RENEGADE LOSES A LEGACY

Taranaki Daily News, 5 November 1921, Page 11

RENEGADE LOSES A LEGACY

THE KAISER’S “PET ENGLISHMAN.” Holding that he was a German national within the meaning of the Treaty of Peace, Mr. Justice P. O. Lawrence in the London Law Courts granted a declaration that Mr. Houlston Stewart Chamberlain had forfeited his life interest in a settlement made by his uncle, the late General Sir Crawford Trotter Chamberlain. It was stated that Mr. H. S. Chamberlain was born in England on September 9, 1855. He was educated at Cheltenham College and Versailles, and from 1682 to 1906 lived in Vienna. He afterwards went to Germany, where he divorced his first wife, a German Teacher of music, and in 1908 married Eva, only daughter of Richard Wagner, the composer. During the war he expressed anti-British views, and on August 8, 1916, he became a naturalised German, having made up his mind to adhere to the country of his “adoption and affection” rather than the country of his birth. He is now living with his mother-in-law at Wahnfried, Bayreuth, Bavaria. On behalf of Mr. Chamberlain, it was argued that he could not change his allegiance by an illegal act and that he was a British subject according to English law. Mr. Justice Lawrence said that Mr. Chamberlain had committed a crime against the laws of Great Britain, and if he came within the jurisdiction he was liable to bo tried for treason. It was clear that, according to German municipal law, he was a German national. If it were hold otherwise it would mean that the expression German national in the treaty would have one meaning in Germany and another in Britain. Known as the Kaiser’s “pet Englishman,” Houston Stewart Chamberlain, son of a British admiral, was born 60 years ago at Southsea. He was given the Iron Cross with White Ribbon. “A nation of dissemblers, forgers, liars and cheats,” was one of the series of epithets which he bestowed upon Britain. When he addressed prisoners of war in German internment camps he was shouted down with cries of “Turncoat” gnd “Trabktf.” -