The Crime Against Europe | Page 9

if present-day relations of friendship with the United
States can be but tightened into a mutual committal of both Powers to a
common foreign policy, then the raid on Germany may never be
needed. She can be bottled up without it. No man who studies the
British mind can have any doubt of the fixed trend of British thought.
It can be summed up in one phrase. German expansion is not to be
tolerated. It can only be a threat to or attained at the expense of British
interests. Those interests being world-wide, with the seas for their
raiment nay, with the earth for their footstool--it follows that wherever
Germany may turn for an outlet she is met by the British challenge:
"Not there!" British interests interdict the Old World; the Monroe
Doctrine, maintained, it is alleged by British naval supremacy, forbids
the New.
Let Germany acquire a coaling station, a sanitorium, a health resort, the
ground for a hotel even, on some foreign shore, and "British interests"
spring to attention, English jealousy is aroused. How long this state of
tension can last without snapping could, perhaps, be best answered in
the German naval yards. It is evident that some 7,000,000 of the best
educated race in the world, physically strong, mentally stronger,
homogeneous, highly trained, highly skilled, capable and energetic and
obedient to a discipline that rests upon and is moulded by a lofty
conception of patriotism, cannot permanently be confined to a strictly
limited area by a less numerous race, less well educated, less strong
mentally and physically and assuredly less well trained, skilled and
disciplined. Stated thus the problem admits of a simple answer; and
were there no other factor governing the situation, that answer would
have been long since given.
It is not the ethical superiority of the English race that accounts for
their lead, but the favourable geographical situation from which they
have been able to develop and direct their policy of expansion.
England has triumphed mainly from her position. The qualities of her

people have, undoubtedly, counted for much, but her unrivalled
position in the lap of the Atlantic, barring the seaways and closing the
tideways of Central and North-eastern Europe, has counted for more.
With this key she has opened the world to herself and closed it to her
rivals.
The long wars with France ended in the enhancement of this position
by the destruction of the only rival fleet in being.
Europe, without navies, without shipping became for England a mere
westward projection of Asia, dominated by warlike peoples who could
always be set by the ears and made to fight upon points of dynastic
honour, while England appropriated the markets of mankind.
Thenceforth, for the best part of a century, while Europe was spent in
what, to the superior Britain were tribal conflicts, the seas and coasts of
the world lay open to the intrusions of his commerce, his colonists, his
finance, until there was seemingly nothing left outside the two
Americas worth laying hands on. This highly favoured maritime
position depends, however, upon an unnamed factor, the unchallenged
possession and use of which by England has been the true foundation
of her imperial greatness. Without Ireland there would be to-day no
British Empire. The vital importance of Ireland to England is
understood, but never proclaimed by every British statesman. To
subdue that western and ocean-closing island and to exploit its
resources, its people and, above all its position, to the sole advantage of
the eastern island, has been the set aim of every English Government
from the days of Henry VIII onwards. The vital importance of Ireland
to Europe is not and has not been understood by any European
statesman. To them it has not been a European island, a vital and
necessary element of European development, but an appanage of
England, an island beyond an island, a mere geographical expression in
the titles of the conqueror. Louis XIV, came nearest, perhaps, of
European rulers to realizing its importance in the conflict of European
interests when he sought to establish James II on its throne as rival to
the monarch of Great Britain and counterpoise to the British
sovereignty in the western seas. Montesquieu alone of French writers

grasped the importance of Ireland in the international affairs of his time,
and he blames the vacillation of Louis, who failed to put forth his
strength, to establish James upon the throne of Ireland and thus by a
successful act of perpetual separation to affaiblir le voisin. Napoleon,
too late, in St. Helena, realized his error: "Had I gone to Ireland instead
of to Egypt the Empire of England was at an end."
With these two utterances of the French writer and of the French ruler
we begin and end the reference of Ireland