opening to all European effort
alike on equal terms constitutes the far Western question. But in both
cases the antagonist of Europe, the non-European power is the same.
The challenge of Europe must be to England, and the champion of Europe
must be and can be only Germany. No other European people has the
power, the strength of mind, of purpose and of arm to accomplish the
great act of deliverance. Europe too long blinded to her own vital
interests while disunited, must now, under the guidance of a united
Germany, resolutely face the problem of freeing the seas.

_That war of the seas is inevitable_. It may be fought on a continent;
it may be waged in the air--it must be settled on the seas and it must
mean either the freeing of those seas or the permanent exclusion
of Europeans from the affairs of the world. It means for Europe the
future, the very existence of European civilization as opposed to
the Anglo-Saxon world domination. In that war, Germany will stand not
alone as the champion of Europe, she will fight for the freedom of the
world.

As an Irishman I have no fear of the result to Ireland of a German
triumph. I pray for it; for with the coming of that day the "Irish
question" so dear to British politicians, becomes a European, a world
question.

With the humbling of Great Britain and the destruction of her sea
ownership, European civilization assumes a new stature, and Ireland,
oldest and yet youngest of the European peoples, shall enter into free
partnership with the civilization, culture, and prosperity that that
act of liberation shall bring to mankind.

Chapter VI

THE DUTY OF CHRISTENDOM

It is only the truth that wounds. An Irishman to-day in dealing with
Englishmen is forced, if he speak truly, to wound. That is why so
many Irishmen do not speak the truth. The Irishman, whether he be a
peasant, a farm labourer, however low in the scale of Anglicization
he may have sunk, is still in imagination, if not always in manner,
a gentleman. The Englishman is a gentleman by chance, by force of
circumstances, by luck of birth, or some rare opportunity of early
fellowship. The Irishman is a gentleman by instinct and shrinks from
wounding the feelings of another man and particularly of the man who
has wounded him. He scorns to take it out of him that way. That is
why the task of misgoverning him has been so easy and has come so
naturally to the Englishman. One of the chief grievances of the
Irishman