GERMAN PROFESSOR'S FORESIGHT.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 May 1918, Page 6

GERMAN PROFESSOR'S FORESIGHT.

Tho famous Oxford professor of Victorian days, tie celebrated Max Muller, was a German who was proud of liis own land, and devoted to his birthplace as well as to England; and he was always wishful of promoting good fellowship and friendliness between the two countries. In a letter to Prince Christian (who died quite recently) written from Oxford in 1884, Max Muller say?,:— "J know tlic feeling of Germany towards England. . . . England has from time to time to pass through crises, and no one can deny that her statesmen and doctors do not prescribe the right remedies. . . But the English nation is of good old stock, and woe to him wlho forgets this! England will never he conquered—not before the last man, the last Irishman, the last Canadian and Newfoundlander, the last Sikh—aye, and the last Yankee —hag fallen!" "Bismarck knows what England signifies. . . . No danger threatens Germany from 'England!" There is a truly remarkable foresight indeed of the coming-in of all the dominions "beyond the seas to assist the Motherland when she needs it, though at the time Muller wrote this the British cVkmial relations were more strained than cordial. Moreover, note further how clearly he even see 3 the vision of c, great and loyal India ruslhinfr to the rescue, too, —a thing which _ has happened exactly as foretold, though Kaiser and junkers had both imagined so differently. Still grander is the vision which saw the United States 'hurrying up—"to the tost Yankee" —to fight with Britain w<hcn she needed their help. Still more astounding are the prophecies in another letter hv Muller, written in 18S5 to the then German Minister at the Vatican, He-rr von Schlotzer:— "We are living to-day like the beasts of iprey in prehistoric times- Every man in Europe is now a soldier. . . What are wo to think of a Europe where no single State finds itself safe unless its cannons outnumber those of its neighbor? . . . England is the on]v land which has not yet, taken to arming all its sons. But drive England into a corner and every man in it would to-morrow rush to be a soldier! TJiere may be jealousies and disunites between England and her colonies: but if it comes to extremities anv time the colonies will not allow a hair of England's head to be touched. Even Tndia, which was once a big danger, would clearly #iow that England's enemies are her own. "T wish they (the Germans?) would send some otfter sensible man as ambaspprlor +n London. The amlmssadors we have here are clever diplomatists ner]'in=. but they cannot shake off the idea that dinlomat.ists must play che'ss. Let us hope for better times. The present state of F"rooo iq a disgrace to all. and history will condemn us and our times more strongly than it did the ffuns and Vandals."