This is a lot to hope, but it is proper to note that the massive vote in favour of the union with Britain is not a simple mobilisation of the Unionist Party's traditional supporters. Both Alliance and Northern Ireland Labour Party - which had a large but inconveniently spread-out support in the last general election - were in favour of a pro-union vote. Nor is it clear that this is a wholly Protestant vote. The campaign in favour of abstention by the SDLP and other nationalist parties has made the figures difficult to interpret. With a register of a little over a million voters, and no accurate breakdown on religious lines, some assumptions must be made.

A very rough analysis of the electorate, based only on a projection of the general population figures, and allowing for the larger proportion of Catholic children, suggests 67 per cent Protestant and 33 per cent Catholic voters. So if every Protestant had voted, and voted for the union with Britain, the total might have been of the order of 670,000. The actual figure was 591,820. This represents more than 88 per cent of the estimated possible Protestant vote.

A large turnout was expected, but with some politicians on the Unionist Right arguing that the plebiscite gave too much of a carte blanche to Whitehall, it would be surprising if some of the abstainers and spoiled votes were not Protestant. That would mean that some of the 160,000 postal votes were used by Catholics wishing to vote for continuation of the union with Britain, but unwilling to face the hostility of those supporting boycott, and perhaps particularly of the Provisional Sinn Fein, which has been organising postal ballot paper burning in some places.

The figure is unlikely to have been large, however. Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided community, with the mass of Catholics unwilling to cast their vote in favour of the union, and nearly all the Protestants opposed to a united Ireland. The Catholic abstention does not represent unanimous hostility to Britain. In a recent Opinion Research Centre poll, published in the Belfast Telegraph, only 39 per cent of Catholics asked favoured a united Ireland, while 23 per cent more wanted the SDLP proposal of joint control by London and Dublin. A sizeable minority of Catholics appeared prepared to continue the British connection: 21 per cent wanted either total integration of the continuation of direct rule, and another 12 per cent a coalition government at Stormont.

Whether these findings would have been confirmed if there had been no boycott yesterday cannot be known. It is a great pity that, because of Mr Heath's sensitivity about European referenda, this poll was not conducted while the honeymoon after direct rule continued and boycott was less likely. But at least the ballot boxes have opened again in Northern Ireland. The sooner new public representatives are elected the better. Compromise remains the only hope, and men and women with a fresh and unchallengeable mandate are needed to make that compromise. Mr Whitelaw's White Paper should call for a general election before the summer.

That election should give every voter in Northern Ireland the feeling that he has a say in his country's affairs again. One of the damaging effects of direct rule has been the inevitable potential emasculation of the community. The other principal cause of this, of course, is that democratic politicians never look so important while people using guns, bombs, and intimidation rule the areas the politicians are supposed to represent. In such circumstances any opportunity for people to vote, however unsatisfactory it may appear to some of them, is not to be sneezed at. Those who favour the union took their chance to vote on Thursday, in very large numbers. But it is a general election which should persuade nearly everyone in the community to take part in democratic politics. Anyone who boycotts such an election, for whatever reason, should think seriously whether he is going anywhere, or nowhere.