COMMUNISTS' TRIAL

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 124, 26 May 1923, Page 7

COMMUNISTS' TRIAL

SENATE NO JURISDICTION

THE BASIS OF THE CHARGES.

PARIS, 24th May. The trial of Marcel Cachin, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and other Communists on charges of treason had .1 most sensational result. Owing to the fear of Communist manifestations at the opening cf the.trial to-day, a large number of gendarmes were posted in the courtyard of the Senate and the neighbouring streets. There were, no incidents outside, but when the Senate resolved itself into the High Court of Justice it was decided by a large majority that it was not within the competence of such a Court to try Marcel Cachin, Monmonsseau, and nineteen other Communists charged with acting against the internal safety of the State.

The decision of the Government to refer the trial of the Communists to the Senate as an Extraordinary Court of Justice was arrived at after long deliberation. M. Cachin, as a member of thd" Chamber of Deputies, enjoyed immunity from arrest, but this was voted away in January by a large majority. He, by virtue of his former position, was allowed a seat in the gallery of the Senate, but the other accused men were nor, present. The Senate, after the reading of the voluminous indictment, immediately proceeded to a consideration of whether the circumstances justified the Senate in constituting itself a High Court for the purpose of trying the accused men. The decision refusing to do so came as a bombshell in Government circles^ In some quarters the. decision is attributed to the Senate's resentment against M. Poincare for having on the previous day compelled it to pass the Summer Time Bill, by making the question one of confidence in the Government,

It is understood the Communists will be tried in the Assize Courts. Tne indictment alleges that a delegation, of Communists, including M. Cachin, went to Essen before the Ruhr occupation to confer with the German Communists, and discussed the declaration of: a general strike in France in the event of force being applied to Germany. After narrating a variety of other activities of the accused, ■ the indictment says the Ruhr was only the pretext for an attempted revolution. The Communists sought to take advantage of France's difficulties to destroy the whole social order.