"Sir Roger Casement has long been a thorn in the side of the English Government, therefore the latter has not shrunk from making a murderous conspiracy against the life of this distinguished Irish leader. In agreement with Sir Edward Grey, the British Minister in Christiania, Mr. Findlay, tried to bribe Casement's companion—named Christensen—to murder Sir Roger. The attempted murder did not succeed, but the original documents are in the possession of the German Foreign Office, so that all doubt is excluded as to the English Government's participation—with their most honourable Grey at the head—in this Machiavellian plan."
This colossal Germanism concerning a plan to murder Sir Roger Casement has been assiduously spread throughout the German Press. The Berlin Government allows the German people to believe that incriminating documents are in their possession, and the vilest statements to blacken Mr. Findlay's character were printed in German newspapers when that gentleman was appointed to the Bulgarian Court in Sofia.
There are so few utterances in German war literature, which display reason or even moderation, that the author feels glad to be in a position to cite two. In the May number of the Süddeutsche-Monatshefte, Professor Wilhelm Franz (Tübingen) reviewed one of the hate-books, viz., a work entitled "Pedlars and Heroes" by a German named Sombart. A few passages will suffice to show that Germany is not quite devoid of straight-forward men, who dare to castigate hate.
"Towards the end of his book, Sombart solemnly assures the English that 'they need not fear us as a colonizing power; we (the Germans) have not the least ambition to conquer half-civilized and barbarian peoples in order to fill them with German spirit (Geist). But the English can colonize and fill such peoples with their spirit—for they have none, or at least only a pedlar's.'
"It would never occur to any sane man to refute effusions of this kind, for they cannot be taken seriously. Still I cannot but wish that an angry English journalist with his clever and fiery pen, would fall upon Sombart's book and give its author a sample of English spirit. The work teems with unjust, incorrect opinions; is full of crass ignorance and grotesque exaggerations, which lead the unlearned astray, injure Germany's cause, and annoy those who know better—so far as they do not excite ridicule.
"What is one to think when Sombart asks his readers: 'What single cultural work has emerged from the great shop, England, since Shakespeare—except that political abortion the English State?'
"If I had to answer Sombart I should say, the great shop has given the English State practically everything which makes for internal peace, solidarity and national health. It has enabled the nation to exercise tolerance within, and develop splendour and power without, which in their turn have made Britannia the mistress of the world's waterways, and the British the first colonial nation in the world.
"England's cultural development has brought all these since Shakespeare's time; energy, willpower, united with high endeavour to realize great aims and overcome mighty resistance. And the basis of this splendid progress which compels the admiration of all other States, was what Sombart presumes to call an 'abortion.'"
The other is taken from "Der englische Gedanke in Deutschland" ("The English Idea in Germany,") by Ernst Müller-Holm, p. 72. "It is not true that all Englishmen are scoundrels. It is not true that there is nothing but pedlar's spirit in England, and because it is not true it should not be said, not even in these times when war passions run high.
"The fatherland of Shakespeare, Byron and Thackeray; the home of Newton, Adam Smith, Darwin and Lyell will ever remain a land of honour to educated Germans. Where would it end if I were to count up the heroes of English intellect whose names are written in letters of gold in humanity's great book?"