"WILHELM HOHENZOLLERN."

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 1466, 22 February 1919, Page 2

"WILHELM HOHENZOLLERN."

THE EX-KAISER'S WEALTH

If the ex-Kaiser or his son should make an effort to secure the restoration of the monarchy in Prussia there will be no lack of resources behind the Uohenzollern cause. Estimate of Wilbelin's private fortune vary widely, but his loyal adherents include many of the wealthiest men in Germany, and it is stated thai before and after his abdication there was an enormous transfer ol securities and valuables from Germany to neutral countries. The Times quotes an Essen journal to the effect that the ex-Kaiser's private fortune in cssh, mostly deposited at 4\ per cent, with various bank's, is estimated at 20,000,000 marks, or £1,000,000, and his annual income therefrom roughly at £45,000. The Revolutionary Government has declared (so far as its declarations have any effective value) that the ex-Kaiser's private landed property will hot be .Seized, though the Crown domains will pass to the Treasury. The newspaper says that of ninety forest. farm, park ' and other estates and castles, only seven are Crown loinain, all the rest being private property. Thus the ex-Kaiser's private estates include liellevue Palace, in Berlin and Monbijou Palace, within whose grounds is St. George's English Church. In Potsdam lie has thirteen palaces, all belonging to him ; also AVilhelinshohe Palace at Cassel, where King Edward paid his last visit to the Kaiser, and where Napoleon 111, was confined alter Sedan. Besides palaces and estates in Coblenz, Wiesbaden, Charlottenburg, Frcienwalde, and elsewhere, he owns the well-known experimental 'arming estate at Cadinen, of which he used to boast when the Agricultural League met annually in Berlin ; also the famous shooting box and forest of Roininten, near the eastern frontier. He has bouse property at Trouvillo, and apparently the Achilleion Palace in Corfu 1.-elongs to him.

The ex-Kaiser's cash consists largely of savings effected by Frederic William lll.—calculated in 1840 at about C 750.000; after 1871 William I. received £225,000 as a sort of war bonus. Since this latter sum clearly came from the French indemnity, the Hohon?iOllerns might possibly have, to disgorge when Germany has to repay the indemnity. William 11. also received £500,000 from the. State for the ground where the Royal Library stands, and for the old Opera House of llroll, when- the late Sir Herbert Tree gave his Shakespeare performances. Most of this, however, was spent in improving those very Royal stables from whose .subterranean passages officers resisted the revolution. Another journal adds that Wilhelm received every year £130,000 as Emperor and £770,551 as King oi Prussia. He has always known bow to feather bis nest. A few years ago Herr Rudolf Martin, an authority on finance, stated that the Kaiser had about £1,000,000 of income, prising from investments estimated at a total of £20,000,000. He has had big bandittis from the seething pot of Krtnp's. He has important interests in the hjge German shipping companies. His many possessions include potteries at C: (linen, a stud farm in East Prussia, and a brewery in Hanover, and it was stated a few years ago that ho had invested heavily in Canadian railways and land.