TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIX, Issue 13107, 22 April 1903, Page 9

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE WHITAKER WRIGHT SCANDAL. SCATHING CONDEMNATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. •. [From Our Corres ton'd ent.l . LONDON/ March 6. “I accuse!” With these words, which the late Emile Zola made so familiar in Lis great plea for justice in the Dreyfus case, Mr Arnold White began an open letter to Mr Balfour, the Premier, in the last ‘i Sunday Sun.” -The letter is a fierce at-, tack on theAGovernment for its refusal .to even /attempt'.., to ’• bring Mt WhlitaJkfiir Wright and his colleagues to book for their scandalous “ window dressing ” and crooked financial methods in connection with the London and Globe Company. Nothing the Government has failed to' do has given rise to so much adverse comment among the people at large •as -its failure to puts "t'h© law in motion against Whitaker W right and his abettors or dupes {wo scarce as yet “know t’other from which") for their misdoings. Widely, indtved, is the notion held that Wright has been- left alone simply because his prosecution would have involved' much tmpkasantnfss to people in high places. Mr Arnold White dees not. hesitate to infer .that Mr Balfour’s refusal to prosecute the. London ami Globe gang is an attempt to shield misdoing among the wealthy and powerful. He docs not mince matters. . He strikes first at the Law Officers of the Crown, for making statements for party purposes, with intent to mislead the House and the public, and ing upon the “ academic ignorance ” of the Premia- and his, indifference to practical off airs. Mr mil®- maintains that thsvhnv of the land needed no amendment. It wasEtronT enough to convict Birt, of tine Mrilwall Company, and other middle-class criminals, and when the Law Officers pretended that the law required amendment “they said what was unthie, and what every lawyer and layman ■ m th© House of Commons knew to be untrue. Then Mr White turns upon Mr Baliour, and accuses him of “ stating what is inexact when he declared in the House that .the fault lies in the law.” He accusesAhe B lender of evading his duty to the Ring and to the people of England, in allowing the -Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General to over-ride his power of initiative, and thus preventing the Government from prosecuting the directors -of ■ the London and Globe Company. Ho next spits scornfully at the barristers in the House for not caring to rise and challenge the erroneous advice given by ihe Attorney-General. I am informed,” he says, “ and believe that many of the* legal members of Parhamcm have been detained by Whitaker W right. If this is so,” he-adds, “the silence of these men is intelligible.” Ho accuses the .r.on- ' legal members - of “gross cowardice, with the exception o£ Mr William MAxthui, and “ a few more who spoke the truth, and accuses the House of Commons, as a whole, of being afraid to bring him to .the Bar of the House.' If they dare to do so I will justify and - repeat- the words I have written. . . .. Never until 1903 has there bten a time in the history of England when corruption was fo gross arid the desire for the acquisition of unearned wealth was so strong as to lead to fhe complicity of Government departments ; in the fraudulent ambitions of financial adventurers.” •And lie adds :'— V “ The- Dreyfus affair and the Panama Bca-ndals in -France had no .clement more sordid and' no feature more ugly than the complicity of English Ministers in the London and "Globe scandal.” Mr Arnold White is “only a private citi- ' ®sn-,” but he pleads that when the.Ho,use of Commons has “ silently _ concurred in the murder of justice,” it is lime even for a private citizen to speak., due indictment is, at all events, significant, and undoubtedly expresses what a great many other private citizens are feeling, v Even Mr Balfour, with his generous contempt ’or the opinions of the world at barge (he boasts that he never reads -the newspaper:-:), can hardly afford to ignore Mr Arnold' W bite’s philippic in silence, for. rightly or wrongly, the man-in-the-strect is firmly convinced that itis something else than a weakness in the law that has kept, the London and Globe directors out of the Old Bailey dock. THE DREYFI/S AFFAIR. Three weeks ago I- spoke of a promise made by M. James, the Socialist