Ireland, keeper of the seas, constitutes for Europe the near Western question.
The freedom of those seas and their opening to all European effort alike on equal terms constitutes the far Western question.

But in both cases the antagonist of Europe, the non-European power is the same.
The challenge of Europe must be to England, and the champion of Europe must be and can be only Germany.

No other European people has the power, the strength of mind, of purpose and of arm to accomplish the great act of deliverance.

Europe too long blinded to her own vital interests while disunited, must now, under the guidance of a united Germany, resolutely face the problem of freeing the seas.
_That war of the seas is inevitable_.

It may be fought on a continent; it may be waged in the air--it must be settled on the seas and it must mean either the freeing of those seas or the permanent exclusion of Europeans from the affairs of the world.