RULERS IN EXILE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 275, 2 September 1936, Page 8

RULERS IN EXILE.

HOW THEY LIVE TO-DAY. A LENGTHY LIST. The arrival of the Negus in England adds a further name (writes Ferdinand Tuoliy in the “Daily Mail”) to the growing list of contemporary exiles. Just what will be the run of things for this latest recruit—whether he is destined to hold the stage or to fad,e out in some climatic retreat—it would he rash to prophesy, yet one aspect seems already determined: he will not want. Haile Selassie has his chests of treasure, £4,000,000 worth, so it has been said. He also has his family'. Other have fared wo:e. Take the once-feted ex-King of Afghanistan. One year Amanullah was staying in Orientalised apartments at Buckingham Palace; the next, he and his consort were outcasts on Lake Geneva, magnetic point for exiles past asd, present. Since then. Amanullah has sincerely tried to earn a livelihood. Among other things he has been house agent. But lie is not apparently built that way, and, to-day lives very modestly in Rome.

One who has now done more than 10 years of St. Helena-like exile is Abd-el-Krim, the tough old Riffian who, after running the Spaniards into the Mediterranean, was to cause France’s admirable Moroccan forces much worry before finally Marshal Retain disposed of him. Krim surrendered, and. implored his captors that he be allowed to stay on in his native hills; he would never give trouble again, even be France’s firm friend.

But the French thought otherwise. Krim would, be better far out of the way, on the Isle de Reunion, in the Indian Ocean, in which tropical spot he remains, surrounded by wives, offspring and attendants. Tlig writer once had to buy a box of paints for an exile, the ex-Caliph. At the time of his exit from the Bosphorus (1924) one read that “Abdul Medjid’s personal belongings filled a fleet of lorries” and that “the last of the Caliphs flits to and fro between a Riviera luxury hotel and the whole floor of a Swiss one.” The facts were slightly different. Mustapha Kemal gave Abdul 500 pounds Turkish and six hours in which to leave Stamboul. The party of 16 sons, secretaries, wives (four), and daughters arrived at Montreux without the proverbial bean and had to remain two months “in pawn” there until funds were forthcoming. Abdul, a jaunty septuagenarian, spends his evening between Nice and Aix-les-Bains, on the strength of several thousand a year put up by Indian Princes. William 11. will this autumn complete 18 years in Holland, where he still seems to be going strong. Zeal for religion, carrying an unwavering belief in his Divine Right, has seemingly provided fortitude, plus the luck of a second good companion in “the Empress.” There is slim chance now but that William 11. will read the prayers to his tiny staff and Prussian Court-in-exile to the end. As the Dutch squire he will chop less and less wood and, tend more and more to his roses until the day when (to transcribe a phrase of his own) he journeys to Potsdam, for the last time, “in a wooden box.” But he will have lived to see Germany powerful again. A selective form of exile is that of the abdicated old Etonian King of Siam, who prefers Surrey to Bangkok, ostensibly because he wished to retain the power of life and death over his subjects, but possibly also on account of a falling royal barometer at home. The ex-Emperor Pu Yi of China can go most places, as Japanese puppet in Manchukuo, save to his native land, a condition that also applies to the exKhedive, Abbas Hilmi 11., vis-a-vis Egypt. Ex-King Alfonso of Spain lias now made a. base in Rome, with one unmarried daughter.

The odyssey of the ex-Empress Zita of Austria, and her family of eight should make good memoirs one day. Steenockerzeele, a turreted and moated grim Flemish chateau near Brussels, has by much been their longest fixed point—nearly six years. Previously what ’a nomadic struggle it had been! Rescued, in a British monitor and jearried down to the Black Sea; Malta, Gibraltar; Lake Geneva (whence two attempts to regain the throne of Hungary); Funchal, poverty and the death of Karl; years of family kindergarten in a Spanish fishing village near Santander with, just sufficient funds to keep going ; then the haven in Belgium, and the gradually increasing importance of Otto internationally. Shall this family’s exile finish first? It is in a way finished already, since has not the eldest daughter been attending official occasions in Vienna. Such a list as the foregoing is already double or treble the pre-war normal, yet constitutes only half the story in 1936. There are exiles in other spheres. To mention hut two: Alexander Kerensky lives the difficult life ol a free-lance journalist in Paris, even at this time of the day still hopeful that Communism will eventually be obliged to knuckle down to Social Democracy. Delicate but more brilliant than ever, Leon Trotsky is currently moored in Scandinavia. He has not -wasted his days in exile, having completed one of the greatest histories ever written before settling down to the planning of his Fourth International directed at world revolution.