668 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



to accuse us not only of pure brigandage, but also of lunacy. 

 Admitting that our navy was much superior to that of Germany, 

 yet we could hardly crush Berlin with ships of war, or indeed, 

 in a single combat, do more harm to Germany than injure her 

 trade. Really such a preposterous statement is deserving only 

 of the ridicule of history and of the world in general. And the 

 stupid naivete of it is apparent from what Prof. Kuno Meyer 

 added towards the end of his address. " That an invasion both 

 of England and Ireland will take place sooner or later, I together 

 with all my own countrymen firmly believe. The attack upon 

 Yarmouth, the mines placed near Malin Head, and what happened 

 on Lough Swilly and at Sheerness have already foreshadowed 

 it. When Germany has obtained the great object for which she 

 fights, the nations that now bear the yoke of England unwillingly 

 will surely not be forgotten." This statement gives away the 

 previous one, because it simply shows that all the Professor's 

 countrymen had been carefully preparing beforehand for the 

 invasion of England, and that their great object was to crush 

 us. Thus Prof. Kuno Meyer directly accuses us of precisely the 

 crime which the Germans had been secretly preparing against 

 Britain, and, we may add, against France, Belgium, and Russia. 

 It is just as if an armed brigand were to meet an old woman in a 

 wood and rob her on the pretext that she was trying to rob him. 

 Poor old England before the war was just like this hypothetical 

 old lady, and it was only owing to the monstrous bungling of 

 German diplomacy at the outset of war that we were saved from 

 these secret nefarious designs. 



At the same time, we do not accuse Prof. Kuno Meyer himself 

 of intentional falsification. He is himself a gentle and very 

 simple person who has been easily misled by falsehoods which 

 provoke only laughter outside his fatherland. It would be 

 interesting to ask on what evidence he relies for the truth of his 

 statement that England first sounded a distinctly threatening 

 note against Germany in 1896. The only event which could 

 have made much change in the relations of England and 

 Germany was that Heligoland had been ceded, with great 

 generosity and equal folly, to Germany six years previously, and 

 that the Germans, in gratitude for our kindness, immediately 

 began to fortify it against ourselves. It is as if A should give 

 B a pistol for a birthday present, and B should immediately 

 begin to load it in order to shoot A ! Possibly at that time this 



