I know many Irishmen who admit that as between England and Germany they would prefer to remain in the hands of the former--on the principle that it is better to keep the devil you know than fall into the hands of a new devil.
German rule, you are asked to believe, would be so bad, so stern, that under it Ireland, however much she might have suffered from England in the past, would soon yearn to be restored to the arms of her sorrowing sister.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Germany "annexed" Ireland, is it at all clear that she would (or even could) injure Ireland more than Great Britain has done?
To what purpose and with what end in view?
"Innate brutality"-- the Englishman replied--"the Prussian always ill-treats those he lays hands on--witness the poor Poles." Without entering into the Polish language question, or the Polish agrarian question, it is permissible for an Irishman to reply that nothing by Prussia in those respects has at all equalled English handling of the Irish language or England land dealings in Ireland.
The Polish language still lives in Prussian Poland and much more vigorously than the Irish language survives in Ireland.
But it is not necessary to obscure the issue by reference to the Prussian Polish problem.

An Ireland annexed to the German Empire (supposing this to be internationally possible) as one of the fruits of a German victory over Great Britain would clearly be administered as a common possession of the German people, and not as a Prussian province.

The analogy, if one can be set up in conditions so dissimilar, would lie not between Prussia and her Polish provinces, but between the German Empire and Alsace-Lorraine.

What, then, would be the paramount object of Germany in her administration of an overseas Reichsland of such extraordinary geographical importance to her future as Ireland would be?
Clearly not to impoverish and depress that new-won possession but to enhance its exceeding strategic importance by vigorous and wise administration, so as to make it the main counterpoise to any possible recovery of British maritime supremacy, so largely due as this was in the past to Great Britain's own possession of this island.
A prosperous and flourishing Ireland, recognizing that her own interests lie with those of the new Administration, would assuredly be the first and chief aim of German statesmanship.
The very geographical situation of Ireland would alone ensure wise and able administration by her new rulers had Germany no other and special interest in advancing Irish well-being; for to rule from Hamburg and Berlin a remote island and a discontented people, with a highly discontented and separated Britain intervening, by methods of exploitation and centralization, would be a task beyond the capacity of German statecraft.