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What Independent Ireland Would Mean to the U. S.
(By J. P. O’Mahony)
r
The nation-wide movement in the United States demanding justice and liberty for Ireland as one of the op-
pressed small nationalities has won the support of leading Americans of all races. and creeds and has made a re-
markable impression on the press of the country, being taken up by many of the leading magazines and by two
great papers, neither of them ever classed as friendly to tie aspirations of Ireland, the New k World and New
ork Evening Post. While it is natural that the liberty-loving American people should sympathize with IreJand’s
desire for justice and liberty. America has far more than an altruistic interest in the liberation of that country.
\ After the war, whatever way the terrifific struggle is decided, men of affairs recognize that there will then begin a
gigantic commercial struggle for the business of the world.
If there is an “even-break”, a “draw”, or if England and her allies win the war England will, true to her history,
try to dominate the trade of the world. She has always been and is now the great commercial rival of the United
States
of England in the. business struggle of the future.
the commerce of the world as far as the Atlantic is concerned.
fact. An independent Ireland would insure fair play for American commerce as nothing else would. Hence for
purely selfish business reasons Americans should be for the Independence of Ireland. That can be brought about
~ now by American intervention.
Now is the time to act.
Ire'and, situated as she is in the Atlantic, is the great key to
Great Minds on Ireland.
“Ireland is the. key to the commerce of Europe.”—the late Rear Admiral Mahan, U.S.
‘Ireland free of English rule would mean the end of England’s domination of the seas. See Bonaparte.
“The ough question is not an English question, but indeed a European question.’—W. E. Gladstone.
“If we can not yet make Ireland free, we. should take her and make her a grannary for American corn to scatter
it to ey four winds of Europe.”—Wendel Phillips, Boston, 1863.
and governed in the interest of the Irish could easily support a population of 20,000,000. "—John Stuart Mill,
English Deomemiet
Ireland and the United States.
n Independent rejand vould offer the advantages-of twenty of the finest harbors in the world to the friendly
shipping of the United
reland’s wonderful . aad resources would furnish ample opportunity for American commerce and enterprise
and Blace at America’s disposal “the key to the trade of the continent.”
e Independence of Ireland would be readtly recognized by most of the European powers as the first essential
step towards the complete “freedom of the s
It would end the intolerable domination. of the sea by one power and prevent the possibility of England ever
» again oppressing American commerce.
Friendly Harbors Await United States.
We have spent billions in the Philippine Islands, among a strange people of alien blood. We are now discuss-
{ng the need of coaling stations and naval bases 8,000 miles away,
ae Ireland, three times larger than Belgium, larger than Holland, larger than Switzerland and other independent
“?}Jountries, is only 3,000 miles from’ New York. Have we any naval bases, coaling stations or friendly harbors on the
‘her side of the Atlantic?
t the great idea of “America First” govern American consideration with regard to Ireland in the readjust-
. neni of European conditions
The greatest minds have always recognized this’
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