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gland, and now for seventy years France and England have been at peace. This state of things is the more remarkable because there have during that period arisen occasions for discord, and because no feeling of sentimental friendship forbids warfare. The true guarantee for peace between nations which were long deemed hereditary foes is the immense interest which each has in abstaining from war. Could the state of things which existed at the beginning of the century be revived, thousands of Englishmen and Frenchmen would be ruined. The security for peace depending upon national interest would not be diminished were Ireland to-morrow proclaimed an independent republic. That this independence would facilitate French attack is undeniable, but attack would not be the more likely to occur. Add to all this that Irish discontent or sedition would, during a war, help France as much as Irish independence. Ireland is no doubt the weak point in the defences of Great Britain. This no one denies. The only question is whether and to what extent the independence of that country would widen the breach in England's defensive system. [Sidenote: Possible advantages of Separation] Any one who attempts to forecast the probable evils to England of Irish independence should keep one recollection constantly before his mind. The wisest thinkers of the eighteenth century (including Burke) held that the independence of the American Colonies meant the irreparable ruin of Great Britain. There were apparently solid grounds for this belief; experience has proved it to be without foundation. A calm observer can even now see that the complete dissolution of the connection between Great Britain and Ireland, disastrous as in many respects such an event would undoubtedly be, holds out to the larger country the possibility of two advantages. Loss of territory might be equivalent in some aspects to increase of power. There exists in Europe no country so completely at unity with itself as Great Britain. Fifty years of reform have done their work, and have removed the discontents, the divisions, the disaffection, and the conspiracies which marked the first quarter or the first half of this century. Great Britain, if left to herself, could act with all the force, consistency, and energy given by unity of sentiment and community of interests. The distraction and the uncertainty of our political aims, the feebleness and inconsistency with which they are
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