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International Socialism, April-June 1972

Paul Gerhardt

The Six Counties: A Factual Survey

From International Socialism (1st series), No.51, April-June 1972, pp.18-22.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

The Decline of Traditional Industries

The main areas of employment in Northern Ireland have traditionally been shipbuilding, linen, and agriculture. Since the war there has been a dramatic decline in these sectors:

These three have accounted for the loss of over 6,000 jobs a year since 1949. [1] In agriculture alone the average rate has been 3,500 a year. [2] British economic trends encouraged this process. Each Tory credit squeeze in the 1950s reduced employment in Northern Ireland. When English unemployment was raised by 1 per cent in 1951-52 it went up by 6 per cent in Northern Ireland and by 4 per cent in 1957-58. With the British economic crisis of 1966 unemployment was raised by 12,000 in Northern Ireland and two major factories in Derry closed. [3] Agricultural unemployment has provided the momentum behind this decline.
 

Agriculture

Over 10 per cent still work on the land – the biggest employer in Northern Ireland. There is almost no tenant farming, 96 per cent own their own land. The Land Purchase Acts (1870-1925) enabled tenants to buy the land they farmed with the aid of loans by the government. Fifty years later most of these loans are still being repaid. [4] Of the 20,000 full-time farms only one sixth are capable of providing employment for two or more men. The farmers depend almost entirely on government subsidies for their revenue. [5] In England this subsidy usually accounts for only one half of a farmer’s income. Of the £150m worth of farm products produced each year, goods to the value of £105m go to Great Britain. [6] Entry to the EEC will bring about an end to the subsidy, with little compensation. Only beef and grain producers stand to gain from entry into the wider market, most of the farms in Northern Ireland are producing pigs, eggs and milk. There are slightly more Protestant than Catholic farmers (51 per cent to 49 per cent), but a higher proportion of Catholics work on the land (15 per cent to 11 per cent). Protestants tend to farm the better land and are buying up the small farms. Catholics either leave the land altogether or tend to be the poorer farmers. (See table below)

Class Structure of Two Rural Areas in Co. Fermanagh (1962) [7]
Approx. % of heads of families classified as			Catholic	Protestant
Upper Class			0	18
Large Farmers		in proportion to size of county	13	20
Medium Farmers			22	30
Small Farmers			34	17
Labourers			22	8
Miscellaneous			9	7
			100	100

The ‘Growth’ Areas – Jobs for the Boys

Government policy has arrested the decline in the other sectors. Shipbuilding (Harland and Woolf, Belfast) appears to have stabilised with 10,000 employees. Of these only a few hundred are Catholic. In 1970 Harland and Woolf made a loss of £3.8m but with enormous government loans, and orders from Shell, it is secure until 1975.

The textile industry is another stronghold of Protestant employment. Linen, the ‘traditional’ Ulster industry, accounted for 91 per cent of textile employment in 1949. [8] Today it only accounts for 50 per cent. The industry has diversified into capital intensive synthetic fibres (Dupont, Monsanto, Enkalon etc.) which accounts for another 20,000 jobs. The real growth areas in the economy are construction (10 per cent of employment) and services including those hi public administration (40 per cent). Employment in service ‘industries’ increased by 13,000 between 1964 and 1969 alone. These jobs are only for those ‘loyal to the state’. Employment by the government and local authorities has offset the effect on the Protestant community of the decline in the traditional industries. Public employment therefore plays a crucial role in maintaining Unionism.
 

Job Discrimination

12 per cent of Northern Ireland’s local government staff are Catholic. ‘The exercise of patronage is made easier by the custom of expecting personal canvassing of the council or of its committee before appointments are made.’ [9] The following are all predominately Catholic areas:

• Dungannon – no Catholics employed by the council
• Armagh – 8 Catholics out of 20 county council clerical employees
• Fermanagh – 32 out of 370 posts. No senior posts held by Catholics. ‘This was rationalised by reference to "proven loyalty" as a necessary test for local authority appointments’. [10 ]
• Derry – Catholic employees netted only 26 per cent of the total salary bill. Catholics held only 30 per cent of the bus driving or refuse collecting jobs. [11]

