IRELAND THE "KEY OF THE ATLANTIC"

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2722, 17 March 1916, Page 6

IRELAND THE "KEY OF THE ATLANTIC"

SECRET GERMAN PAMPHLET,

The New York "World" publishes extracts from a pamphlet whioli 'the German Foreign Office is secretly circulating, entitled "Great Britain and Europe." This precious work is from the pen of Count Hovcntlow/- and a translation has been made and "printed for private circulation only" among, the Irish. Fourteen chapters are devoted to Irish history, as the Germans would like the Irish and the World to view it. The work culminates in the following passages, which are interesting because they constitute an indirect admission that unless British sea power can be destroyed Germany, must lose the war: "Germany is fighting for her own. existence; she is fighting-also for the liberation of the world. The great day of liberation will surely come sooner or later. The' condition sine qua non of that liberation is the destruction of Britain's maritime supremacy. For- as long as Britain rules the waves humanity must remain her slave. This is fundamental truth. And another fundamental tlruth is that Britain's maritime supremacy cannot be destroyed until Ireland is a free country. So long as Ireland remains a British colony—or, rather, a British fortress —Britain can at any time shut off the whole of Northern and Eastern Europe from all access to the ocean even c.6 by means of Gibraltar, Port Said, and Aden she can close the Mediterranean. Ireland is the key of the Atlantic. Kelease Ireland from bondage and the Atlantic'is at once opened up to Europe. Therefore must Ireland be restored to . Europe if Europe is to be free. An independent neutral Irish nation would 1 be the natural bulwark of European liberty in the West. Freedom depends -oil free-' dom of the, seas, and freedom of the seas depends on the liberation of Ireland.