WEST BELFAST SEAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 February 1943, Page 3

WEST BELFAST SEAT

IN HOUSE OF COMMONS WON BY LABOUR CANDIDATE. ATTACK ON UNIONIST REGIME. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, February 10. The West Belfast by-election to the House of Commons resulted:—J. Beattie (Labour), 19,936; Lieutenant S. K. Cunningham (Unionist), 14,426; W. M. Milton (Independent Unionist), 7551; Hugh Corbin (Republican), 1250. Fiftyfour percent, of the electorate voted. The vacancy was due to the death of Captain Crawford Brown (Conservative), who won the last election against a Republican candidate by 34,606 to 20,313.

Mr Beattie said, “The two main reasons for my victory over the reactionary forces were, first, it is a symptom of the general feeling of political unrest throughout Northern Ireland. All sections are sick to death of the dictatorship of the Unionist Party, which has held on to the reins of office by the perpetuation of old feuds and ancient hatreds.. The result of the election proves that the decision to postpone the general election in 1943 in Northern Ireland was in defiance of the wishes of the bulk of the people.

“Secondly, West Belfast in recent years has been the scene of what can be described as a system of political terrorism uneqqualled even' in the ghettos of occupied Poland. Armed police, in incessant night and day raids and searches, have turned the phrase ‘the sancity of the home’ into a grim joke. Wholesale internment of young men, sometimes on the flimsiest excuses, has fomented disorders resulting in deaths and destruction of property. There are now about 500 young men imprisoned without the semblance of a trial.”