STATE OF INEFFICIENCY

When six counties were carved out of Ireland's north east in the nineteen twenties by the London government political, economic and social arrangements were made to ensure permanent British rule there. London insisted that the area must be held without question as a military base and to control the  economy of Ireland. The area had about one and a half million inhabitants. It had to be not only militarily and economically controlled but governed in such a way as to make it as little of a financial burden to London as possible.

Within the carved out area (six counties out of the historic Ulster nine) there were unionists who, having secured this base which they could rule for the foreseeable future and beyond, were willing to try to develop it  and give those in it a fair deal. However, these were too few and not influential enough to do it.  Forty years later a new generation of such liberal unionists  emerged with the same desire but a similar  lack of influence, such as the Young Unionists of the nineteen sixties and eventually the Alliance Party in the seventies.

Those who did have both  power and influence had different ideas, principally to keep and enlarge their power and control.  During the next decades the carved out area found itself the poorest  part of the British kingdom and  ungovernable. Why?

In their efforts to confine political and economic power firmly in a few hands they had built permanent inefficiency into the political system:

First :

1  One third of the population, the Catholics, they ruled out of future major political decision-making. This left only two  thirds of the area's future intellectual decision-making potential.  

Then :

2  From the  remaining two thirds they ruled out half, that is the women, thus   reducing the future intellectual potential for efficient political decision-making to one third of the population.

Then :

3   From that one third they gave preference to members of the British Army and others chosen for the strength of their  commitment to the Union.

Then :

4   The special status of the Masonic Order came strongly into play, that nothing in the Government of Ireland Act  would alter the rights and privileges of the Masonic Order; and police, who were forbidden by law to be members of secret societies could legally join the Masons .  Other "loyal" societies benefited from more informal agreement of the same kind.

So more than two thirds of the population were excluded from significant political decision-making  and special privileges were given to many of the rest. Thus future  inefficiency was carefully built into the political and economic system.  Failure was  bound to happen, in both government and standard of living. Keeping the system in place by force made natural development  impossible and the carved out area practically ungovernable. In time it found itself among the poorest areas of the United Kingdom.

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Now that talks are to begin in May about reasonable NI government it is interesting to  look at the above  historical arrangements and ask questions:

How much  progress has been made in allowing and developing the potential of women, of Catholics, of everyone? 

How far have we already moved away from those early restrictions on  our people's potential, away from the deliberately inbuilt inefficiency and refusal to recognise the abilities of most of the population?     

Are we at the beginning of a movement towards reasonable government, or already  further along  the road to it than we may think, with  the future (and possible) task of flushing the last deliberately created inefficiency out of our NI system?

What would have happened if London had encouraged what even its King  (George the Fifth) said he wanted, namely development built on shared desire and ability to work for prosperity and peace leading to a fresher and more productive political union?

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Footnote .  During exclusion from significant decision-making in NI  the Catholics were referred to as "The Minority". But they were never a minority. They were a majority in Ireland, a majority of practising Christians in England, majorities in France, Spain, Italy and many other places in the world. They were created  a minority in NE Ireland at much the same time as people of other nationalities and religions in other places were being separated and made into artificial minorities by other imperial powers. For similar reasons as in Ireland.

Curiously, Catholics accepted  this title of "minority" and took to referring to themselves as "The Minority".  A reason was  that some time , especially after World War 2 , there was so much talk about - and apparent sympathy for - unfairly treated minorities in the world that international help could  perhaps be invoked to do something about it in  Ireland.

It didn't work.

 Any anyway women could not refer to themselves as a minority anywhere. 

So the N Ireland situation kept on  getting worse, against a tide of demands for democracy to be painfully achieved only piece by piece.

From time to time a few of the people generally  excluded from the system would be appointed to significant positions. These were often seen as mere "tokens" .  Like the liberal unionists they had not enough numbers or influence to make much difference.