ticle, "Great Britain and the Next War," thus appeals to Ireland to recognize that he

or economically while Britain falls they are woefully mistaken. The British fleet is their one shield. If it be broken Ireland will go down. The

that must necessarily fall on Great Britain from defeat by a great pow

to Ireland: but I differ from him in believing that that change must necessarily be disastrous to Ireland. On the contrary, I beli

hat they may do or what may betide them, Ireland must inseparably be theirs, linked to them as surely as Wales or Scotland, and forming an eternal and integral part of a whole whose fate is indissolubly in their hands. While Great Britain, they admit, might well live apart (and happily) from an Ireland safely "sunk under the sea" they have never conceived of an Ireland, still a

ould remain after the war as she is to-day, tied to Great Britain, or she might be (this is not very seriously en

soluble, if the credit of the house were damaged and its properties depreciated, all members of the firm must suffer. In this view, an Ireland weaker, poorer, and less recuperative than Great Britain, would stand to lose even more from a British defeat than the predominant partner itself. Let

d mean for Ireland "out of the frying pan into the fire." The idea here is that I have earlier designated as the "bogey man" idea. Germany, or the other victor in the great conflict, would proceed to "take" Ireland. An Ireland administered, say, by Prussians would soon bitterly regret the milder manner

she would (or even could) injure Ireland more than Great Britain has done? To what purpose and with what end in view? "Innate brutality"-the Englishman replied-"the Prussian always ill-treats those he lays hands on-witness the poor Poles." Without entering into the Polish language question, or the Polish agraria

itain would clearly be administered as a common possession of the German people, and not as a Prussian province. The analogy, if one can be set up in conditions so dissimilar, would lie not between Prussia and her Polish provinces,

e by vigorous and wise administration, so as to make it the main counterpoise to any possible recovery of Brit

wn interests lie with those of the new Administration, would

o rule from Hamburg and Berlin a remote island and a discontented people, with a highly discontented and separated Britain intervening, by methods of exploitation and centralization, woul

d it in her forty years' administration of Alsace-Lorraine. There is a province torn by force from the bleeding side of France and alien in sentiment to her new masters to a degree that Ireland could not be to any changes of author

city. Already a local Parliament gives to the population a sense of autonomy, while the palace and constant presence of an Imperial prince affirms the fact that German Imperialism, far from engrossing and centralizing all the activit

wisely developing so priceless a possession to reconcile its inhabitants through growing prosperity and an excellent administration, to so great a change in their political environment. Can it be said that England, even in her most lucid intervals, has brought to the Government of Ireland her best efforts, her most capable men, or her highest purpose? The answer may be given by Li Hung Chang, whose diary we have so lately

ange of direction, of purpose, of intention, and, I will a

earily had measure of, and if they brought to their new task a new spirit and a new intellectual equipment Irishmen would not be slow to realize

d and haunting problem" to palsy her brain and miscredit her hand w

t purpose of German overseas statesmanship. And it is clear that a wise and capable Irish Administration, designed to build up and

e with her defeated partner all the evils that a great overthrow must inflict upon the United Kingdom. Second, that Ireland, if Great Britain should be completely defeated, might conceivably be "taken" or annexed by the victor and held as a conquered territory, and in this guis

sfix England. Such an overthrow would be of enormous import to Europe and to the whole world. The trident would have changed hands, for the defeat of England could only be brought about by the destruction of her sea supremacy. Unless help came from without, a blockaded Britain would be more at the mercy of the victor than France was after Sedan and Paris. It would lie with the victor to see that the conditions of peace he imposed were such as, while ensuring to him the objects for which he had fought, wo

a disciplined army is to attribute to Irishmen the very qualities their critics unite in denying them. "The Irishman fights well everywhere except in Ireland," has passed into a commonplace: and since every effort of government has been directed to ensuring the abiding application of the sneer, Englishmen would find, in the end, the emasculating success of their rule completely justified in the physical submission of Ireland to the new force that held her down. With Great Britain cut off and the Irish Sea held by German squadrons, no power from within could maintain any effective resistance to a German occupation of Dublin and a military administration of the island. To convert that into permanent a

reland, already severed by a sea held by German warships, and temporarily occupied by a German army, might well be permanently and irrevocably severed from Great Britain, and with common assent erected into a neutralized, independent European State under international guarantees. An independent Ireland would, of itself, be no threat or hurt to any European interest. On the contrary, to make of Ireland an Atlantic Holland, a maritime Belgium, would be an act of restoration to Europe of this the most naturally favoured of European islands

d carry the Irish question to a European solution in harmony with her maritime interests, and could count on the support of the great bulk of European opinion to support the settlement those interests imposed. And if politically and commercially an independent and neutral Irish State commended itself to Europe, on moral and intellectual grounds the claim could be put still higher. Nothing advanced on behalf of England could meet the case for

awn into an Anglo-Teutonic conflict, it is clear that the decision of a European Congress to create a

intellectual race (qualities they have alas! done their utmost to expel from the island) is a piece of real estate they own and can dispose of as they will, they cannot fail to perceive that the Irish question cannot much lon

Turkey) a more and more pent-in Central Europe may discover that there is a Near Western question, and that Ir

men that Ireland, after all, is a European island, an

Continent." (Notes and queries on the Irish Demand, February, 1887.) While the geographical positions of the islands to each other and to Europe have not changed, and cannot change, the political relation of one to the other

aerial navigation, all unite to emphasize the historian Niebuhr's warning, and to indicate for Ireland a possible future of restored communion with Eur