Confidential report from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Nunan (Dublin)
'Mr. Anthony Eden's remarks about Partition'

I suppose that, from one point of view, Mr. Eden’s recent remarks about Partition in Belfast² – to which the Minister made so effective a rejoinder³ – were not surprising in the circumstances. After all, Mr. Eden is the prospective leader of the Conservative party (or, to give it its official name, the ‘National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations’); and no doubt when a person in that position visits such a stronghold of Unionism as Belfast, it is difficult for him to avoid saying something in endorsement of Unionist principles. The same consideration probably also explains the message sent to Lord Brookeborough from the Conservative Conference at Margate last autumn by Sir Winston Churchill, who has spoken to me on two occasions of his personal dislike of Six County Unionism.

2. Mr. Eden’s remarks are only surprising to me in the light of what he himself said to me two years ago (see confidential report of the 22nd January, 1952).⁴ He asked me on that occasion to let the Taoiseach know that he was committed to visiting Belfast; that he had incurred the commitment before the change of government; that he was anxious that the Taoiseach should not interpret his visit as an unfriendly initiative in relation to the Partition problem; and that he would try to avoid saying anything during the visit which would aggravate the Partition problem and worsen relations between the two countries. The visit which Mr. Eden intended making then had to be postponed twice owing to his illnesses and absences abroad. Now that he has made it, it is obviously difficult to reconcile his public observations in Belfast on the 2nd April with what he said privately to me two years ago.
3. No doubt part at least of the explanation of this lies in the change which has taken place in the surrounding circumstances in the meantime. Two years ago, the Unionists in the Six Counties seemed to be developing a new attitude, and to be trying to bring about a new atmosphere, in their relations with us. This was strikingly apparent in the speeches made by the Ulster Unionist members when the Foyle Fisheries Bill was before the House of Commons in December, 1951. Mr. Wellwood, MP,⁵ called the Bill ‘another example of that extraordinary understanding which exists between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland’ (Parl. Deb. v.494. no. 23 col. 2091). Professor Savory, MP,⁶ welcomed the Bill as ‘a very valuable contribution to the co-operation between Northern Ireland and the Republic’ and said ‘I certainly hope very much that it (i.e. the co-operation) will continue’. Mr. Montgomery Hyde, MP,⁷ said: ‘This is, I think, a promising experiment in joint Government, and it may well point the way to similar ventures between the two governments in future’. On behalf of the Labour Party, Mr. Chuter Ede⁸ had earlier welcomed the Bill as one which ‘steadily takes us along the road where in the end Irishmen, by agreement among Irishmen, will be responsible for Irish affairs’. The Ulster Unionist members who spoke later did not challenge this description and the tone of their speeches must have seemed to many to endorse it. Messrs. Wellwood, Savory or Hyde would hardly have the courage to speak today in the terms they used then. If they did, they would certainly incur the suspicion, if not the enmity of Mr. Norman Porter, Mr. Minford and the other Orange and Protestant extremists who are now attacking and challenging the leadership of the Ulster Unionist party in Belfast.
4. In a previous report of the 6th January,⁹ I suggested a theory with regard to recent developments in the Six Counties which still seems to me to offer the best explanation of the known facts. My belief is that on their assumption of office in 1951, the Conservative government – while enjoining on us the necessity of ‘wooing the North’ (as Mr. Churchill put it on several occasions in conversation with the Taoiseach and with me as well as in his address to the Overseas Press Club in Washington in January, 1952) – at the same time urged the government of the Six Counties to follow a policy based on the dual principle of ‘moderation’ in their treatment of the minority and in the use of Special Powers regulations, and of ‘co-operation’ with us in matters of common interest to Ireland as a whole. No doubt, the Six County people were given every assurance that the Conservative government fully accepted the pledge given by the Labour government that no constitutional change would be made without Stormont’s agreement; but it seems to me possible, and indeed likely, that these principles of ‘moderation’ and ‘co-operation’ were represented to the Six County people as being very important from the point of view of ensuring that the pledge given would continue to enjoy the support of public opinion both in Britain itself and throughout the Commonwealth.
5. As things have turned out, of course, the Orange and Protestant zeal of Lord Brookeborough, Mr. Brian Magennis and other members of the Six County government have now become suspect to their own Right Wing supporters. Politics in the Six County area have entered a new phase of which a struggle for power between the ‘moderate’ and ‘extremist’ wings of the Ulster Unionist party seems likely to be a major feature. >From our point of view, this struggle is probably best regarded as an inevitable stage in the evolution of events towards the restoration of national unity. In the meantime, however, the Right Wing revolt has brought about a big change in the previous atmosphere. It probably made it difficult for Mr. Eden to speak in Belfast without making the hackneyed references to Partition which, two years ago, he apparently intended to avoid. It is probably also responsible for the discernible contrast between the tone in which Ulster unionist members refer to the Twenty-Six counties nowadays and the amiable language they used when the Foyle Fisheries Bill was before Parliament in December, 1951.
6. Mr. Eden is virtually certain to be the next Prime Minister of England. From what I have seen and heard of him, I am inclined to think that he is not a friend of Ireland and that we are not likely to find him very sympathetic or easy to deal with on the Partition issue. Mr. Eden appears to have a sincere personal regard for the Taoiseach and frequently refers in conversation to his admiration for the Taoiseach’s work at the League of Nations before the war. But, so far as I have been able to discover, any feeling he has for Ireland stops there. In everything else affecting Ireland, he is just the ordinary Right Wing Tory – rather narrow, shallow-minded and self-righteous. He has nothing like the mental range of the present Prime Minister and there are grounds for believing that, unlike Sir Winston Churchill, he suffers from anti-Catholic prejudices.
7. This is certainly the opinion of the Spanish Ambassador¹⁰ here. He has had a good deal to do with the Foreign Secretary recently in connection not only with the proposed Royal visit to Gibraltar but with incidents arising from the Spanish Government’s treatment of Protestant religious establishments. In these interviews, Mr. Eden was apparently at little or no pains to conceal a strength of anti-Catholic and anti-Franco feeling which surprised and disconcerted the Ambassador. The Ambassador’s opinion of Mr. Eden’s attitude towards Catholicism is confirmed by Cardinal Griffin. The Cardinal told me that when he visited Rome on his appointment to Westminster, a certain very august person told him that he had found from his experience in the Secretariat of State that Mr. Eden was anything but objective in his attitude towards the Church and that evidence had come to his notice which left no room for any conclusion but that Mr. Eden had what is comparatively rare among Englishmen, namely, links with Continental Freemasonry!