I had, as a matter of fact, passed from the Ulster Parliament to local elections, and I had hoped that the hon. Member was doing me the justice of following my speech sufficiently closely to see that that was so. I had passed to local government and the use of proportional representation in local government elections, and the re-arrangements of the constituencies. I was quoting figures to support my contention that the new system gave the Unionists a majority of the councillors with a minority of votes—a very skilfully arranged piece of work. I repeat, that I think there is no justification whatever for that sort of thing to be done in a country like Northern Ireland where there is an overwhelming majority, taken over the whole country, of one party; and that that must lead to a sense of political frustration, a belief amongst the minority that they are hopeless. The inevitable result, especially in a country like Ireland, where hotheads are very numerous, is that political frustration creates a type of terrorist movement, which some of the other undemocratic actions of the Northern Ireland Government have justified. Before passing to the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act I should like to point out this about proportional representation. It has succeeded in giving stable Government in Southern Ireland for a great number of years. In spite of the civil war which preceded the establishment of that Government, in spite of the tendency for Irishmen to hold very independent political views, proportional representation has worked very well in Southern Ireland, and has given stable government; and I do not think the case for abolishing it in Northern Ireland has been made out, at any rate today.

I should now like to pass to the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act. I was very glad that the right hon. Member for Antrim did give one concession, namely, that this should be subject to an annual review by the Ulster Government. In passing, I would point out that Southern Ireland, Eire, have recently dropped their special powers, for the time being, and that we have also dropped our special powers. I do not quite understand the argument, either in the brochure sent to us by the Northern Ireland Government, or in the speech of the right hon. Member when he says that all of the detainees have now been released in Northern Ireland, and, at the same time, tells us that the I.R.A., or some other terrorist organisation, is re-organising and planning new activity. I should have thought that if the detainees had been released the Ulster Government must believe that the situation has eased. But apparently not. Apparently they release these dangerous men just at a time when the I.R.A. is re-organising.

Apart from the word of the Ulster Government that such re-organisation is going on, not one particle of evidence has been produced, either in the Parliament of Northern Ireland or in the brochure which has been sent round, that the I.R.A. is contemplating further activity. I do not know whether it is or not. I can only judge by what I am told. There is not one particle of evidence that that is so. There is, on the other hand, the evidence that the Eire Government believe they can suspend, or drop temporarily, these special powers. I ask whether Northern Ireland might not make the same gesture of at least suspending the powers in the meantime. But, no; there is no conciliation in Northern Ireland, whatever the right hon. Member for Antrim says here. What does the Attorney-General say in the Debate on this issue? Not an inch will he give way; not a comma will he alter in these powers which have been built up year after year, and increased until there is nothing which I imagine the Russian Government would want which is not there for the Ulster Government to use.—[Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh, but the stories in Russia and Ulster in that respect are very similar indeed. There is a perfectly normal code of law in Russia—