The conclusion that Ireland must suffer all the disasters and eventual losses defeat would entail on Great Britain is based on what may be termed the fundamental maxim that has governed British dealings with Ireland throughout at least three centuries. That maxim may be given in the phrase, "Separation is unthinkable." Englishmen have come to invincibly believe that no matter what they may do or what may betide them, Ireland must inseparably be theirs, linked to them as surely as Wales or Scotland, and forming an eternal and integral part of a whole whose fate is indissolubly in their hands. While Great Britain, they admit, might well live apart (and happily) from an Ireland safely "sunk under the sea" they have never conceived of an Ireland, still afloat, that could possibly exist, apart from Great Britain. Sometimes, as a sort of bogey, they hold out to Ireland the fate that would be hers if, England defeated, somebody else should "take" her. For it is a necessary corollary to the fundamental maxim already stated, that Ireland, if not owned by England, must necessarily be "owned" by someone else than her own inhabitants. The British view of the fate of Ireland in the event of British defeat may be stated as twofold. Either Ireland would remain after the war as she is to-day, tied to Great Britain, or she _might_ be (this is not very seriously entertained) annexed by the victor. No other solution, I think, has ever been suggested. Let us first discuss No. I. This, the ordinary man in the street view, is that as Ireland would be as much a part and belonging to Great Britain after a war as before it, whatever the termination of that war might be, she could not fail to share the losses defeat must bring to a common realm. The partnership being indissoluble, if the credit of the house were damaged and its properties depreciated, all members of the firm must suffer. In this view, an Ireland weaker, poorer, and less recuperative than Great Britain, would stand to lose even more from a British defeat than the predominant partner itself. Let us at once admit that this view is correct. If on the condition of a great war Ireland were still to remain, as she is to-day, an integral portion of a defeated United Kingdom, it is plain she would suffer, and might be made to suffer possibly more even than fell to the share of Great Britain.