such
first-rank importance in continental affairs as to leave men stupified
by the thought that for five hundred years they had allowed one
sole member of their community the exclusive use and selfish
misappropriation of this, the most favoured of European islands.

Ireland would be freed, not because she deserved or asked for freedom,
not because English rule has been a tyranny, a moral failure, a
stupidity and sin against the light; not because Germany cared for
Ireland, but because her withdrawal from English control appeared to
be a very necessary step in international welfare and one very needful
to the progress of German and European expansion.

An Ireland released from the jail in which England had confined
her would soon become a populous State of possibly 10,000,000 to
12,000,000 people, a commercial asset of Europe in the Atlantic of the
utmost general value, one holding an unique position between the Old
and New Worlds, and possibly an intellectual and moral asset of no
mean importance. This, and more, a sovereign Ireland means to Europe.
Above all it means security of transit, equalizing of opportunity,
freedom of the seas--an assurance that the great waterways of the
ocean should no longer be at the absolute mercy of one member of the
European family, and that one the least interested in general European
welfare.

The stronger a free Ireland grew the surer would be the guarantee that
the role of England "consciously assumed for many years past, to be
an absolute and wholly arbitrary judge of war and peace" had gone for
ever, and that at last the "balance of power" was kept by fair weight
and fair measure and not with loaded scales.

Chapter IV

THE ENEMY OF PEACE

I believe England to be the enemy of European peace, and that until
her "mastery of the sea" is overmastered by Europe, there can be
no peace upon earth or goodwill among men. Her claim to rule the
seas, and the consequences, direct and indirect, that flow from its
assertion are the chief factors of international discord that now
threaten the peace of the world.

In order to maintain that indefensible claim she is driven to
aggression and intrigue in every quarter of the globe; to setting
otherwise friendly peoples by the ears; to forming "alliances" and
ententes, to dissolving friendships, the aim always being the old one,
_divide et impera_.

The fact that Europe to-day is divided into armed camps is mainly due
to English ef