HAPSBURG ESTATES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18448, 9 January 1922, Page 8

HAPSBURG ESTATES

AMERICA AND AN ALLEGED DEAL.

It is reported from New York that asyndicate of American financiers has acquired by ceeeicm vast properties which, before the war ■ were owned by the Friedrich of Hapsburg and his family, and are valued at no less than 200 million dollars (states the, ’Vienna correspondent of the London Observer). The- estates are situated not only in present Austria and Hungary, but are scattered over the lost of the ' former Austro-Hungarian monarchy which now belong to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania, and Italy. Apart from very large forests and farms' in present Austria, ex-Arohdnbe Friedrich owned in Vienna a number of palaces and the Albertina, a famous ’ library. He was proprietor of thevery valuable mining area and a number of factories and farms in the Teschen district, now belonging to Czeoho-Siovakia. The immense 1 forests which he owned in Hungary have fallen to Rumania* Not . unnaturally, the Czechd-Slovakian and Rumanian Legations at ' Washington are said to have protested against the validity of the transaction. Now the Austrian administrator of the Hapsburg Castles, Dr Gustav Harpncr, points out that,‘with the'assistance of foreign countries, ex-Archduke Friedrich hopes to regain his former properties. He doubts, also, whether the Americans, as men of business, would pay for a consideration which is no longer the property of the seller, since a difference must be made between the private property and the property belonging to the entail (“fid©ikommis3, , ’ property in trust) of the ex-dynasty. The latter refers to the palaces and the Albertina at Vienna, which are, it is announced, also claimed by the American syndicate. The now Austrian law, Dr Harpncr points out, through which several castles and other Hapsburg property were sequestrated, is based on the Peace Treaty of St. Germain. A transfer of those objects to foreigners, therefore, cannot place Aua* tria under any Judicial obligation. The little private property which the ex-Archduke owned in present Austria has remained untouched. It seems rather douMful whether the United States will consent to bo entangled in the troubles of Central Europe, os- some American pessimists pretend toforeee. People in Vienna have not the faintest feeling left for the ex-Archduke Friedrich, who proved an incapable and heartless field-marshal during the war, and' who sold his milk or infants at the highest prices obtainable even to the very poor; the yd|y type of selfish Hapsburg aristocracy, perhaps only outdone by the late ex-Archduke Leopold Salvator, who amassed millions through profiteering in the horrible dried vegetables which fho lower Austrian, soldiers and the poorer classes of tho .population had to consume for years.