The New York herald., 1922-08-13
ireland Always Vital Spot in
Attempted InvasionS of England

A friendly Ireland is even still OF
| vital import to Great Britain, when II
is remembered that right from Roman
times she has been the turning point
of Englands flank and that from the
reign of Henry VIII. onward the Brit
ish Governments have through hard
experience always been singularly
sensitive to this fact. The Spaniards
and the French both tried to strike al
England's heart through Erin and
failed, the last failure being that ol
Humbert after the 1898 rebellion.
The words "even still" are used be-
cause the coming of the airplane and
poison gas has radically changed Ire
lands significance as a strategic "take-
off point for Englands enemies. The
future airplane will have a five to ten
thousand mile radius and will be able
to drip death" over London as easily
from the Continent as from Ireland
Within twenty-five years the future
plane will fly the Atlantic as easily as
the plane of to-day leaps the sixty
miles from Holyhead to Dublin. These
are points the strategists. still think
ing in terms Of the 1914 war, scarcely
realize. Some day they will have to
realize.
Yet despite the above qualification
Ireland being the first land on the
west of Europe, peopled by men and
women entirely misunderstood, whose
psychology Is as much a dark cham
ber to the British statesman as 1t was
TO the German Junker, will again and
yet again be the subject of continental
attempts at England-perhaps even OF
Asiatic attempts. Such attempts will
| originate in the brains of statesmen
who, like Ludendorff and his kind
never realized that the Irish rebel" in
the great war would as lief kill a
German as a rat, and, with Celtic
logic. ruthless and unsentimental
would use him to help in the attain
| ment of Irish independence with as
| complete Indifference as he would use
| demon from the pit, and when he
had used him would throw him In
again-if he were able. That the few
Irishmen who knew of the German in
terference themselves judged wrongly
and even stupidly, that they never
i'oii@c0 tHut NHtltf tie ISiEilHu Htu
chastised Ireland with whips the
Junkers would have chastised her with
scorpions, does not alter the case. Nor
is IL altered by the fact that between
the German and the Irishman there Is
a psychological gulf unbridgable. The
German heaven would be the Irish
mans hell, but for that matter the
Irishman's heaven would be hell to al
most any other European.
Nothing can defer the constructive
reriod into which ireland, despite all
appearances. is now passing. Even II
Republican government came to-
morrow I'm Dublin and Ireland We're
plunged into civil war the period OF
building up would still come. For al
least twenty to twenty-five years we
shall see Ireland, as bolieve, a Free
State Ireland, beginning at the foun.
dations and building herself up, stone
on stone IL during that twenty years
| England's brain flash comes. ireland
will yet be the best friend, IL not oi
the British Empire--for the 1rishmar
is by nature and essence averse 10 the
/ imperial idea-at least of England
| Sympathy. not always understand
| ing Is necessary TO friendship. TIL,
Irish and English peoples may never
understand each other. but there Il
nothing TO prevent them being ex
cellent friends.