The Crime Against Europe Part 3

The power of the British fleet can never be permanently restrained until Ireland is restored to Europe. Germany has of necessity become the champion of European interests as opposed to the world domination of England and English-speaking elements. She is to-day a dam, a great reservoir rapidly filling with human life that must some day find an outlet. England instead of wisely digging channels for the overflow has hardened her heart, like Pharaoh, and thinks to prevent it or to so divert the stream that it shall be lost and drunk up in the thirsty sands of an ever expanding Anglo-Saxondom. German laws, German language, German civilization are to find no ground for replenishing, no soil to fertilize and make rich.

I believe this to be not only the set policy of England, but to be based on the temperamental foundations of the English character itself, from which that people could not, even if they would, depart.

The lists are set. The English mind, the English consciousness are such, that to oppose German influence in the world is to this people a necessity. They oppose by instinct, against argument, in the face of reason, they will do it blindly come what may and at all costs, and they will do it to the end.

Their reasoning, if reason exists in what is after all a matter of primal instinct, might find expression somewhat as follows:

"German influence cannot but be hostile to British interests. The two peoples are too much alike. The qualities that have made England great they possess in a still greater degree. Given a fair field and no favour they are bound to beat us. They will beat us out of every market in the world, and we shall be reduced ultimately to a position like that of France to-day. Better fight while we are still die stronger. Better hinder now ere it be too late. We have bottled up before and destroyed our adversaries by delay, by money, by alliances.

To tolerate a German rivalry is to found a German empire and to destroy our own."

Some such obscure argument as this controls the Englishman's reasoning when he faces the growing magnitude of the Teutonic people. A bitter resentment, with fear at the bottom, a hurried clanging of bolt and rivet in the belt of a new warship and a m.u.f.fled but most diligent hammering at the rivets of an ever building American Alliance--the real Dreadnought this, whose keel was laid sixteen years ago and whose slow, secret construction has cost the silent swallowing of many a cherished British boast.

English Liberalism might desire a different sort of reckoning with Germany, but English Liberalism is itself a product of the English temperament, and however it may sigh, by individuals, for a better understanding between the two peoples, in the ma.s.s, it is a part of the national purpose and a phase of the national mind and is driven relentlessly to the rivets and the hammering, the "Dreadnoughts"

in being and that mightier Dreadnought yet to be, the Anglo-Saxon Alliance which Germany must fight if she is to get out.

Doubtless she has already a naval policy and the plans for a naval war, for the fight will be settled on the sea, but the fate will be determined on an island.

The Empire that has grown from an island and spread with the winds and the waves to the uttermost sh.o.r.es will fight and be fought for on the water and will be ended where it began, on an island.

That island, I believe, will be Ireland and not Great Britain.

Chapter III

THE BALANCE OF POWER

A conflict between England and Germany exists already, a conflict of aims.

England rich, prosperous, with all that she can possibly a.s.similate already in her hands, desires peace on present conditions of world power. These conditions are not merely that her actual possessions should remain intact, but that no other Great Power shall, by acquiring colonies and spreading its people and inst.i.tutions into neighbouring regions, thereby possibly affect the fuller development of those pre-existing British States. For, with England equality is an offence and the Power that arrives at a degree of success approximating to her own and one capable of being expanded into conditions of fair rivalry, has already committed the unpardonable sin. As Curran put it in his defence of Hamilton Rowan in 1797, "England is marked by a natural avarice of freedom which she is studious to engross and acc.u.mulate, but most unwilling to impart; whether from any necessity of her policy or from her weakness, or from her pride, I will not presume to say."

Thus while England might even be the attacking party, and in all probability will be the attacking party, she will embark on a war with Germany at an initial disadvantage. She will be on her defence.

Although, probably, the military aggressor from reasons of strategy, she will be acting in obedience to an economic policy of defence and not of attack. Her chief concern will be not to advance and seize, always in war the more inspiring task, but to retain and hold. At best she could come out of the war with no new gain, with nothing added worth having to what she held on entering it. Victory would mean for her only that she had secured a further spell of quiet in which to consolidate her strength and enjoy the good things already won.

