ADDENDUM.

Dear Sir,

To an American Publisher.

I should have thought that the meaning of the title, The Lordship of the World, was made sufficiently clear by the title page alone. You will find its meaning further developed in Chapter IX., page 130, in these sentences:

66

Absolutely the most important thing in this world at the present time is to maintain a good and permanent understanding between the British Empire and the Republic of North America. Ireland stands between these great Powers, both geographically and politically. It may be her destiny, having won freedom for herself, 'from the centre to the sea,' to bind these two mighty nations into a peaceful and peacegiving world power. The Times recently wrote: It is the plain fact that it is Irish discontent which now more than anything else blocks and must block a close understanding between the American and British democracies. . . .'

In Chapter VII. I give much evidence of the number, power and solidarity of men of Irish origin in the United States. I hoped that they would be interested by the facts epitomized in the paragraphs, beginning at "The Irish in the War," pages 114-9; how they came trooping to the British army in tens of thousands in 1914, how Lord Kitchener called them "magnificent," how Mr. Devlin, M.P., raised five regiments from the Catholics of Belfast and how they were rewarded. Mr. Lloyd George, Secretary of State at the War Office in 1916, denounced, in the House of Commons, their treatment as malignant." This was the chief cause of the mad rebellion of that year. Lord Wimborne, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, denied that there was any German plot, page 118.

"With Caprivi as German Chancellor and Lord Salisbury
as Prime Minister the relations between the two countries
were very amicable. The close entente, which had existed
between England and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria
and Italy) since 1887, continued." "The fall of the Salisbury
Cabinet and the formation of a Liberal Administration
tended, as always, to bring about difficulties with Germany.
The (German) Government was much concerned by the
pro-French and pro-Russian leanings of Mr. Gladstone."-
The Times of 8th January, 1924.

Madame Olga Novikoff had taken charge of Liberal
Foreign Policy.

Count Hatzfeldt, the German Ambassador in London,
reported to Berlin that “Lord Salisbury has shown the same
confidence and the same openness as in former days"-
an honorable contrast to the secret "conversations" of Sir
Edward Grey's diplomacy.

CECIL PALMER

FORTY-NINE

CHANDOS

STREET

W.C.

SECOND

EDITION

I 9 2 4

COPY

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9-18-1924

Introduction

"God give us men. A time like this demands

Great hearts, strong minds, true faith and willing hands :

Men, whom the lust of office does not kill;

Men, whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men, who possess opinions and a will;

Men, who have honour, men who will not lie."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

THIS volume is in large part the result of visits during the past fifteen months to Germany and to the United States. Though I shall be very pleased if it receives consideration from Englishmen and Americans, it is chiefly addressed to my fellow countrymen in Ireland and in the States, who are ill-acquainted with the intricacies of foreign politics in Europe and have been grievously misled by ignorant rather than mischievous advisers. I would ask them to take to heart the evidence in the second and third chapters on "Armaments " and " Atrocities" and especially to weigh well the paragraphs in the fifth chapter on battleships and the two diagrams that illustrate them. My first five chapters deal with matters connected with the Great Wara war that never would have occurred if the

Conservatives and their wise Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, had remained in office. The second five discuss questions in Ireland and in the United States that are pressing for solution.

I beg to draw special attention to three salient facts established, I believe, in the second chapter, on Armaments.

(i) The first is that preparations for war by France, Russia and Great Britain were far advanced before Germany took special defensive action in 1912. Mr. Haldane's " eight years' plan eight years' plan" is typical. This is the crucial fact of the pre-war period and should be examined thoroughly.

(ii) The second is hardly less important, viz. the persistent assaults during three centuries by Monarchical, Imperial and Republican France on the German nations in order to prevent their union or to destroy it. The campaigns of Louis XIV and of the Great Napoleon were chiefly directed to this end and the wars declared by Napoleon III against both Austria and Prussia had the same object.

(iii) The paragraphs on the English Panic in 1859 and the Pax Germanica should impress on every fair-minded man the outstanding fact of the nineteenth century that in the twenty years of French Military Hegemony in Europe, 1850 to 1870, there were five wars, whilst in Germany's fortythree years of power, 1871 to 1914, peace reigned in Europe, except for the Balkan feuds, which Russia instigated.

The English-speaking peoples of Great Britain