CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 May 1916, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

KEY TO THE ATLANTIC. The New York Worlil publishes extracts from a pamphlet which the German Foreign Oflice is secretly circulating, entitled ''Great Britain and Europe." This precious work is from the pen of Count Reventlow, and a translation was 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, wliich are interesting because they constitute an indirect admission that unless British sea power can be destroyed Germany must lose the war:—"Germany is lighting 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 'conditio sine qua non' of that liberation is the destruction of Britain's maritime supremacy. For as long as Britain rules •the waveß, humanity must remain her slave. This is fundamental truth. And another fundamental truth is that Britain's maritime supremacy cannot be destroyed until Ireland remains 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 as by means of Gibraltar, fort 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. Therefore must Ireland be restored to Europe if Europe is to be free. An independent neutral Irish nation would be the natural bulwark of European liberty in the West. Freedom depends on freedom of the seas, and freedom of the seas depends on the liberation of Ireland!"