A KING'S EXILE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 152, 15 July 1937, Page 5

A KING'S EXILE

Correspondent — By Air Mail.)

Haile Selassie's Life in Englaind . WRITING A BOOK .

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LONDON, June 16. Haile Selassie, sombre, .dafk-skinned Negus, whom once a face of warriors hailed as Lion of Ju.dah and King of liings, received me in a Kensington drawing-room and, in slow, measured words, told me tho etory of his first year of exile (says a writer in the Sunday Chronicle). Time has little changed Haile Selassie 's face since the day he Uaed iu an ATabian Night 's palace, g«arded by a retinue of barbarie splendour. Perhaps his dark eyes are a little more sad and weary, jhis mOvements a little mor© fatigued, but he preservCd the grand manner of a great ruler as, w:.th an oecasional brilliant smile, he" spoke to me of Britain, of BritiBh fqpd and eustomis, and of the long hook he is writing. "During jny year of exile I have never failed to meet British courtesy and fatr-play wherever I have gone," he said. "In Bath, as in London, 1 have been treated just as I wanted to be treated." The Negus has assiduously fitted himself to his new ' environment. His wardrobe now includee more than £100 worth of British clotfles — a dinner jacket, grey and blue lounge euits, many ties, a camel-hair overcoat,- shoes, socks, and shirts. Haile Selassiie's expre&sion softened when he spoke of his 12-year-old son, the Duke of Harar, who is sharlng the life of the British schoolboy— atmdies football, fencing, bicycling — at a Bath faoarding school. "I have every intention of continuing the education of my children in England," he said. Our British food has proved a little strange to the Emperor and his suite, used to the highly-spiced dishes of Abyesiuia. "Your food takes getting used to, ' ' he said. ' 1 My fiouselxold miss the fiavours and spices we once knew, but thds and the problem of language are the only things that disturb us. " Though the Emperor did not mention it, there is another problem. When Haile Selassie ruled Abyssinia, countless servants waited upon him. Now he has to be content with a few. Only the other week, the Ethiopian Legation dn London hurriedly dispatched a ©kef and two maids to the Emperor 's Bath home — otherwise the King of Kings might have had to eat his dinner out of tins. "I am fully occupied;" he eontinued, "but with all that my future plans — cf you cau call them plans — are vague." When J asked him whether he had abandoned his cause as hopeless, there was a flash of that old fire which inspired his tribesmen to charge heroical-. ly, hopelessly, against the machine-guns

of the Italians. "Never will I give up hope," he declared emphatically, "no matter how hopeless my case may appear. For my people are in my thoughts always." Letters from faithful frdends in Ethiopia have proved to the Negus that Italian domination of his Mngdom does not extend beyond the range of Blackshirt 'guns. "I have almost cpmpleted my hook," he said. "I am writing the whole story of the Abyssinian eampaign. I will not shrdnk from putting every f aet on reeord."