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KUNO MEYER’S MESSAGE T@ THE IRISH PEOPLE
Great Celtic Scholar Gives Most Important Information, At Brooklyn Clan-Na-Gael
Meeting, As To Germany’s Power And Determination To Carry War To Final
Victory—Describes Meeting With Sir Roger Casement In Berlin —When
Proper Time Comes Government Will Amplify Its Promise To Ire-
land — French Moslem Prisoners Volunteering To Fight Eng-
lish In Egypt And Irish Soldiers Forming An Irish
Brigade—England And Ireland Will Be Invaded.
Following is the full text of Professor
Kuno Meyer’s speech at the celebration
of the anniversary of the Manchester
Martyrs by the Clan-na-Gael of Long
Island at the Academy of Music, Brook-
lyn, on Sunday evening, December 6:
d Clonnsa na n5sevest,
I have been invited to say a few words
from the German point of view on the
war generally and more particularly on
the relation which has suddenly sprung,
into being Letween my native country
and Ireland. Before I do so allow me
to. refer briefly to my own position In
tne matter. A German by birth and
nationality, I count myself an adopted
son of Ireland, whose ancient language
and literature and whose history have
been the chief concern of my life, wnile
she has generously recognized my work
by granting me the honorary freedom
of two of her fairest cities.
For 30 years I have resided among
the English, with many of whose prom-
inent and leading men, not only in
literature, science and art, but also in
politics, I am united by ties of long-
standing friendship, which nothing, not
even the present enmity between our
two nations, shall sever, so far as I
am concerned. Three years ago I re-
turned to my native land, where I have
lived in constant touch with well-in-
formed and influential political circles.
From all these circumstances I may say
that I have perhaps had better oppor-
tunities to become acquainted with the
events that have brought about this war
and with the issues now at stake than
most people outside the sphere of pro-
fessional diplomats and politicians.
From, 1896, when the first distinctly
threatening note was sounded in. Eng-
land that Germany was the arch rival
who must at all costs be crushed, I have
followed closely every step that brought
us nearer to the inevitable issue, care-
fully noting everything in my diary. It
was in the summer of 1911 that I lost
all hope of peace between England and
Germany, when the two countries were
on the brink of war, though the major-
ity of the people of England, who by a
strange fiction are supposed to govern
the country, knew nothing about it till
Icng afterwards. And yet in one’s dread
of the horrible calamity of such a war
ene clung to false hopes, hoped, as the
saying is, against hope, and shut one’s
eyes against facts that were staring one
in the face. “So did our Emperor, so
did most of our prominent statesmen,
and so did not a few among British
politicians outside the Foreign Office.
I remember during my last visit vo
England in the spring of this year Lord
Haldane expressing at a friendly din-
ner his belief that on the whole the
situation was’ not unfavorable, as the
grouping of the great Powers seemed to
him to afford a guarantee for peace: Sir
Edward Grey keeping Russia in check,
so he expressed it, and Germany doing
the same by Austria-Hungary. Of France
and her unappeased desire for revenge
he said not a word, nor of the fact that
the war party both there and in Russia,