“people in Northern Ireland to attain the standard of…”

people in Northern Ireland to attain the standard of living that people in. Britain today enjoy. This was just one of the more startling pieces of information given by the new Professor of Economics at Queens, Norman Cuthbert, in his inaugural lecture.

Professor Cuthbert was reviewing developments over the past 20 years and on past trends estimating the state of the economy in 1990. Since 1950, more than one-third of the jobs then existing in manufacturing have disappeared. Despite government policies to attract new industries manufacturing employment has actually FALLEN by 6% in the last 20 years.

The natural increase in the population since 1950 was 301,000 of whom more than half, no less than 157,000, have had to emigrate. Total employment has increased by a paltry 14,000, unemployment has risen by 9,000. Average earnings have remained throughout the period more than one-quarter less than those in Britain.

Professor Cuthbert was co-author, 13 years ago, of a voluminous work, The Northern Ireland Economy, this monumental work was sponsored by the Government, and as Cuthbert ‘explained in his lecture the government then made clear to him "that policy recommendations would be quite unwelcome”.

The facts that Cuthbert and his ilk unearthed about the past and present are quite enough to convince us that present policies and the present regime are rotten. One might have hoped that Cuthbert would have used his inaugural lecture to make policy recommendations, or failing that, stuck to the analysis of past disaster and present failure. Not so, he chose to devote the second half of cord of misery to the future.

In his outline for the future to 1990, he assumed that emigration would re main as at present, he assumed government policies would remain the same, he concluded that the lowest "realistic" level for unemployment in this period would be 5%. Never at any stage did he suggest that these rates of emigration or unemployment would prove unaccep> table, or that there were alternative economic policies which could mean a far better future for all. Under the veil of academic competence he justified the status quo.

The bankruptcy of his arguments was well revealed in his closing remarks. He had "insulated his mind" against all other types of social “study such as political science or sociology. Thus his arguments depended on the assumption that there would be no more 'trouble'.

Here we find an "insulated mind" which has much in common with the architects of the Matthew Plan. They said that the basic cause of trouble was economic failure, and they went on to say that we would fail economically if there was trouble.

Queen's Economics Department has, of course, been closely associated with Government Economic Policy. Professor Cuthbert's predecessor Professor Parkinson was on the Government Economic Council. As a result of the bogus 'academic' approach they have in common, we have to suffer. They would be of more use to Northern Ireland if they used their closed minds to play chess in the dark.

Meanwhile the least we can do is to use the facts they play around with as convincing evidence of the relevance of a socialist programme for Ireland.

LETTER Dear Sir, When are the abuses of so-called justice in this country going to stop?

A recent remark passed by Mr. Justice Scarman saying that even a judge can be influenced by the facts of a case, seems to be the focal point in the case I am about to put to you.

The victim (he could not be classed as anything else) is John Kelly, aged 22 years. a married man with three small ch ldren and a pregnant wife. He was charged with having 16 rounds of ammunition in July of this year. It took a jury only 10 minutes to convict this man, 1d to take five years off his life. Ten minutes seems to me scarely long enough for any jury to consider a case intelligently.

Was this man given five years because he dared to say that a member of the British Army had planted the bullets? His house had been thoroughly searched by the Army and cleared, yet he and two other men were forced to stand outside and, lo and behold, a soldier appeared with what he said were bullets (even though the defendant was not shown them until much later) saying he found them in the outside toilet in an open yard at the rear of the house.

Are we to believe then that the British troops are infallable?

When they don their uniform does it place them above ordinary people and make them incapable of human error?

Another aspect of this case is the two other men who were in John Kelly's house. Grant you they were strangers sheltering from the curfew. Yet at.the trial their counsels were able to get them dismissed before they were even called to the witness box. Does this not strike one as strange, considering that John Kelly swore that the soldier