Firms take their cue from Unionist policy. The pattern tends to be either complete discrimination, the employment of Catholics only in the lower paid jobs, or segregation by departments. An example of the latter is dock labour: cross channel traffic is handled by the Protestant Amalgamated T&GWU; ‘deep sea’ traffic is handled by members of the Catholic Irish T&GWU. [12]
 

East and West of the River Bann

The Unionist government’s policy of arresting the decline in shipbuilding, engineering and textiles, and encouraging the rationalisation of agriculture by clearing large numbers of fanners from their land should be seen as part of the discrimination in economic development programmes between the Belfast region and the provinces to the South and West. The most neglected areas are Derry Co., Tyrone Co., and Fermanagh Co. (The latter two with Catholic majorities.) Unemployment is far higher in the West (see below) and the resulting internal migration from West to East (see below) helps to preserve Unionist control in the Western counties. The Matthew Report (1963), accepted by the government, recommended only the planned development of the Belfast region. The Benson Report (1963) on the railways recommended that most of the lines be closed, including the two major lines connecting Derry with Belfast. The government accepted the recommendations but hesitated to close both lines. It closed the Southern line which connects Derry with Strabane, Omagh and Portadown as well as Belfast, in 1965. It is proposed to close the Northern line (through Coleraine) as soon as the ‘near motorway standard’ road to Derry from Belfast is completed. In 1965 the Lockwood Committee recommended that the New University of Ulster should be sited at the northern (Protestant) town of Coleraine. Derry City had possessed the Magee University College for over 100 years. It had confidently been expected to be elevated to University status. The decision caused an outcry by both Catholics and Protestants in Derry. The university is one of the very few unsegregated institutions in Northern Ireland, and the Unionist Party could not tolerate the critical products of that institution in an area like Derry. Of the 111 factories which the government owned and the Ministry of Commerce had built up to 1964 only 16 (one in seven) had been sited in the underdeveloped areas of the West. [13] In 1965 the Wilson Committee reported to the Stormont government on the economic development of Northern Ireland. The government accepted its recommendations that only the Belfast region, including Antrim and north Down, were worth developing. These were already the most prosperous areas in Northern Ireland. Wilson recommended a new city of 100,000 in the Lurgan/Portadown area (both with Protestant majorities). Beside the new city of Craigavon the mainly Protestant towns of Antrim and Ballymena, Bangor and Newtownards, and Larne and Carrickfergus were selected as ‘growth’ centres. Antrim and Ballymena have since been projected as a single industrial complex. £40m is to be invested in the area this year. A similar area plan has been prepared for the Coleraine, Portrush and Portstewart regional triangle.

Pressures on the government to diversify its development programmes has produced a 1968 plan for Derry, and a five year development programme – published in 1970. In 1970 the Belfast urban area has already reached the 1981 population target of 600,000. Craigavon, the new town, was not growing as fast as had been expected. The main point of the Development Programme announced an ‘extension’ of the range of incentives to industry, with capital grants ranging from 45 per cent to 60 per cent of the cost.

The costs have continued to rise. In the year ending March 1969, the cost of creating a single new job under the Industrial Development Act was £1,670, far higher than for any other region in the United Kingdom. [14] Beside the capital grants scheme (20 per cent for new plant and machinery, 35 per cent, for new buildings), industry in Northern Ireland takes advantage of the industrial derating of 75 per cent. This is an annual saving of £3m for industry. There also exists a £lm industrial fuel subsidy toward the cost of coal, gas, electricity etc.

In June 1967, Brian Faulkner, then the Minister of Commerce, replied to the charge of regional discrimination. He pointed out that since the war the government had spent £20m on industry in Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry and provided 9,000 jobs. But since 1945 the government has spent more than £250m on aids, inducements and grants to industry. Money spent on the western three counties therefore amounts to less than 10 per cent of the total.
 

