The Western Macedonia must go the way of its Eastern fellow.  Like those of the Orient, the problems of the Occident for Europe are twofold—­a near Western and a far Western question.  Ireland, keeper of the seas, constitutes for Europe the near Western question.

The freedom of those seas and their opening to all European effort alike on equal terms constitutes the far Western question.  But in both cases the antagonist of Europe, the non-European power is the same.  The challenge of Europe must be to England, and the champion of Europe must be and can be only Germany.  No other European people has the power, the strength of mind, of purpose and of arm to accomplish the great act of deliverance.  Europe too long blinded to her own vital interests while disunited, must now, under the guidance of a united Germany, resolutely face the problem of freeing the seas.

That war of the seas is inevitable.  It may be fought on a continent; it may be waged in the air—­it must be settled on the seas and it must mean either the freeing of those seas or the permanent exclusion of Europeans from the affairs of the world.  It means for Europe the future, the very existence of European civilization as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon world domination.  In that war, Germany will stand not alone as the champion of Europe, she will fight for the freedom of the world.

As an Irishman I have no fear of the result to Ireland of a German triumph.  I pray for it; for with the coming of that day the “Irish question” so dear to British politicians, becomes a European, a world question.

With the humbling of Great Britain and the destruction of her sea ownership, European civilization assumes a new stature, and Ireland, oldest and yet youngest of the European peoples, shall enter into free partnership with the civilization, culture, and prosperity that that act of liberation shall bring to mankind.

Chapter VI

THE DUTY OF CHRISTENDOM

It is only the truth that wounds.  An Irishman to-day in dealing with Englishmen is forced, if he speak truly, to wound.  That is why so many Irishmen do not speak the truth.  The Irishman, whether he be a peasant, a farm labourer, however low in the scale of Anglicization he may have sunk, is still in imagination, if not always in manner, a gentleman.  The Englishman is a gentleman by chance, by force of circumstances, by luck of birth, or some rare opportunity of early fellowship.  The Irishman is a gentleman by instinct and shrinks from wounding the feelings of another man and particularly of the man who has wounded him.  He scorns to take it out of him that way.  That is why the task of misgoverning him has been so easy and has come so naturally to the Englishman.  One of the chief grievances of the Irishman in the middle ages was that the man who robbed him was such a boor.  Insult was added to injury in that the oppressor was no knight in shining armour,