Draconian Measures

The shock waves of the pub explosions that killed 20 people and maimed 183 others in Birmingham are beginning to transform British life. After mailboxes blew up in crowded Piccadilly and two other locations last week, anti-Irish extremists retaliated by throwing fire bombs into several Irish-owned shops, homes and pubs. Lesser but ugly incidents are commonplace. At Charing Cross subway station, a man who had tried to squeeze onto a crowded train was manhandled when other passengers discovered he was Irish. Headlined the raucous tabloid Sun: IT'S WAR.

In Parliament, Roy Jenkins, the humane and reform-minded Home Secretary, found himself cast in the difficult role of trying to convince an enraged public that the government was doing everything reasonable to protect its citizens. Among the "draconian" measures, "unprecedented in peacetime," that Jenkins asked Parliament to pass: outlawing the Irish Republican Army in Britain; curtailment of habeas corpus to permit police to arrest without warrant I.R.A. suspects and to hold them for up to seven days.

Some of the measures may be more effective in placating public opinion than in dealing with the I.R.A. The police have consistently opposed a ban on the I.R.A. because they say that driving the organization underground would merely complicate police operations. But no one now criticizes the ban, and Tory Leader Edward Heath even wanted it broadened to prevent newspaper and TV interviews with I.R.A. leaders. Only one Labor M.P. questioned the wisdom of rushing through a curtailment of habeas corpus. The sole measure that aroused real objections was the provision allowing British authorities to send United Kingdom citizens who were born in Ulster back home. But those objections were soon voted down. At week's end the emergency legislation was passed unanimously by both the Commons and the Lords. Jenkins further agreed reluctantly to a debate next week on restoration of the death penalty for acts of terrorism.

The troubling question is what all these curbs on traditional British freedoms will do to cure the underlying causes of the problem. In Belfast, the killing goes on, with eleven murders recently committed within the space of just five days. There seems to be little chance that the proposed constitutional convention in January will produce an acceptable power-sharing formula for Ulster's divided people. Tragically, that is just what the I.R.A. and its extremist Protestant adversaries want.

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