Catholic Middle Class Exclusion

Catholics of ‘professional’ status are denied any effective influence in the machinery of the administration. This was the composition of certain public boards in 1969: [15]

The Civil Service of Northern Ireland, with over 8,000 permanent and temporary staff, is 94 per cent Protestant. There are no Catholics in the Ministries of Home Affairs, or Labour, with the rank of Principal or higher. [16]
 

Trade Unions

There are 250,000 trade union members in Northern Ireland. Over 80 per cent (213,262) are members of British based unions. These are mainly Protestants and 40 per cent of them belong to the Amalgamated T&GWU. Only 5,000 are members of unions with their headquarters in Northern Ireland, i.e. the Transport and Allied Operatives Union and the Civil Service Association. 15,308 workers belong to unions based in the Republic – mainly in the Irish T&GWU. Under the Trades Disputes and Trade Unions Act (Northern Ireland) of 1927, trade unionists must ‘contract in’ in order to pay a political levy. The adoption of British trade union legislation has depended upon the degree to which it may weaken the relationship between the Unionist government and the Protestant working class. The Industrial Relations Bill has not been introduced because of ‘a fear that these working class ties might be weakened.’ [17] Instead continuing discussions are taking place between the government, the CBI and the Northern Committee of Irish Trade Union Congress on the future of ‘industrial relations’ in the province. All unions operating in the North are represented in the Northern Committee of the ITUC. The committee receives a ‘grant’ of £10,000 a year from Stormont. [18] Ulster’s union members ‘benefit from nationally negotiated wage settlements, though their average weekly earnings are about 20 per cent below those in the rest of the United Kingdom’. [19]
 

Local Unionist Rule

For fifty years the Protestant vote in local council elections over the whole of Northern Ireland has been worth approximately twice that of the Catholic and non-Unionist vote. Beside the infamous Company Vote (which enabled the Unionists to hold Armagh UDC) the local government franchise was ‘available only to occupiers of dwelling houses and their spouses, which excluded sub-tenants, lodgers, servants and children over 21 who were living at home’.2 [20] If the limited franchise (based on high rateable values) did not insure Unionist control then ward boundaries were manipulated. Derry County Borough was the classic example:

Derry boundaries have beeen changed many times to accommodate a growing Catholic population and preserve a Protestant majority (1896, 1919, 1922, 1936 etc.). The technique has always been to force up the Catholic majority in South Ward (which includes the Bogside). In November 1968 the Catholic Registration Association declared that the majority in South Ward had moved up to 13,023.

In November 1968 Stormont was forced to suspend the Derry Council, and in April 1969 the Londonderry Development Commission was appointed for the whole County. The Unionist government appointed 5 Protestants and 4 Catholics to the Commission, over which the people of Derry have no electoral control. [21] In the same year the administrative departments of the old County Council were moved to Coleraine. All local electoral rights have been suspended since the beginning of the Civil Rights campaign. Lurgan RDC’s powers have been transferred to the government appointed Craigavon Development Commission (1 Catholic, 9 Protestants), and the Antrim/Ballymena Development Commission was set up in 1967. Stormont accepted a reorganisation of local government in 1970. 26 districts are to replace the 66 local authorities with a wider franchise but with reduced powers. The drawing up of new boundaries and the first new elections were postponed until November 1972. It is thought that they will be postponed yet again.
 

Housing

40 per cent of Ulster’s houses are over 80 years old. (British rate: 25 per cent) 60 per cent are pre-war. 10.3 per cent are officially classified as ‘overcrowded’. (British rate: 3.8 per cent). [22] 25 per cent have no toilets. 50 per cent have no baths or hot water and 20 per cent lack even a cold water tap. [23]

This is the situation after a massive post-war housing development Of the 440,000 dwellings in Northern Ireland. 175,800 have been built since the war. The responsibility for building and allocating these has, up to now, been that of the local council. In Fermanagh, of the 1,589 County Council houses built since the war to 1969, 1,021 went to Protestants and 568 to Catholic families, in a predominately Catholic area. [24] In 1967 Derry Council collected £½m in rates but did not build a single house. [25] Nationally there are high subsidies for owner-occupiers but no rate rebates for poor households, and no rent subsidies for the private tenant [26] The Northern Ireland Housing Trust, which has been dismissed, did not ‘accept applicants whose income is so low that the high rents of post-war property would be an unreasonable burden’. [27]
 

Education

‘It is said that, in regard to youth, the Catholic Bishops are afraid. They are ... they fear the circumstances that breed indifference and indiscipline’.
Archbishop of Dublin on educational integration in Northern Ireland, 1961.

