KAISER’S “PET ENGLISHMAN”

Evening Star, Issue 17793, 15 October 1921, Page 10

KAISER’S “PET ENGLISHMAN”

An Englishman who during tho war became naturalised as a German was held in London recently to have forfeited his life interest in a settlement rnado by his undo in England, This decision was given in tho Chancery Division by Mr Justice Lawrence, who said, in a. reserved judgment on tho matter, that Mr Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who was born an Englishman, was a Gorman national within the meaning of tho Treaty of Peace, and consequently forfeited his life interest in a settlement made by his unde, tho late General Sir Crawford Trotter Chamberlain. It was argued nn behalf of Chamberlain that ho could not change his allegiance by an illegal net, and that ho was a British subject according to English law. Mr Justice Lawrence said that Chamberlain had committed: a crime against_ the law’s of England, and if ho came within the jurisdiction be was liable to bo tried for treason. But the question was whether he was a Herman national for tho purposes cf the Peace Treaty, and, it was clear that, according to German municipal law, he was. IE he wore ,to hold otherwise (added tho judge), it would mean that the expression “ German national ” in tho Treaty would have one meaning in Germany and another in England. Mr 11. S. Chamberlain is tho son of an English rear-admiral. Ho was intended fo/the British Army, but owing to illness in his yonth was ordered by his doctors to live out of England. Ho studied science at Geneva, and afterwards lived at Dresden, and at Vienna till 1908, when ho married Eva Wagner, only daughter of tho composer. Ho wrote much in German, and during tho war became a naturalised German subject. Ho showed himself almost more Gorman than tho Germans, and wrote of tho country of his birth in terms which were as lacking in moderation as they were in accuracy. “ The Kaiser’s pot Englishman,” as ho was often called, was frequently employed in nn-drer-ing British prisoners of war in tho various internment camps; but despite the severity tho gaoler's, found it difficult to get a hearing-—tho audience receiving his orations with jeers and cries of "Traitor,” "Turncoat,” and “Shoot yourself.”