Vice- • President of tihe French Chamber, that lie would shortly make- further revelations that would force- the French Government- to reopen the Dreyfus case. Tiie occasion upon which M. Jaurcs promised to speak has 'not yet arisen, but, meanwhile, his pledge - has "already aroused opposition and his opponents have anticipated him by appealing to the'public not to listen to him. Strange .to.ray, this hostility has not come - from any -of.the- bigoted and fiuious asitiDreyfusarda of. former years, .but from one of Dreyfus’s erstwhile" champ ions. Prima facie, one might’hurry to the assumption that something had come to light, that told against Dreyfus and might- give some small degree of justification to his old persecutors. Nothing of the. kind has occurred. All that this former friend has to say against Dreyfus is that he walked out. of , gaol when the insulting “pardon ’, "as .offered to him, whereas, rather than take. It, ho ought to have stayed whore he was till he died! To most people the miracle to bs 1-iia.t tbs unfortunate man bad ■the heroic calmness and' prodigious strength >f will to retain his reason and to come out. >f his long years of solitary torture a living and a sane man. How many, others - have done it? Certainly not the capricious sympathiser, that now attacks him. This fickle friend is Urbain Gohier, a man who has certainly done good service) for civilisation, and first earned fame by his daring attacks upon tic- tyranny, of militarism all over -Europe, not omitting even his own country. Last Tuesday night M. Gohier gave a .lecture at the Salle des fjocietes Sayantes, and announced it unHer the-Jitlp “Enough of .There., ,til v ; v.A-. - :

was. ns one might have expected, a crowded audience, but the speaker did not, by any menus, have it all bis own way. He bad invited! a nnmh?r of students, a- class which is taken much too seriously abroad, to hoar him, and this is the sort, of thing that ho sent out to these boys by way of leading them to form a calm and unbiassed judgment on an important matter of politics : —■ ' “ The original supporters of the prisoner of the Isle du Diablo have received all the blows. The .Dreyfusists of the eleventh hour, those, who remained at their firesides to sea what turn, the battle would take, a.re organising a second performance. No. Tho dupes have paid enough, the farceurs have received Wo have something else 'To do.”, - .. : Now, no one. in his .senses, on the English side of the Channel, at least, has ever had a shadow of a doubt of the integrity and singlemindedness of most of those who championed Dreyfus.. Nothing was to. be gained by them —but unpopularity and often bitter hatred. “ The, Intellectuals,” as they were called, were all for Dreyfus ; Presseuse, the leader of the French Protestants, Jaures, tho Socialist, Milleraud, in shorri all the anti-militarists, were naturally against “ The General Staff.” In Ijhc face cf the ' transparent honesty of these men here wc have Gohier declaring from the platform, that it was only thanks to the Dreyfus agitation that Presseuse became a Denuty. Milleraud a Minister, and Jaures a Vice-Presi-dent of tho Chamber. Gohier taunted the Socialists by vowing that- as the-v approach, ed ..power they: invariably modified their views. M. Gohier went on to say that ho had wished to force the Dreyfus affair to its only logical conclusion, by insisting upon the complete rehabilitation of tho accused and his re-appointment into the army. It was Milleraud, the Socialist, when he was Minister, that stopped' any. further attempt in that direction* Jaures and his political friends had made a good speculation out of it, and now. only wanted to resuscitate it to bolster up the Ministers. As to Dreyfus, M. Gohier said he still believed in his innocence, but did not find him very sympathetic. Dreyfus was too respectful 1 towards'his chiefs, and was in fact an anti-Dreyfusard! And as Dreyfus seemed satisfied I with his pardon, no one therefore should he more Dreyfusite than Dreyfus, aid nobody should bring the affair up again. During this address the Parisian papers report that the interruptions were frequent and violent. The pity is that such a turncoat should have, been tolerated for five minutes. The date of the debate when Janres is to introduce the subject" is not yet fixed, but we may be sure that so masterly ■an orator will have some stiff blows for Urbain Gohier. •