August 4 1925
SIGNS are not wanting, at the present time, of a certain nervousness regarding the Boundary question on the part of the members of the Northern Government. Ministers have been touring the Border districts, and there has been a good deal of that mutual admiration and “patting on the back” with which we are so familiar, and which would be merely amusing but for the fact that this continual hood-winking of the public is not entirely devoid of tragedy.
The Unionist Press has published the usual fulsome reports of these visits, in accordance with its policy of misleading the world in general as to the attitude of the Border people, and we read of the “enthusiastic receptions” accorded the Ministers and others, and of the “solid support for the Government”, the “unshakeable determination to keep the Six Counties territory inviolate”, and so forth.
All this sudden interest in the Boundary Commission, on the part of those whose interest it is to keep North and South apart, is in interesting contrast to the lordly indifference exhibited by the Government while the Commission was at work collecting evidence, and hardly seems consistent with its former attitude of refusing to recognise the Commission at all – an attitude which was proclaimed from Press and platform with a considerable amount of bombastic and fiery consequence. In view of the impending Report of the Commission, this volte face on the part of prominent Craigites appears distinctly like a sign of weakness, and a tacit admission that the rapidly waning confidence of the Ulster people in its inefficient Government is clearly recognised.
Unfortunately, however, despite the daily increasing evidence that the Government no longer truly represent the great body of sane men and women in the Six Counties, the merry game of misleading the public of England, America, and elsewhere, goes on unchecked thanks to the extensive and persistent propaganda of our Government organisations, which pursue their course with a thoroughness worthy of a more righteous cause. Doubtless the extraordinary misconceptions about Ireland existing across the water owe their prevalence to this continuous stream of one-sided “news”, reproduced in cross-Channel journals to the exclusion of the actual truth, which could so easily be ascertained by anyone desirous of learning it.
Irish News report claiming that the Northern government’s sudden interest in commenting on the Boundary Commission was a sign of worry, when in reality, through reports it received from one of the Commissioners Joseph R Fisher, it was increasingly less worried about the outcome, knowing there would only be slight rectifications to the border.