Telegram from Sheila G. Murphy to Seán Nunan (Washington DC)¹
(No.78)

The results of the Six Counties elections could not have been otherwise. The area in which they took place was specifically designed by the British Tory Cabinet of 1920 to produce a permanent majority for the Tory Party in Northern Ireland. It was for that purpose that Ireland was partitioned; and that purpose has been fulfilled in this Election and in every election for twenty-eight years. No rivers, mountains, or lakes separate the Six Counties from the rest of Ireland, nor is there any racial, religious or economic distinguishing marks between the two areas. One basis only existed for partition and that was to take away from the rest of Ireland as large a territory as the concentration of Orange men in Belfast, Down and Antrim could outvote. Wholly Nationalist areas were included in the severed territory because numerically the block of Tory votes concentrated in two counties could overwhelm them. The result of the Elections is merely this process working itself out a generation later.

Because the triumph of the Tory party is certain from the beginning strange features show themselves in these elections. On Nomination Day between a half and a third of the House was elected without a vote being cast. This is traditional. Indeed the average number of candidates returned without contest in the last four General Elections is 27 or more than half the House. This would mean in America that something like 200 Congressmen would be returned without a fight ? the absurdity of the idea illustrates the nature of 'democracy' in the Six Counties. In the present elections there was only one contest in the whole of Antrim which contains a sixth of the entire population of the area. The parallel is that in an area with a population of 23,000,000 Americans every representative but one got his seat without opposition. There were no contests in six of the sixteen seats in Belfast. That too is traditional. There are nine electoral divisions in the Six Counties that have not seen a contested election for over twenty years; in six others there was only one contest in the same period. The explanation is that the elaborate precautions taken to ensure a Tory victory every time has led to the lack of any real vigour in the public life of the area.

To make assurance doubly sure the Tory party does not rely on its permanent majority to win. It has so altered the boundaries of constituencies as to confine the Opposition and compel them to waste their votes in a few huge majorities while they themselves secure the contiguous constituencies with small majorities. Fermanagh is the outstanding example of this where the Nationalists, the majority, got one seat in this election and Tories, the minority got two. This process of elaborate manipulation with constituency boundaries covers the whole area and makes a Tory vote much more effective (in some cases twice as effective) as an Opposition one.

On top of this gerrymandering, there was in this election a second major trick played on the electorate. An out of date register was deliberately used:

'When Sir Basil Brooke' says the Manchester Guardian 'rushes a general election in Northern Ireland on the partition issue and prefers a stale register three years old to the new one that will be available on April 1st he is indulging in a pure party manoeuvre. There is no serious partition issue that calls for an election in February rather than in April'.

The use of this outdated register had the effect of debarring everybody who came of age since January 31st, 1946, thus disfranchising mainly the young and generously-minded voter. The British Labour Party Representative in the area, Mr. Arthur Johnston, said on January 21:

'It is my considered opinion that the effective strength of this register will be sixty per cent and no more.'

By arranging to keep forty per cent of the voters from the polls the Tory party planned to increase the relative strength of its own vote. It attempted this in another way also. It spread the fear that the civic, religious and economic liberties of its followers were in imminent danger from 'invaders' and so inflamed their passions that many Opposition meetings have had to be suspended and candidates were seriously injured by such missiles as oranges studded with razor blades.

As a result of gerrymandering, defective voting lists, organised violence, the General Elections in the Six Counties have been made the opposite to democratic. The effect is that there has, on this occasion as on others been no real consultation with the people. The average total poll in the last four general elections (1929, 33, 38, 45) had been 284,919. Of this the Government got 145,801 and the Opposition groups 139,118. Even if all the Official and Unofficial Tory candidates be lumped together the Government or pro-partitionist poll is brought only to above 200,000 which is merely a fourth of the registered voters of the Six Counties, a twelfth of the registered voters of the whole of Ireland, and a twentieth of the Irish population.

Thus the Six County Elections are no democratic test in which a people can change its Government. They are merely a machine for returning, by a handful of votes, a party that has been in office for twenty-eight years ruling an area created by a British Tory Cabinet to give them this permanent grip on government.