“Wee Joe Cairns is typical member of the Belfast…”

Wee Joe Cairns is a typical member of the Belfast City Hall Unionist Party. He is a well-to-do business man, owner of five shops, office premises and a big house on the wealthier part of the Antrim Road. He loves dressing-up in his ceremonial robes, and is always photographed wearing the Mayoral gold chain around his brass neck. On Monday week last, not many months after arriving back from an all-expenses-paid-frompublic-funds transatlantic holiday, he was driven round to the B.B.C. in the Rolls-Royce provided for him by the people of Belfast. There in comfort and at his convenience he recorded an appeal for money for the Lord Mayor's Coal Fund. The technicians in Broadcasting House were suitably amazed at the sight of a small man wearing such a ‘huge gold chain. The Appeal was broadcast last Sunday evening. In spite of the bad weather, the B.B.C. was picketed by 10 P.D. members, carrying placards such as ''Give pensioners their rights not charity" and ''Free Buses fof the over 65's". While there were few passers-by the event was well reported in tne next day's papers (but not mentioned by the B.B.C.!).

The P.D. objected not to the Coal Fund as such, but to the sheer barefaced affrontery of the Lord Mayor. Within weeks of presiding over a 50% increase for all, including many pensioners, the hypocrite Cairns was trying to recoup some of his lost prestige by exploiting the misery of some elderly people. It is commonly believed that pensioners get a concession on Belfast buses - and so they do, once they are over 70, five years after they have retired. Even then the concession is restricted to certain hours, and is subject to a means test. Instead of a once-a-year charity appeal,the Lord Mayor would be better recognising that old people have a right to decent housing, a reasonable standard of living, warmth, and incidentally, free travel.

Last year the Coal Fund collected £4,500; a similar sum could be raised by getting rid of the official car, or cancelling a few banquets for visiting dignitaries, and scrapping the Public Relations excerise on the Macrory report.

If the Cairns' appeal is anything more than a cheap gesture, let him call a special meeting of the council to propose free buses for all pensioners - and, at the same time, he could put a date on the implementation of the reduced fare for children.

The heroic Ulster Defence Regiment (remember it?) struggles vn manfully - if that's not too strong a word - to reach its official target of 6,000 officers and men.

But recruitment has been a gigantic flop. All those gut-stirring T.V. advertisements showing arthritic flat-feet panting to string two strands of barbed wire across a bog road near Cullybackey are a dead loss. Not even David Mahlowe's urgent staccato can bring movement to the manoeuvring.

Ian Gilmour, Minister of State for Defence at Westminster, had to admit in Parliament that after almost a full year of existence only 3,869 men (or 64% of the proposed total) had enrolled. Recruitment is deadly slow, despite a vetting system that goes out of its way to favour ex-B Specials and allied stormtrooper types. Of the 10,000 thugs in black, who rampaged with arms in August 1969, only 2,106 had joined the British-run Dad's Army by May 1970. (Are they afraid it's a trick to draft them for Vietnam?, It's the pace of recruitment that is slowly killing the U.D.R. On 1st May 1970 its 'strength' was 3,702, but seven months later on 20th November 1970 it had progressed to only 3,869, an increase of 167, a puny 43%. Catholics are getting out fast. In May there were 657 of them, making up 18% of the total. Now Gilmour admits that "Catholics