Ireland is still bleeding at every pore from the wounds England inflicted. Thus even were the Belgian excuse true, there would be higher reasons of self-interest to keep Irish attention concentrated on our own problems.
Belgium apart, the other objects of the war—the real objects—have still less claim on Ireland. England's domination of the seas has been used not accidentally, but of set purpose, to discourage Irish trade, to keep derelict Ireland's magnificent harbors, the finest natural harbors in western Europe, and to prevent the growth of any mercantile marine in Ireland. Ireland has never been a partner in the empire or its advantages; she has been a Helot dragged at the chariot-tail of the empire. As it has been put, "Ireland belongs to the empire, and the empire belongs to England."
The latest instance of deliberate English interference with an Irish trading interest, before the war, was the stoppage of the Queenstown call. Formerly all the great transatlantic liners called at Queenstown both on the eastern and western journeys, to the great benefit of mail service not merely from Ireland, but from some parts of Great Britain as well. The mail-carrying companies, one after another, stopped this call at Queenstown, with the assent of the English Government, despite unanimous protests from all Ireland, north as well as south. A committee of patriotic Irish people, which included Mrs. J. R. Green, widow of the eminent historian, and Sir Roger Casement, was formed for the purpose of pressing the Government to reestablish the Queenstown call. Failing in that, as a brilliant counterstroke, this committee induced the Hamburg-American Line to arrange that its liners should call at Queenstown. The English Foreign Office was thunderstruck. Secret negotiations were at once entered upon to prevent Ireland from being thus restored to its proper place on the transatlantic highway. The German Government, naturally valuing England's friendship more than that of poor, weak Ireland, intervened. The Hamburg-American liners never called at Queenstown, despite their publicly announced intention of doing so. This, by the way, may be added to the category of German diplomatic blunders. Had Germany thus dramatically intervened to grant Ireland a trading favor that England had refused, the way would have been much clearer before Irishmen when the war broke out. I have little doubt that the English Foreign Office, already foreseeing war, had tins in mind when it exerted itself
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