ESTERHAZY TO GIVE EVIDENCE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11124, 17 January 1899, Page 3

ESTERHAZY TO GIVE EVIDENCE.

THE CLEARING OP DREYFUS. Beceived January 17, 1.20 a.m. Pabis, January 16.. Esterhazy will not be arrested if he will give evidence. It ia believed the Court of Cassation ivill clear Dreyfus, and leave it to the military Court to discover the real braitor. M. de Blowitz, writing from Paris to The Times from Paris, says:— l do not liscuss the question whether or no Colonel Picquart is guilty. How can I ? [ meet no one who believes it. But suppose for the moment that he is. Still the military authorities should have awaited the decision of the Court, if for no other reason, at least from mere prudence. Fancy the Court declaring Dreyfus innocent and freeing him while Colonel Picquart, the author of this reparation, is a prisoner and condemned ; for that will certainly be the result. The trial will be secret per fas et nefas. If not wholly secret, the case will be tried partially behind closed doors, and Colonel Picquart will be condemned. I would not say with M. Zola that it will be by order. No ;no order of this sort will be given, but he will be condemned because it is impossible to hope from men what is above and beyond their strength. You cannot ask colonels who have been educated to passive and complete obedience to deal a blow, by not condemning Colonel Picquart, at the investigating officer, at the officer who draws up the report, at the general who is the Governor of Paris, and at the authors of the machinations of the General Staff. You cannot ask them to encourage the officer who is trying to shed light on all the intentional obscurities of this affair; and, indeed, if yon ask your own soul, you cannot deny that in their place you would find it impossible to extricate yourself so completely as to vote for an acquittal in such circumstances. No; Colonel Picquart will be condemned, and this verdict will sound throughout the world the funeral knell, as it were, of individual liberty and security, and create in France such anger and hatred as nothing can appease.