nnexed"
Ireland, is it at all clear that she would (or even could) injure
Ireland more than Great Britain has done? To what purpose and with
what end in view? "Innate brutality"--the Englishman replied--"the
Prussian always ill-treats those he lays hands on--witness the poor
Poles." Without entering into the Polish language question, or the
Polish agrarian question, it is permissible for an Irishman to reply
that nothing by Prussia in those respects has at all equalled English
handling of the Irish language or England land dealings in Ireland.
The Polish language still lives in Prussian Poland and much more
vigorously than the Irish language survives in Ireland.

But it is not necessary to obscure the issue by reference to the
Prussian Polish problem. An Ireland annexed to the German Empire
(supposing this to be internationally possible) as one of the fruits
of a German victory over Great Britain would clearly be administered
as a common possession of the German people, and not as a Prussian
province. The analogy, if one can be set up in conditions so
dissimilar, would lie not between Prussia and her Polish provinces,
but between the German Empire and Alsace-Lorraine. What, then,
would be the paramount object of Germany in her administration of an
overseas Reichsland of such extraordinary geographical importance to
her future as Ireland would be?

Clearly not to impoverish and depress that new-won possession but
to enhance its exceeding strategic importance by vigorous and wise
administration, so as to make it the main counterpoise to any possible
recovery of British maritime supremacy, so largely due as this was in
the past to Great Britain's own possession of this island.

A prosperous and flourishing Ireland, recognizing that her own
interests lie with those of the new Administration, would assuredly be
the first and chief aim of German statesmanship.

The very geographical situation of Ireland would alone ensure wise and
able administration by her new rulers had Germany no other and special
interest in advancing Irish well-being; for to rule from Hamburg
and Berlin a remote island and a discontented people, with a highly
discontented and separated Britain intervening, by methods of
exploitation and centralization, would be a task beyond the capacity
of German statecraft. German effort, then, would be plainly directed
to creating an Ireland satisfied with the change, and fully determined
to maintain it.

And i