April 1970: the Unionist Party annual conference carried a resolution urging the immediate integration of all schools. The Minister tor Education (Capt. Long) described the idea as ‘impracticable’.

Education has always been segregated in Northern Ireland. The 492 ‘Voluntary’ schools are almost entirely Catholic. The Government’s view has always been that private Catholic education ‘could ultimately destroy Northern Ireland as a distinct political unity’ [28], and therefore they have received only the teachers’ salary and 65 per cent of their running costs. More financial assistance was available for those Catholic schools which allowed one third representation on their committees from the local education authorities (‘two-and-four’ schools). Since the passing of the 1947 Education Act the Catholic community has contributed over £20m (in 1968 currency) towards the erection and maintenance of their schools – besides contributing to Protestant schools out of their rates. [29] Only 27 per cent of the children at grammar schools are Catholic. (The Catholic/Protestant school attendance ratio is 41:59.) [30]

Unionism therefore spends the bulk of the £80m education budget on its state schools. Beside the usual categories of education the government runs ‘grammar school preparatory departments’ which receive grants from the Ministry, charge fees, and offer an ‘alternative’ to ‘the primary schools. [31] An education bill of 1968 proposed to raise the grant of Voluntary Schools to 80 per cent of costs, providing they allowed ‘two-and-four’ committees and thereby became irreversibly ‘maintained’, ie they coud not withdraw from the state influenced sector. The Catholic Church forced a compromise whereby any reversal in status meant a repayment of the 15 per cent extra that had been paid. The Act was inspired by a Catholic request for higher grants and many Voluntary Schools have been forced, since 1968, to transfer to ‘maintained’ status thereby receiving 80 per cent grants. Comprehensive education means less in Northern Ireland than it does in Britain. The most that has been accomplished is the building of segregated comprehensive schools next to each other, as in Craigavon.

Unsegregated university education is therefore significant in Ulster. 6,000 attend the Queens University of Belfast and another 2,000 study at the New University of Ulster at Coleraine (which includes Magee College at Londonderry). Bui teacher training is segregated between the state controlled Stranmillis College and St. Mary, and St. Josephs for Catholics. Prospective teachers have to canvas members of management committees and education authorities for posts, even in areas like Derry and Belfast. [32]
 

Health

Since the war there has been a ‘step by step’ policy of maintaining general parity with Britain on the standard of social services. That this policy has been followed reluctantly was shown in 1956 when the Minister of Labour and National Insurance attempted to dispose family allowances so that smaller (Protestant) families benefitted and larger (Catholic) families were penalised. The Unionist government gave way under pressure from Westminster.

But regional ‘variation’ nevertheless exists. Northern Ireland’s health is controlled by the Hospitals Authority and the General Health Services Board (for membership see above). The former is the largest public employer in Ulster, and of its 387 specialist doctors in 1967 only 31 were Catholics. [33] Unlike health boards in Britain the GHSB has power to control the admissions to vacancies in general medical practice, the work carried out by dental estimates committees, and the drug pricing bureaux. The members of the two authorities are unpaid and consist of ‘laymen and representatives of relevant professions appointed by the Minister’. [34] And yet there is no Ministerial control over the way they carry out their duties or the method in which they allocate their funds.

There is nevertheless great contrast with social welfare in the Republic. The North spends twice as much per head of the population, on combined social services, as the South. [35] Mr. Brennan, the Republic’s Minister for Social Welfare, has admitted that parity with the North would cost the 26 counties at least another £50m a year. [36]
 

The Unionist State

The central power of the Unionist Party is the Standing Committee of Ulster Unionism composed of 2 delegates from each of the 51 constituency associations, the Stormont and Westminster MP’s, Senators, and official representatives from the Orange County Grand Lodges, the Apprentice Boys of Derry, the Ulster Unionist Labour Association, the Association of Loyal Orangewomen and other affiliated bodies. The vast majority are in fact members of the Orange Order or similar bodies. Because there is more than one Protestant religion (Presbyterianism, Church of Ireland etc.), the Order serves to maintain ‘a warm and united spirit among Protestant brethren from all social classes’. [37] All members of the government are members of the Order.

