MARRIED AN “ENEMY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 886, 1 February 1930, Page 32

MARRIED AN “ENEMY”

ENGLISH GIRL’S SAVINGS CONFISCATED “LUDICROUS AND STUPID” An astonishing story of an English girl’s £6,000 being seized by the Government because she married a Hungarian, after the Armistice, was told by Lord Buckmaster in the House of Lords, reports the London “Daily Express.” Lord Buckmaster said that this young English girl, with her mother, taught music and saved about £6,000. “How she did it,” he remarked, “is one of the mysteries of the world. How any person teaching music could have saved a sum like j that is a miracle.” The money was put in the girl’s name. Before the war, he added, the girl became engaged to a Hungarian, and between the Armistice and the date of the Versailles Treaty she married him, whereupon under the terms of the treaty her savings were confiscated. By marrying the Hungarian before the Versailles Treaty was signed, although it was after Armistice, the girl became technically an enemy alien. “The Government came down,” he said, “and swept away the whole of the woman’s £6,000. “Only the other day,” continued Lord Buckmaster, “I heard the story of a woman with considerable property who married an Austrian. When the war came the property was stripped from her. It was found, however, that there was a legal difficulty in the ceremony, and it really was declared toy law that the couple were not married. They then received their money back.” Lord Buckmaster moved that any surplus of the private property of exenemy aliens now remaining in the Government’s hands should be devoted to returning sums of £5,000 or less where the owner was British born or had lived in Great Britain for 25 years before the war. He pointed out that in September it was stated that there had never been any question of disposing of the existing surplus in any other way than by retaining it on account of reparations. “Does the Government know,” he said warmly, “that we stand alone in this matter; that France, Italy and all the other Countries have declined to accept that, and we are standing here as the sole country which is insisting on such a proposition as that.” Lord Passfield, Dominions Secretary, replying, confessed that there had been “a number of most agonising, ludicrous, illogical and stupid acts of this kind,” where money was swept into the possession of the British Government. “That money,” he said, “has been given back to these* people as far as we are able to follow them.” He added that the Government could not contemplate any other procedure than that of dealing with the German Government in this matter. Lord Blanestourgh maintained that the property should toe handed back to its rightful owners instead of the German Government. Lord Passfield assured the House that the property would be returned to its rightful owners, but in order to accomplish that the Government had to enter into an agreement with the German Government. Lord Buckmaster pressed his motion. and it was carried without a division.