This is the more immediate danger, but, apart from this, the strategical value of Ireland will be profoundly affected by its separation from England, and this constitutes a grave source of weakness, even if internal trouble be avoided, and a comparatively loyal government be installed.  Ireland lies directly across all the trade routes by which nearly all our supplies of food and raw material are brought, and it covers the principal trade centres of the Midlands and the South of Scotland.  In any attack by an enemy on our commerce, Ireland will become of supreme importance.  There are two stages in every naval war:  first, the engagement between the two navies; second, the blockade or destruction of the ships of the beaten side.  This was the method by which we fought Napoleon, but even then we could not prevent the enemy’s ships escaping from time to time; and even after we had destroyed their navy at Trafalgar, the damage to our oversea commerce was enormous.  Nowadays, torpedoes, submarines, and floating mines have rendered blockade infinitely more precarious, and consequently we have to take into account the extreme probability, and indeed, certainty, of hostile cruisers escaping and menacing our oversea supplies.  This danger will be increased tenfold if Germany has been able to defeat France, and use French, Dutch, and Belgian ports for privateering purposes.  In the second, if not in the first, stage of European war, therefore, the closest co-operation between the governments of Ireland and England will be essential.  In this case, Queenstown and Lough Swilly will be the bases for our own protecting cruisers, and on their success will depend the issues of life and death for our people.  As the West of Ireland is the nearest point in these islands to America, it is probable that cargoes destined for English ports will reach them via Ireland to avoid the longer sea-transit.  Lord Wolseley has even gone so far as to minimise the dangers of blockade, because the Irish coast offered such facilities for blockade-running.  It is certain that in our greatest need Ireland might well prove our salvation, provided we had not absolutely lost command of the sea, and this advantage a Liberal Government is prepared to jeopardise for reasons, which, compared with the interests at stake, are little less than sordid.

But even if Ireland be less directly affected by war than in this case, and even if its internal condition should give little anxiety, the very nature of its resources should prevent us taking a step which may deprive us of them in emergency or, at least, render them less readily available.  Not only do we draw a number of our soldiers from there, out of all proportion to the quotas provided by the populations of England and Scotland, but we are absolutely dependent for our mounted branches on Irish horses.  For our supplies in time of stress, for our horses, and for a great and valuable recruiting area, we shall be forced to rely on a government whose future is wrapped in the deepest obscurity, and which at the best is hardly likely to give us enthusiastic support.