Germany will fight with far other purpose and one that must inspire a far more vigorous effort; she will fight, not merely to keep what she already has, but to escape from an intolerable position of inferiority she knows to be unmerited and forced not by the moral or intellectual superiority of her adversary or due to her own short comings, but maintained by reason of that adversary's geographical position and early seizure of the various points of advantage.

Her effort will be not merely military, it will be an intellectual a.s.sertion, a fight in very truth for that larger freedom, that citizenship of the world England is studious to "engross and acc.u.mulate" for herself alone and to deny to all others. Thus, while English attack at the best will be actuated by no loftier feeling than that of a man who, dwelling in a very comfortable house with an agreeable prospect resists an encroachment on his outlook from the building operations of his less well lodged neighbour, Germany will be fighting not only to get out of doors into the open air and sunshine, but to build a loftier and larger dwelling, fit tenement for a numerous and growing offspring.

Whatever the structure Germany seeks to erect England objects to the plan and hangs out her war sign "Ancient Lights."

Who can doubt that the greater patriotism and stronger purpose must inspire the man who fights for light, air, and freedom, the right to walk abroad, to learn, to teach, aye, and to inspire others, rather than him whose chief concern it is to see that no one but himself enjoys these opportunities. The means, moreover, that each combatant will bring to the conflict are, in the end, on the side of Germany.

Much the same disproportion of resources exists as lay between Rome and Carthage.

England relies on money. Germany on men. And just as Roman men beat Carthaginian mercenaries, so must German manhood, in the end, triumph over British finance. Just as Carthage in the hours of final shock, placing her gold where Romans put their G.o.ds, and never with a soul above her ships, fell before the people of United Italy, so shall the mightier Carthage of the North Seas, in spite of trade, shipping, colonies, the power of the purse and the hired valour of the foreign (Irish, Indian, African), go down before the men of United Germany.

But if the military triumph of Germany seems thus likely, the ultimate a.s.surance, nay even the ultimate safety of German civilization can only be secured by a statemanship which shall not repeat the mistake of Louis XIV and Napoleon. The military defeat of England by Germany is a wholly possible achievement of arms, _if the conflict be between these two alone_, but to realize the economic and political fruits of that victory, Ireland must be detached from the British Empire.

To leave a defeated England still in the full possession of Ireland would be, not to settle the question of German rights at sea or in world affairs, but merely to postpone the settlement to a second and possibly far greater encounter. It would be somewhat as if Rome, after the first Punic war had left Sicily to Carthage. But Ireland is far more vital to England than Sicily was to Carthage, and is of far more account to the future of Europe on the ocean than the possession of Sicily was to the future of the Mediterranean.

If Germany is to permanently profit from a victory over England, she must free the narrow seas, not only by the defeat of British fleets in being, but by ensuring that those seas shall not again be closed by British fleets yet to be. The German gateway to a free Atlantic can only be kept open through a free Ireland. For just as the English Channel under the existing arrangement, whereby Ireland lies hidden from the rest of Europe, can be closed at will by England, so with Ireland no longer tied to the girdle of England, that channel cannot be locked. The key to the freedom of European navigation lies at Berehaven and not at Dover. With Berehaven won from English hands, England might close the Channel in truth, but Ireland could shut the Atlantic. As Richard Dox put it in 1689, quaintly but truly, in his dedication to King William III, and Queen Mary of his "History of Ireland from the Earliest Times."

"But no cost can be too great where the prize is of such value, and whoever considers the situation, ports, plenty and other advantages of Ireland will confess that it must be retained at what rate soever; because if it should come into an enemy's hands, England would find it impossible to _flourish_ and perhaps difficult to _subsist_ without it. To demonstrate this a.s.sertion it is enough to say that Ireland lies in the Line of Trade and that all the English vessels that sail to the East, West, and South must, as it were, run the gauntlet between the harbours of Brest and Baltimore; and I might add that the Irish Wool being transported would soon ruin the English Clothing Manufacture. Hence it is that all Your Majesty's Predecessors have kept close to this fundamental maxim of retaining Ireland inseparably united to the Crown of England."

