December 30 1973
It is obvious from their statement that the leaders of the SDLP see no benefit resulting from a continuation of the rent and rates strike while they give a large and co-operative hand to the functioning of the Assembly Executive and in securing the benefits that are likely to flow from the setting up of a Council of Ireland.
The two-and-a-half-year-old strike began after the introduction of internment in 1971 and has cost the local authorities thousands of pounds in revenue, despite such manoeuvres as deducting monies owing from welfare and other social benefits.
The SDLP was asked to review its stand on the rent and rates strike at the recent annual conference. It has taken this as a mandate to call for the end to the strike.
We wonder how many people will heed this call which the SDLP, mindful of its stewardship and the serious obligation it now has to co-operate in shaping the future of the six-county area, now feels compelled to make?
Inevitably, there will be dissent from this call – no more vehement than from the people who were originally induced by political and other leaders to adopt this form of passive resistance to the Stormont Orange-Unionist regime. But the SDLP argument is based on its declared conviction that it was elected last June to negotiate the setting up of new institutions of government which would provide the basis of a fair and just society. “It would be inconsistent with participation in these institutions,” says the SDLP statement, “if we did not ask the people to participate as well”.
For its part, the SDLP can also claim that it has stood its ground against the violence of internment and the interruptions of normal life in Catholic areas by military excesses; just as it backed the rent and rates strike and the reasons behind it, in 1971. It has always abhorred violence from whatever source it comes. It believed at one stage that it could best make its point against Unionist iniquities and for the establishment of justice and equality by asking its members to withdraw from public office.
The scene has changed. New institutions have been established. The SDLP will be faced with similar decisions to this one in the months to come.
The party has reiterated its commitment on internment and betrays a confidence not many of the victims or their relatives will share that there is “a firm intention” by Mr Pym [Francis, Secretary of State] and his fellow British ministers “to phase out internment”.
A similar phrase was used by Mr Whitelaw [William, Pym’s predecessor] many months ago. The small number of releases from Long Kesh before Christmas could hardly be described as an earnest of this intention.
January 1 is the day on which the work of reform really begins and the SDLP will no doubt be anxious to prove that as the party widely representing the minority, it is determined to do this to the full and to guarantee their full share in government. There can be no quarrel with that.
They will be challenged from all sides on their sense of responsibility. The party, therefore, cannot support a rent and rates strike. As the leaders say, it is inconsistent with their policy of co-operation. But there will be plenty to scent danger from the eleventh-hour reduction in resistance to the oppressive methods which continued to be offered by security and other forces to the minority and minority areas.
It is too early yet to gauge the response to the SDLP call which, while it must bring satisfaction to Stormont Castle, will further divide the minority.
Irish News editorial highlighting the difficulties faced by the SDLP in calling for an end to the rent and rates strike without a firm commitment to an end to internment and with much uncertainty remaining about the Sunningdale power-sharing arrangements and the Council of Ireland.