BALUN'S SUICIDE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14770, 25 November 1918, Page 5

BALUN'S SUICIDE.

AFTER STORMY INTERVIEW WITH KAISER. WARNING OF GERMANY'S DEFEAT. \ustraltan and N.Z Cable AssociatlOD .1 (Received Nov. 25, 9.40 a.m.) LONDON, Nov; 23. The Daily Express' Amsterdam correspondent states that Herr Ballin's suicide was the- direct consequence of a dispute with the Kaiser and Kaiserin m October. . . - B"llin protested against Imdendorfi dabbling m questions cvf reconstruction,* wMch were outMde the sphere of a general -who. was plunging Germany- into the^ abyss ci defeat. . . The Kaiser, m the presence of the Kaiserin, supported Ludendorff, whereupon Ballin warned the Kaiser that he was not blind to the real situation of Germany and could not live unless on decent terms with England. When Ballin hinted at the> possibility^ of a revolution, the Kaiserin sprung to | her feet and denounced the Hebrew merchants who wanted to supplant the Empire's real master. . Ballin declined t« answer and left the room, 1 a bi'oken man. He sent a journalistic friend to. record the conversation and then shot himself m the heart. The> Hamburg Sayiet took over the Hamburg-American Company's palatial j offices for its headquarters.