DAVE MANSEiLL THE ONE-PARTY STATE IN ULSTER The Ulster economy was revived by the needs of the British war-time economy. It had been saved from bankruptcy by agreements squeezed out of the British government to the effect that any deficit in the Stormont budget would be made good by the British treasury provided that such a deficit was not the result of lower taxation or higher social welfare than in Britain. This principie of parity of taxation and parity of social services saved Ulster from impending bankruptcy. Rearmament brought economic benefits in the shipyards, engineering works and a new aircraft factory, but these gains were negated by the effects of German air-raids. The lack of any positive action by the old-guard who still retained the leadership of the one-party state twenty years after its inception brought on another crisis of allegiance amongst the Protestant workers. This forced the introduction of a relatively younger generation of leaders more in tune with the needs and methods of management of war time economy. The ma,ior economic scheme was the building of barracks for a 120,000 strong contingent of American troops who were stationed in Ulster to defend the Atlantic seaways (since Eire was neutral). The new prime minister, Sir Basil Brooke, undertook the massive building programme by setting up a Production Committee which controlled the supply and distribution of all bricks, cement, stone, tar and bitumen in Northern Ireland. By August 1944 the number of unemployed in Ulster had dropped to 10,000. The effect of the war was to place the Ulster economy under the microscope and revea! its many defects particularly in health and housing. A Select Committee inquiring into the health service found it so bad that it recommended the immediate establishment of a Minsitry of Health, to take health out of the hands of the Minister for Home Affairs (R.D. Bates) who had built up the Northern Ireland police force at the expense of the health of its citizens. Ulster had to wait until 1948 before it could implementa fully renovated health service since the Unionist government had now adopted a "step-bystep" system of implementing social welfare legislation at the same time as the Westminster parliament no matter which party was in power in Britain. Its education system was remodelled by a 1947 Education Act which followed the English pattern in general outline. Clashes between the Unionist government and the Roman Catholic hierarchy occurred over 62
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