The sole and exclusive appropriation of Ireland and of all her resources has indeed formed, since the Recorder of Kinsale wrote, the mainstay and chief support of British greatness.

The natural position of Ireland lying "in the line of trade," was possibly its chief value, but that "Irish Wool" which was by no means to be allowed free access to world markets typifies much else that Ireland has been relentlessly forced to contribute to her neighbour's growth and sole profit.

I read but yesterday "Few people realise that the trade of Ireland with Great Britain is equal to that of our trade with India, is 13,000,000 pounds greater than our trade with Germany, and 40,000,000 pounds greater than the whole of our trade with the United States."

How completely England has laid hands on all Irish resources is made clear from a recent publication that Mr. Chamberlain's "Tariff Commission" issued towards the end of 1912.

This doc.u.ment, ent.i.tled "The Economic Position of Ireland and its relation to Tariff Reform," const.i.tutes, in fact, a manifesto calling for the release of Ireland from the exclusive grip of Great Britain.

Thus, for instance, in the section "External Trade of Ireland,"

we learn that Ireland exported in 1910, 63,400,000 worth of Irish produce. Of this Great Britain took 52,600,000 worth, while some 10,800,000 went either to foreign countries, or to British colonies, over 4,000,000 going to the United States. Of these eleven million pounds worth of Irish produce sent to distant countries, only 700,000 was shipped direct from Irish ports.

The remainder, more than 10,000,000, although the market it was seeking lay chiefly to the West, had to be shipped East into and to pay a heavy transit toll to that country for discharge, handling, agency, commission, and reloading on British vessels in British ports to steam back past the sh.o.r.es of Ireland it had just left. While Ireland, indeed, lies in the "line of trade," between all Northern Europe and the great world markets, she has been robbed of her trade and artificially deprived of the very position a.s.signed to her by nature in the great tides of commercial intercourse. It is not only the geographical situation and the trade and wealth of Ireland that England has laid hands on for her own aggrandizement, but she has also appropriated to her own ends the physical manhood of the island.

Just as the commerce has been forcibly annexed and diverted from its natural trend, so the youth of Ireland has been fraudulently appropriated and diverted from the defence of their own land to the extension of the power and wealth of the realm that impoverished it at home. The physical qualities of the Irish were no less valuable than "Irish wool" to Empire building, provided always they were not displayed in Ireland.

So long ago as 1613 we find a candid admission in the State papers that the Irish were the better men in the field. "The next rebellion whenever it shall happen, doth threaten more danger to the State than any heretofore, when the cities and walled towns were always faithful; (1) because they have the same bodies they ever had and therein they had and have advantage of us; (2) from infancy they have been and are exercised in the use of arms; (3) the realm by reason of the long peace was never so full of youths; (4) that they are better soldiers than heretofore, their continental employment in wars abroad a.s.sures us, and they do conceive that their men are better than ours."

This testimony to Irish superiority, coming as it does from English official sources just three hundred years ago, would be convincing enough did it stand alone. But it is again and again reaffirmed by English commanders themselves as the reason for their failure in some particular enterprise. In all else they were superior to the Irish; in arms, armaments, munitions, supplies of food and money, here the long purse, settled organization and greater commerce of England, gave her an overwhelming advantage. Moreover the English lacked the moral restraints that imposed so severe a handicap on the Irish in their resistance. They owned no scruple of conscience in committing any crime that served their purpose. Beaten often in open fight by the hardier bodies, stouter arms and greater courage of the Irishmen, they nevertheless won the game by recourse to means that no Irishman, save he who had joined them for purposes of revenge or in pursuit of selfish personal aims, could possibly have adopted. The fight from the first was an unequal one. Irish valour, chivalry, and personal strength were matched against wealth, treachery and cunning. The Irish better bodies were overcome by the worse hearts. As Curran put it in 1817--"The triumph of England over Ireland is the triumph of guilt over innocence."

