Page:Roger Casement - The crime against Ireland and how the war may right it.djvu/36

 30 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 honor 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!

That these physical qualities of Irishmen, even with a population now only one tenth that of Great Britain are still of value to the Empire, Mr. Churchill's speech on the Home Rule Bill made frankly clear (February, 1913). We now learn that the First Lord of the Admiralty has decided to establish a new Training Squadron, "with a base at Queenstown," where it is hoped to induce by the bribe of "Self-Government" the youth of Cork and Minister to again man the British fleet as they did in the days of Nelson, and we are even told that the prospects of brisk recruiting are "politically favorable."

Carthage got her soldiers from Spain, her seamen, her slingers, from the Balearic Islands and the coasts of Africa, her money from the trade of the world. Rome beat her, but she did not leave a defeated Carthage to still levy toll of men and mind on those external sources of supply.

Germany must fight, not merely to defeat the British fleet of to-day. but to neutralize the British fleet of tomorrow. Leave Ireland to Great Britain and that can never be. Neutralize Ireland and it is already accomplished.

One of the conditions of peace, and for this reason the most important condition of peace that a victorious Germany must impose upon her defeated antagonist is that Ireland shall be separated and erected into an independent European State under international guarantees. England obviously would resist such conditions to the last, but then the last has already come before England would consent to any peace save on terms she dictated.