Established 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Wednesday, April 15, 1903. PITH AND POINT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVII, Issue 87, 15 April 1903, Page 2

Established 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Wednesday, April 15, 1903. PITH AND POINT.

The last of the Dreyfas case has not yet been heard. M. Jaures, a Socialist Deputy, and a man of sterling honesty and great force of character, seems to have obtained possession of a letter which proves the active complicity of General Cavaignac, at one time Minister of War, in the campaign of forgery which was directed by the unprincipled Army Chiefs and antiSemite fanatics against the unfortunate Captain Dreyfus. The letter was writted to General Cavaignac by General de Pellieux, who evidently has discovered that his chiefs had been " acting on forgeries " and desired to be set free from such a degrading connection. Instead of communicating this letter to the Government, General Cavaignac withheld it and allowed the persecution of Dreyfus to continue. If M. Jaures can fully substantiate his charges, there seems little doubt that Cavaignac stands convicted either of disgraceful cowardice, or of an even more shameful desire to suppress any correspondence which might strengthen the case for Dreyfus. From what passed in the Chamber oE Deputies during the debate, it appears that the present Government i 3 prepared to refer the de Pellieux letter (which it is admitted has been found to correspond with the statement made by M. Jaures) to the Courts. A second incident of the debate was the mention by M. Jaures of a letter from the German Emperor, in which tho words " cette canaille " —" these scoundrels " —were used. Is this the famous letter, mentioned at the Rennes court-martial, bafc which the then Government refused to produce, in which the German Emperor gave a point blank denial to the rumour that Dreyfus had been in communication with the German army officials ? If this be the case, and the letter can, like that of General de Pellieux, be brought to light, it will become yet more certain that Dreyfus was treated with the foullest injustice. The policy of " hushing up the Dreyfus affairs" has dismally failed, and it should now be a matter of honour with the French Chambers to get at the whole truth and nothing but the truth with regard to this notorious and most unsavoury case, no matter upon what highly placed generals and officials dishonour may eventually fall.

The most extravagant Government with which New South Wales has ever been cursed —which is saying a good deal—has suddenly realised the fact that it has come to the end of its financial tether, and signalises a tardy bat still unavowed repentance by striking a blow at the civil servants. Retrenchment is sometimes necessary, and there can be no doubt as to urgency in New South Wales. Bat a Government which during its brief term of office—less than five yearshas increased the public debt by the colossal total of seventeen Bullions, ant! r,ow can find no better means of meeting the deficit than by demanding what in mediaeval English times would have been called a " forced benevolence" from the poor devils of civil servants, is deserving of the gravest I condemnation. It is true that the State Treasurer generously declares that Ministers salaries will be cut down, but it is no great hardship to men getting a thousand a year and over for doing little beyond signing a few documents prepared by the heads of their departments to be reduced by, say, a con pie o? hundred a year. It is quite a different matter for the civil service, which includes thousands of men earning comparatively small salaries. When one remembers the wicked and wanton extravagance of the See-Sullivan Government in their public works policy, it savours of canting hypocrisy for Ministers to bewail the necessity for retrenchment;. Why it is only five or six months ago this very Cabinet, which now proposes to rob its by no means over-paid servants of a portion of their salaries, actually proposed to build a new central rail way station in Sydney at a cost of over a million sterling! No wonder that in Sy Jney •' the opinion is freely expressed that after tho Government has pursued a career of great extravagance it now punishes others for its own sins." It is to b9 hoped that the example recently set by .the Tamworth electors will be followed all over the colony at the next general election, and that the See Ministry, which now vent, on the helpless civil service the results of its own sins of wicked extravagance, may be hurled from office with contempt and disgust.

For Bronchial Cough, tako Woods' Groat Peppermint Cure, Is Od and 2s Gd everywhere,