Almost all judges in Northern Ireland are ex-Unionist politicians, appointed as a reward for their political service. All Crown solicitors are Protestants and the jury system is based on property ownership. [38]

The judiciary has at its disposal wide-ranging repressive legislation. Beside the infamous Special Powers Act (1922) there exists the Emergency Powers Act (1926) under which the Governor may proclaim a state of emergency ‘whereafter the government can make whatever regulations it deems necessary’; and the Public Order Act (1951) which is based on the British 1936 Act but includes the power to arrest without warrant ‘on reasonable suspicion’. The 1970 Amendment deals with ‘the problems of counter-demonstration’ while allowing the original demonstration to continue. The Flags and Emblems (Display) Act (1954) protects the Union Jack by making it an offence to interfere with its display. Any other emblem may be confiscated by the police ‘if they apprehend that there may be a breach of the peace.’ The prison population is rising. Not including internees (500 plus) the number in prison in Northern Ireland has doubled in the last four years to 800. [39]

The RUC has a force of 4,000 to implement the law, with a reserve of 700. The B Specials have been replaced with the Ulster Defence Regiment, a part-time body ‘designed to play a support role to the army’. [40] Commanded by a regular army brigadier, well over half the force are ex-B Specials. Protestants have been joining at the rate of 200 a week and have reduced the original Catholic proportion from 16 per cent to 8 per cent. [41] There ate 102,000 licensed guns in Ulster, almost all of them owned by Protestants. The 15,000 troops of the British Army in Northern Ireland are in 16 battalions, nine of which are stationed in Belfast.
 

Financing Unionism

In 15 years the public subsidy from Westminster to the Unionist government has more than doubled. In the early 1960s it was approximately £45m. For 1971-2 it must have approached the figure of £130m however it is calculated (the exact amount is concealed). This figure includes £10m in social service and £30m in agricultural subsidies. Indications are that the figure has reached a peak. In spite of this up to 1969 Northern Ireland was still running a large trade surplus with Britain (£45m) worth of exports over imports. The trade balance continues to rise with 75 per cent the value of imports, and 90 per cent the value of exports, with or via Britain. Trade with the Republic runs at a deficit however. In 1968 the North’s exports totalled £19.9m while imports from the South totalled £42.9m.
 

Unemployment and Resistance

Unionism has forced Catholics (approximately 40 per cent of the total population) to move from west to east, or to emigrate, in sufficient numbers to protect Protestant supremacy. Catholic resistance has produced a reversal in the trend and a challenge to its politics.

Emigration has usually offset the higher Catholic birth rate (giving Ulster the highest birth rate of any region in the UK). Between 1951 and 1961 51,000 Catholics and 41,000 Protestants emigrated. One third of the population accounted for over one half of the emigration, representing a 9 per cent loss for the Catholic community and a 4 per cent loss for the Protestants. [42] From 1961 to 1966 a total of 7,000 emigrated each year, a drop of 3,000 in the yearly average. [43] But in 1971 only 2,000 people emigrated from Northern Ireland. [44] The government estimate of a total population of 1,700,000 in 1981 will be a gross underestimation if this trend continues. It will still take at least 40 years before Catholic outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland, but Unionism will not find it easy to reconcile its followers with a dramatically increasing Catholic growth rate. Furthermore, the mainly Catholic counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone have arrested their depopulation rate or reversed it.

