Page:The Myth of a Guilty Nation.djvu/73

 Are they not rather pretending to be afraid of it in order to bring on a war which would annihilate Germany's navy, her merchant-fleet and her foreign commerce? Germany is as vulnerable to attack as England is safe from it; and if England were to attack Germany merely for the sake of extinguishing a rival, it would only be in accordance with her old precedents.

In turn she wiped out the Dutch fleet, with the assistance of Louis XIV; then the French fleet; and the Danish fleet she even destroyed in time of peace and without any provocation, simply because it constituted a naval force of some magnitude.

There are no ostensible grounds for war between Germany and England. The English hatred for Germany arises solely from jealousy of Germany's progress in shipping, in commerce and in manufacture.

Baron Greindl here presents an opinion very different from that in which the majority of Americans have been instructed; and before they accept further instruction at the hands of Viscount Bryce, they had better look into the matter somewhat for themselves.

Baron Greindl wrote the foregoing in October. In December, the head of the British Admiralty, Sir John Fisher, assured Colonel Repington that "Admiral Wilson's Channel fleet was alone strong enough to smash the whole German fleet." Two years later, Sir John Fisher wrote to King

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