He Troops

This article, from an Ardoyne reader, was received last week, too late In the September issues of "Mining Magazine" there appears a very interesting article on "'N. Ireland Mineral Development" by H. E. WILSON of the ''Geological Survey of N. Ireland" ( a government financed body).

Wilson boasts of the "N.Ireland Mineral Development Act", as having no parallel in the U.K. , no wonder !| This act literally puts up for auction the Mineral Rights of N. Ireland, while providing compensation for landlowners or rather title or deed holders. No doubt of particular benefit to the Clarkes, Brooks and Earl of Shaftesbury Estates. So big a sell out was it, that Wilson remai‘ks "The Act has met with remarkably little opposition", the robbers being amazed at their own audacity and how easily they got away with it. One wonders what the so called called opposition M. P's. were doing to permit this legalised theft.

Wilson regrets that he cannot offer any prospective speculator, the same advantages that are to be found in Fianna Fails' capitalist Paradise, such as a '20 year tax holiday', which he thinks ‘would probably cover the life of most enterprises." It would entail a Westminister Act to enable this, and even the Tories aren't that stupid.

However, he does offer a 45% grant for machinery and plant for either Exploration or Extraction purposes. Plus of course a high unemployment rate ~ low wages.

The entrance fee to this bonanza which the poor capitalist will have to foot out, is the enormous sum of £100 per sqr. mile per year.

So a licence for the maximum 50 sqr. mile block, would cost £5,000 per year, ~ peanuts to any -large mining company. In addition exploration bore holes etc., will gain a Government grant.

A Newsletter” editorial recently estimated that it cost an aver~ Wage of £8,000 to establish one new job in N. Ireland. Thus on this reckoning, each prospecting com pany will create 5/8 of ajob, a fact which will surely gladden the hearts of the 15% plus unemployed for publication.

October, 1970.

British democracy, the British imperialists would have us believe, has spread truth and ~-2edom across the world. But last Sunday's papers gave an example of their truth. The same great propaganda machine that made ‘Mad Mich! a hero, and covered up the thousands of Egyptian dead in Cairo, has made heros of the men who so cruelly shot three young boys on Thursday 24th October and carefully covered up their outrageous actions over last weekend in Ardoyne. The papers told how some poor soldiers heroicly withstood riotious mobs of people, but they neglect to say why the people rioted. They do not tell of the three boys who were deliberately rioting began. Of course it wouldn't be cricket to tell, and some businessmen wouldn't like it if what really is happening in N.Ireland ever got to the British public.

the knowl edge that they will never responsibility of human feelings.

with the special armourment that disqualifies them from the human race, mindless, they are free to children.

The Irish working class have long been used to injustice at the AN ARDOYNE READER WRITES The riots referred to took place on the weekend of 30th and again.

shot by a British soldier before any The men who opt out of society to join the British army are safe in have to make a decision or bear the Safe in all their protective clothes, shoot and kill young unarmed boys , to gas old men, women and young hands of these kind of creatures, and their slimmy slick controllers such as Ted Heath, Taylor, Faulkner, and their kindred spirits south of the border. But are they so used to injustice that they are complacent to it and indeed court it by their inactivity to preven The workers of Ireland, all 32 counties of its religion-doped soil, have suffered all tvpes of injustice. In the north both Catholic and Protestant have suffered at the feet of the British army forces. They beat women on the Shankill and the Falls. On Friday 30th October they shot a tear gas cannister into a house in Ardoyne which set it on fire, and hosed everybody who rushed to aid the people in it; a young lad of 13 was carried choking and wet in his pajamas to another house, where the windows and doors had to be sealed to keep out the clouds of gas in the street. One old woman nearly died of a heart attack. Dozens were treated for shock. But this is nothing new. It has happened again ‘Innocent’= Claim Six men from Ardoyne are on trial for murder, they are all innocent. When their wives and relatives protested for the umpteenth time on Saturday they were battoned. Three boys from Ardoyne were shot; when their friends protested they were turned away, pushed around and finally provoked into a riot which the British troops hoped would cover up their own terrible act. The NICRA sit in the background and ask whether they should take to the streets. They hesitate, they say, because they wish to prevent further violence. But how more violent can our society be? How more vicious ?

Carpenters are being arrested for carrying nails, glazier for having putty knives, for freedom's sake it is time to act before we are all imprisoned for thinking. The barbarous and scandalous debasement of the men of Ardoyne on Saturday and Sunday lagt and the repressive laws in N.Ireland are all examples of the British Imperialists 'Freedom'.

If making men strip of their shirts, shoes and socks to be searched is an example of that 'freedom' then it is time the people took to the streets.

They would have nothing to lose but this 'freedom', which is chaining them to an existance that must be abhorent to any civilised race.

FREE CITIZEN 13th NOVEMBER 1970