OBITUARY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 15180, 18 December 1909, Page 9

OBITUARY.

THE KING OF BELGIUM. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph— Copyright. (Received December 17, 8.35 p.m.) BRUSSELS, December 17. King Leopold died at half-past two this morning. (Received December 17, 9.25 p.m.) Embolism was the cause of King Leopold's death, which was peaceful. He suddenly called to the doctor, "I am choking." Morphia was injected, hut he died almost immediately. Prince Albert arrived shortly afterwards, and reverently kissed the dead monarch. (Leopold 11. (Leopold-Louis-Phillipe-Marie-Victor), King of the Belgians, son of the- late King Leopold 1., upon whose death, which occurred en December 10, 1855 he succeeded to the throne as Leopold 11., was born in Brussels on April 9, 1835, his mother being Princess Louise, daughter of the French King, Louis Phillippe. In 1846 he was created Duke of Brabant, and was appointed a sub-lieutenant in the army, in which he served till his accession, rising to the rank of lieutenant-gene-ral. On attaining his majority he became a zealous member of the Senate, taking a specially keen interest in all questions which concerned the trade of Belgium. In 1853 he married Marie Henrietta, daughter of the late Archduke Joseph of Austria. During the following twelve years the Crown Prince made the lengthy journeys from which he derived his reputation as a traveller, visiting Italy, Austria, Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Spain and Morocco, and in 1862 he made a brief visit to the south coast of England. The following year found him a traveller as far as China, and in 1865 he returned through London to accord special thanks to Queen Victoria and the British Government for courtesies received during his travels in tneir Eastern possessions. On his father's death in 1865 he succeeded to the throne. In 1884 an international conference in Berlin, representing fourteen Powers, decided to "make the Congo basin an independent State, with equal trading rights for all the Powers concerned. Leopold was agreed upon as first administrator, and later on he was allowed to assume the title, " King of the Independent State of the Congo." Under his administration freedom of trade soon ceased to exist, and no Power but Belgium had any commercial footing. In the early years of the twentieth century the most shocking outrages towards natives began to bo alleged against the Congo Government. Massacres and of the natives were a common practice. In 1905 a Commission appointed by King Leopold himself practically established all the charges of atrocities. The evidence was suppressed, hut an international outcry followed, which could hardly be restrained in Belgium itself. The matter was brought before the Powers by Great Britain and five of the original signatories of the Brussels Convention expressed their willingness to considor officially the whole question. King Leopold made desperate efforts to allay tho popular resentment, and in the absence of important evidence, one of his accusers, a missionary, named Mr Edgar Stannard, was convicted and lined. In tho course of a characteristic interview in December, 1906, with the Brussels correspondent of the American Publishers' Press Association, King Leopold denied the truth ol* the charges that had been brought against him, and said that the allegations of cruelty in the Congo had been so often repeated that he really believed constant reiteration had led those spreading false facts to believe at last in their truth. He did not deny that there had heen cases of misjudgment on the part of the Congo officials, and most likely cruelties and even erimos, but he did deny that every effort as far as possible had not been made in the nast to stop-ill-treatment of the natives. King Leopold visited England very frequently. General Gordon was his friend, and was in his service until ordered to leave Brussels for the Soudan. His silver wedding was celebrated with great rejoicing in August, 1878. He had three daughters and one son, the Duko of Brabant, who died at the ago of ton. He .achieved almost as much notoriety on account of his cruelty to his daughters as in connection with the Congo atrocities. 'There being no son living, and his daughters being excluded from the succession by the Belgian Constitution, Prince Albert, son of the King's brother, the la to' Count of Flanders, will succeed to tho throne. Prince Albert was born in 1875.)