The Earl of Ess.e.x who came to Ireland in 1599 with one of the largest forces of English troops that, up to then, had ever been dispatched into Ireland (18,000 men), had ascribed his complete failure, in writing to the Queen, to the physical superiority of the Irish:

"These rebels are more in number than your Majesty's army and have (though I do unwillingly confess it), better bodies, and perfecter use of their arms, than those men who your Majesty sends over."

The Queen, who followed the war in Ireland with a swelling wrath on each defeat, and a growing fear that the Spaniards would keep their promise to land aid to the Irish princes, O'Neill and O'Donnell, issued "instructions" and a set of "ordinances" for the conduct of the war in Ireland, which, while enjoining recourse to the usual methods outside the field of battle--(i.e. starvation, "politic courses,"

a.s.sa.s.sination of leaders; and the sowing of dissension by means of bribery and promises), required for the conflict, that her weaker soldiers should be protected against the onslaught of the unarmoured Irishmen by head pieces of steel. She ordered "every soldier to be enforced to wear a murrion, because the enemy is encouraged by the advantage of arms to _come to the sword_ wherein he commonly prevaileth."

One of the generals of the Spanish King, Philip III, who came to Ireland in the winter of 1601 with a handful of Spanish troops (200 men), to reinforce the small expedition of de Aguila in Kinsale, thus reported on the physical qualities of the Irish in a doc.u.ment that still lies in Salamanca in the archives of the old Irish College. it was written by Don Pedro De Zubiarr on the 16th of January, 1602, on his return to the Asturias. Speaking of the prospect of the campaign, he wrote: "If we had brought arms for 10,000 men we could have had them, for they are very eager to carry on the war against the English.

The Irish are very strong and well shaped, accustomed to endure hunger and toil, and very courageous in fight."

Perhaps the most vivid testimony to the innate superiority of the Irishman as a soldier is given in a typically Irish challenge issued in the war of 1641. The doc.u.ment has a lasting interest for it displays not only the "better body" of the Irishman of that day, but something of his better heart as well, that still remains to us.

One Parsons, an English settler in Ireland, had written to a friend to say that, among other things, the head of the Colonel of an Irish regiment then in the field against the English, would not be allowed to stick long on its shoulders. The letter was intercepted by the very regiment itself, and a captain in it, Felim O'Molloy, wrote back to Parsons:

"I will do this if you please: I will pick out sixty men and fight against one hundred of your choice men if you do but pitch your camp one mile out of your town, and then if you have the victory, you may threaten my Colonel; otherwise, do not reckon your chickens before they are hatched."

The Anglo-Saxon preferred "politic courses" to accepting the Irish soldier's challenge, even where all the advantage was conceded by the Irishman to his foe and all the risks, save that of treachery (a very necessary precaution in dealing with the English in Ireland), cheerfully accepted by the Celt.

This advantage of the "better bodies" the Irish retained beyond all question up to the Famine. It was upon it alone that the Wexford peasantry relied in 1798, and with and by it alone that they again and again, armed with but pike and scythe swept disciplined regiments of English mercenaries in headlong rout from the field.

This physical superiority of his countrymen was frequently referred to by O'Connell as one of the forces he relied on. With the decay of all things Irish that has followed the Famine, these physical attributes have declined along with so much else that was typical of the nation and the man.

It could not to-day be fearlessly affirmed that sixty Irishmen were more than a match for one hundred Englishmen; yet depleted as it is by the emigration of its strongest and healthiest children, by growing sickness and a changed and deteriorated diet the Irish race still presents a type, superior physically, intellectually and morally to the English. It was on Irish soldiers that the English chiefly relied in the Boer War, and it is no exaggeration to say that could all the Irishmen in the ranks of the British army have been withdrawn, a purely British force would have failed to end the war and the Dutch would have remained masters of the field in South Africa.

It was the inglorious part of Ireland to be linked with those "methods of barbarism" she herself knew only too well, in extinguishing the independence of a people who were attacked by the same enemy and sacrificed to the same greed that had destroyed her own freedom.

Unhappy, indeed, is it for mankind, as for her own fate and honour that Ireland should be forced by dire stress of fortune to aid her imperial wrecker in wrecking the fortune and freedom of brave men elsewhere.