IRELAND THE "KEY OF THE ATLANTIC."

Taranaki Daily News, 20 March 1916, Page 5

IRELAND THE "KEY OF THE ATLANTIC."

SECRET GERMAN PAMPHLET. The New York World publishes extracts from a pamphlet which the German Foreign Office is secretly circulat. ing, entitled "Great Britain and Europe." This precious work is from the pen of Count Reventlow, 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 tho Irish and the world to view it. The woi-k 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 lighting 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 destrnction 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 truth 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 Northera and Eastern Europe from all access to the ocean even as by means of Gibraltar, Port Said, and Aden she can close the Mediterranean, Ireland is the key of the Atlantic. Release Ireland from bondage and the Atlantic is at once opened up to Europe. Therefere must Ireland be restored to Europe if Europe is to be free. An independent neutral Irish nation would bo the natural bulwark of European liberty in the West. Freedom depends on freedom of the seas, ami freedom of the seas depends on the liberation of Treland.

German writers have been boasting lately of what the German beet has done. They may be recommended to turn to a book by a German naval officer, which was written some years ago it is true, but which contains conclusions which have not been vitiated by the passage of time. This writer, Captain A, Stenzel, a retired officer of the German Navy, described in some detail the duties of the British fleet as follows:—First: Duties of Defence—(l) To keep the United Kingdom safe from invasion and its coasts from insult and injury; (2) to protect the commercial navy in all seas, likewise, the fisheries; (3) to keep the sea open for the arrival of imports into the United Kingdom; (4) to protect India and all the colonies; (5) to keep open the communications between the Mother Country and her colonies and India. Secondly: Offensive Action in Connection with above —(1) To keep the enemy's fleet locked up in their harbors, and so defeat, and if possible to destroy them, if they venture out; (2) to blockade the enemy's ports and do injury to his coasts; (3) to pursue and, destroy the enemy's cruisers and privateers; (4) to capture, or destroy the enemy's commercial navy and fishing fleets; (5) to compel the trans-oceanic possessions of the I enemy to surrender, either by cutting off their communications or by actual hostile capture by the army. ' As Mr. Archibald Hurd has remarked, let any Englishman, or German for that matter, rend Captain Stengel's enumeration of the duties of the fleet, and what becomes of the nonsense which has recently been written in the newspapers on the other side of the North Sea with a view, of course, to influencing opinion in neutral countries, and, particularly, in countries hesitating between adhesion to the side of the Allies or to the Central Powers? With one sweeping movement it must be admitted that all the ''duties of defence" have been performed, and performed brilliantly. The same is also true with reference to offensive action. The German Navy still exists because it has not ventured out.