On these two points one is happy to be able to give assurances, or rather to state intentions.

As for foreign invasion, we have had quite enough of it.

It is easier to get invaders in than to get them out again, and we have not spent seven hundred years in recovering Ireland for ourselves in order to make a present of it to the Germans, or the Russians, or the Man in the Moon, or any other foreign power whatever.
The present plan of governing Ireland in opposition to the will of her people does indeed inevitably make that country the weak spot in the defences of these islands, for such misgovernment produces discontent, and discontent is the best ally of the invader.

Alter that by Home Rule, and your cause instantly becomes ours.

Give the Irish nation an Irish State to defend, and the task of an invader becomes very unenviable.