A NOVELIST'S FORECAST.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2423, 11 February 1909, Page 2

A NOVELIST'S FORECAST.

THE KAISER'S WORDS. The “Daily Chronicle” points out that Coulsoii Kernahan, in his recent novel “The Red Peril”—a poor piece of work—puts into the mouth of the Kaiser words that are almost literally realised in the “Daily Telegraph's” famous interview of a subsequent date. -A reference to the latter will show how closely the reality approximates to the imaginary. Here is what the novelist made the Kaiser say in the course of an interview:— “Is England, are Englishmen mad that they try us thus far?” the Kaiser said. “No day passes that some word of mine is not misrepresented., and motives’ attributed to Germany of which Germany lias never conceived. . . . I, whom you speak of as menacing the peace of Europe, may not have many more years to live. If a weaker ruler than I conic after me—if England continue this campaign of suspicion and calumny, if the adviserrs of Germany remain in tlie same mind that many of them are to-day—England will learn too late that, but for me, whom she accounts a menace to the world’s peace, England would long since have brought upon herself the retribution she deserves. . And all the time, it is I, more than any other man alive, be he Emperor. King, or President, who every day of his life prays with heartfelt earnestness the prayer: ; 'Give me peace in our time, 0 Lord!’” Mr Kernahan then goes on to say : “Certain sections of the Press, no less in Germany than in England, have for their own purposes, sought to play upon what is base in national jealousy : and by lies and misrepresentation of the motives of the English King and the German Emperor, the English' people and the 'German people, have, striven to make bad blood. But these stirrers up of strife —alike in England as in Germany—are ignorant as they are irresponsible, and in no sense whatever can they be said to speak for or to represent the. nation.”