Chapter VIII

IRELAND, GERMANY AND THE NEXT WAR

In the February, 1913, _Fortnightly Review_, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at
the end of an article, "Great Britain and the Next War," thus appeals
to Ireland to recognize that her interests are one with those of Great
Britain in the eventual defeat of the latter:

"I would venture to say one word here to my Irish fellow-countrymen
of all political persuasions. If they imagine that they can stand
politically or economically while Britain falls they are woefully
mistaken. The British fleet is their one shield. If it be broken
Ireland will go down. They may well throw themselves heartily into the
common defence, for no sword can transfix England without the point
reaching Ireland behind her...."

I propose to briefly show that Ireland, far from sharing the
calamities that must necessarily fall on Great Britain from defeat
by a great power, might conceivably thereby emerge into a position of
much prosperity.

I will agree with Sir A. Conan Doyle up to this--that the defeat of
Great Britain by Germany must be the cause of a momentous change to
Ireland: but I differ from him in believing that that change must
necessarily be disastrous to Ireland. On the contrary, I believe that
the defeat of Great Britain by Germany might conceivably (save in one
possible condition) result in great gain to Ireland.

The conclusion that Ireland must suffer all the disasters and eventual
losses defeat would entail on Great Britain is based on what may be
termed the fundamental maxim that has governed British dealings with
Ireland throughout at least three centuries. That maxim may be given
in the phrase, "Separation is unthinkable." Englishmen have come to
invincibly believe that no matter what they may do or what may betide
them, Ireland must inseparably be theirs, linked to them as surely
as Wales or Scotland, and forming an eternal and integral part of a
whole whose fate is indissolubly in their hands. While Great Britain,
they admit, might well live apart (and happily) from an Ireland
safely "sunk under the sea" they have never conceived of an Ireland,
still afloat, that could possibly exist, apart from Great Britain.
Sometimes, as a sort of bogey, they hold out to Ireland the fate that
would be hers if, England defeated, somebody else should "take" her.
For it is a necessary corollary to the fundamental maxim already
stated, that Ireland, if not owned by England, must necessarily be
"own