow to Nakhodka (the civil
port for Vladivostock) in seven and a half
days of solid train?I have had to quietly
forget all those fond illusions about
pioneering and the hard wooden seats.
The train leaves every day, sometimes
twice a day, from both ends, and everyone
has a comfortable sleeping berth all the
way for a mere ?40 for the 5,000 miles all
in. Each train holds 500 or so, and is
packed out most of the way, so you can
work out for yourself how many people
make the journey each year. Besides my
grandfather did it more than fifty years
ago, and the trip to Peking?twice a week
now, but you can't get a visa?was de
rigeur for all the best Noel Coward
characters in the thirties.
When you get over the illusions,
though, it's as good a way of finding out
about Russia as any. Trains are where all
the serious political discussion in Russia
gets carried on. If you had time to read
any Tolstoi or Dostoievsky, which you
usually haven't, you would see that it has
always been that way. People talk to you
on trains in a way they never do in hotels
or aeroplanes. Perhaps it's the fact that un
dressing and dressing together?there is
no sex segregation?breaks down the
barriers. Perhaps, it's eating with all sorts
of people on the constant trips down to
the buffet car for a drink or a meal or just
a plate of soup. Or just the huge distances
with so little change in the scenery
(If any), and the constant supply of tea?
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cabinet and parliament. This is not to say
that O'Neill should have allowed the worst
elements in his party to dictate to him. It
means simply that power has to be
organized carefully before it can be used,
even if the purpose for which it is required
is not particularly adventurous or exciting.
That is the main lesson to be drawn from
the O'Neill tragedy as revealed in these
memoirs.
mostly free if you are a foreigner, though
in theory you pay three kopecks or about
lp a glass?from the carriage attendant.
Whatever it is, everyone talks. German is
the best medium when your Russian is a
bit thin with the older people, English
with the younger ones. And they talk
pretty frankly too. Not like the university
professor I had arranged an interview with
in Kiev, who sounded like a propaganda
a record right down to the Leninisms
on every imaginable subject. There is a
distinction between official and; unofficial
talk in Russia, and you get far more
official than unofficial. When I
complained about it to a student?on a
train of course?who was making the
usual point about saying one thing and
believing another in most university
courses, he simply made the comparison
with politicians in the West. Political talk
is just more pervasive in Russia. You soon
get used to it, he said. And you can always
get on a train and work off a little of the
frustration on your fellow travellers.
The impression you get from all this is
of a people quite happily living their lives
under a political system which they accept
in the same way we accept ours. There's
not a great deal you can do about it, so
you point out the good things and gripe a
little about the rest. The good things in
Russia are the equality, the health and
education services, the cultural activities,
cheap travel and the new consumer goods.
The bad things are the shortage of
housing, the restrictions on foreign travel
and the double talk.
The Westerner may have a different
view on some of these. The consumer
goods are a little lacking in choice, you
can buy most things in the shops now,
though a lot of the people in them still
seemed to be counter-shopping?just
drifting round the departments seeing
what there was on display?rather than