Page:Roger Casement - The crime against Ireland and how the war may right it.djvu/52

 46, the trade and naval movements of all the Powers on the face of the earth—that is to say. his aim is to secure a world monopoly for England." There has never been any other thought in the English mind. As I said in part I of this paper. "British interests are first the control of all the seas of all the world in full military and commercial control. If this be not challenged peace is permitted; to dispute it seriously means war.

Germany is driven by necessity to dispute it seriously and to overcome it. She cannot get out to play her part in world life, nay, she cannot hope to ultimately maintain herself at home until that battle has been fought and won.

Arrangements with England, detentes, understandings, call them what you will, are merely parleys before the light. The assault must be delivered, the fortress carried, or else Germany and with her, Europe, must resign the mission of the white races and hand over the government and future of the world to one chosen people.

Europe reproduces herself yearly at the present time at the rate of about five million souls. Some three-fifths of this number are to-day absorbed into the life of the Continent, the balance go abroad and principally to North America, to swell the English-speaking world. Germany controls about one-fifth of Europe's natural annual increase, and realizing that emigration to-day means only to lose her people and build up her antagonist's strength, she has for years now striven to keep her people within German limits, and hitherto with successful results far in excess of any achieved by other European States. But the limit must be reached, and that ere many years are past. Where is Germany to find the suitable region, both on a scale and under conditions of climate, health and soil that a people of say 90,000,000 hemmed in a territory little larger than France, will find commensurate to their needs? No other European people is in such plight.