THE ULSTERCONFLICT WHFARE IN THE NORTH UP TO THE SECOND WORLD WAR In the absence of state intervention to subsidize Ulster's rapidly failing specialized industrial base, the ifirst Unionist government's domestic policy consisted essentially of trying to ensure parity of social services, particularly in unemployment benefit, with the rest of the United Kingdome, in spite of a much lower per capita yeld of personal taxation in Ulster. The British government conceded this principle in 1929 after long and tortuous negotiations. By 1931, however, at the height of the world slump, when unemployment in Belfast had reached 25%, the British government was compelled to turn off the subisdy taps which provided Ulster welfare. The result was the ifirst non-sectarian demonstration in Belfast since the general strike of 1919 .A hunger march of the unemployed on Stormont (the palatial new home of the Ulster parliament) was banned by the Minister of Home Affairs (still R.D. Bates) under the Special Powers Act. Despite this crowds of unemployed workers gathered in both the Falls (Catholic) and the Shankill (Protestant). When the police baton char~ed and fired over the heads of the crowd in the Falls Road, the Shankill crowd rioted in their support for the .first time in history. While the British government was in difficulties in paying the necessary subsidies the only way the increasingly aging Unionist leaders could conceive of for maintaining their power was the old solution of arousing sectarianism. They brought this to the surface a~ain by resurrecting the policy of discrimination against Catholics in job allocation particularly in the Unionist family-owned businesses. The Thirties were a terrible time for all workers in Ulster, but the slight advantages Protestant workers were given over Catholics, their relatively lower rate of deorivation, kept them loval whilst maintaining their living standards at such a low level as to lessen any prospects of class revolt. PROTECTIONISM IN THE SOUTH The reaction of the Irish Free State government to the slump was to join the worldwide trend towards protectionism. This was accelerated by the accession of De Valera and the Fianna Fail party to power in 1932. Since the party had been founded at the height of Griffith's old party's abandonment 59
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