The reason is not purely one of internal resistance to Unionism. Recession in the British economy and a lowering of the US immigration quota have assisted the trend. The result is a greater number of anti-Unionist unemployed. More and more of these are skilled. ‘A few years ago only 16 per cent of male school-leavers had the chance of an apprenticeship. Today the figure is 40 per cent.’ [45] Government training centres are putting 3,000 workers a year onto the market. Between 1964 and 1970 5,500 young people each year have sought work in Northern Ireland. It is assumed in the five year plan that this will rise to at least 6,000. The regional variation in unemployment is dramatic. The rate in Strabane, Newry, Enniskillen or Derry is at least three to four times greater than in Portadown, Lisburn, Larne or Belfast (8 per cent in January). In Belfast 70 per cent of unemployed juveniles are Catholics.

The cost to the state is rising, At least 24 firms, employing 6,000 are in ‘serious financial trouble as a direct result of the IRA campaign’. [46] Since internment 70 firms have suffered damage, 10 have not resumed production, and over £12m

has been claimed in compensation for damaged property. Industry has had to pay for higher insurance and tighter security measures. The government has been recommended to set up a finance corporation to offer loans to companies faced with closure of contraction. Tourism was worth £28m p.a. until ‘considerable damage’ was sustained. The revenue has dropped by at least 20 per cent since 1968. [47] The Ministry of Development has declared that ‘only’ 24,500 households are on rate and rent strikes. The real figure is certainly higher. This means that 20 per cent of Ulster’s total public housing, stock is affected, mainly concentrated in Newry, Strabane, Derry, Dungannon and Belfast. Through the Debt (Emergency Provisions) Act 1971 rent may be deducted from all 16 categories of state benefit. A new government department has had to be set up to work (overtime) on collecting the penalised benefit, which mainly hits the old, the poor, and the sick. Rent has been lost at the rate of £240,000 a month since internment began. Local administration in Catholic areas has almost entirely detached itself from Stormont although, as in Newry and Strabane, the state has ‘taken over’ local government. But the Stormont government is no longer recognised by anti-Unionists in Northern Ireland.

 
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References

1. Economist, 29.5.71.

2. D. Scott and M. Blades, What Price Northern Ireland?, Fabian pamphlet, November 1970.

3. Andrew Boyd, The Two Ireland’s, Fabian Research series 269, May 1968.

4. Ulster Year Book 1971.

5. Scott and Blades.

6. Facts at your Fingertips, Government Information Service, Stormont, June 1971.

7. D.P. Barritt and C.F. Carter, The Northern Ireland Problem, OUP, 1962, p.55.

8. Scott and Blades.

9. Barritt and Carter, p.99.

10. The Cameron Report, HMSO, Belfast 1969, p.59.

11. Newsletter 8, Campaign For Social Justice.

12. Barritt and Carter, p.103.

13. Andrew Boyd and John Ireland, The New Partition of Ireland, 1968.

14. Scott and Blades.

15. M. Wallace, Northern Ireland, Fifty Years of Self-Government, 1971 p.116.

16. Barritt and Carter, p.98.

17. Economist, 29.5.71.

18. Tribune, 18.12.70.

19. Economist, 29.5.71.

20. Cameron Report, p.62.

21. Daily Telegraph, 3.2.69.

22. Boyd.

23. Michael Farrell, Struggle in the North.

24. Liam de Paor, Divided Ulster, 1970 p.156.

25. Daily Telegraph, 24.1.69.

26. Times, 4.1.72.

27. Barritt and Carter p.112.

28. R.J. Lawrence, The Government of Northern Ireland, 1965 p.120.

29. Wallace, p.111.

30. Barritt and Carter, p.77.

31. Lawrence, p.124.

32. Lawrence, p.119.

33. Wallace, p.115.

34. Lawrence, p.130.

35. C.F.S.J. Newsletter 12.

36. Dáil Éireann, 2.11.71.

37. Barritt and Carter, p.46.

38. C.F.S.J. Newsletter 10.

39. Digest of Statistics, (MI) 36, 1971.

40. Economist, 12.6.71.

41. Observer, 12.12.71.

42. Barritt and Carter, p.107.

43. Scott and Blades.

44. Economist, 15.1.72.

45. Facts at Your Fingertips.

46. Economist, 18.12.72.

47. Northern Ireland Economic Report on 1970, HMSO Belfast.

 
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