END OF CAILLAUX CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17267, 17 September 1919, Page 9

END OF CAILLAUX CASE.

EX-PREMIER INSANE.

KEMOVED TO AN ASYLUM. HIS TRIAL FOR TREASON. By Telegraph— Association Copyright. A. and N.Z. PARIS, Sept. 15. M. Caillaux, ex-Premier of France, who was undergoing trial for treachery during the war, has become insane. . He was sent to a private hospital by order of the judges last week, and to-day, it being clear that he was no longer responsible for his actions, he was transferred to a private asylum. LONG RECORD OF INTRIGUE. LEADER OF THE DEFEATISTS. Joseph Caillaux, former Premier of France, who had long been under suspicion of treasonable activities in the war, was at length arrested in Paris on January 14, 1918, and taken to the common prison known as La Saute. The event created an enormous sensation, and was regarded throughout the world as the most important act thus far in the vigorous war policy »of M. Clemenceau, who had once served as Foreign Minister. in Caillaux's Cabinet. The arrest was due in part to a cablegram from Mr. Lansing, American Secretary of State, furnishing evidence that as far back as 1915 M. Caillaux had been in secret communication with the Berlin Foreign Office.

Caillaux's political career came to an end immediately after his wife, on March 16, 1914, entered the office of the Paris Figaro and shot and killed the editor, Gaston Calmette. The sensational trial which followed and which was said to mark the lowest point of political morals in modern trance, ended in the acquittal of Mine. Caillaux. The great social and financial influence of M. Caillaux continued unbroken- He went into the war as an officer in the paymaster's department, but within two months he had given grave offence of some kind to both the British and French commands, and was by two weeks' confinement in a fortress Soon after his release, in November, 1914, he sailed for South America and spent most of the winter in the Argentine. Pacificist Propaganda in Italy. It was believed at the time that he was there on a mission for the French Government, no suspicion being entertained that he was in treasonable, communication with Germany. Even three years later, when the.United States revealed the intercepted despatches of von Bernstorff regarding Caillaux's activities in the Argentine, '< their nature was a surprise. They appeared to indicate that Caillaux was at that time in communication with the. Berlin Foreign Office through Count Luxburg, the German Minister at Buenos Aires, with the object of concluding peace at any price, so as to permit the resumption of his business enterprises. Meanwhile, Caillaux's close relations with German diplomatists in 1915 remained unknown to the world, and he returned to France to resume bis work in the Chamber of Deputies, where he had a considerable following. The true nature of his anti-war activities did not become a subject of public suspicion until his visit to Italy, in December, 1916, when the French Ambassador at Borne communicated to M. Briand, who was then Prime Minister, .the fact that M. Caillaux was carrying on an active pacificist propaganda among the Italian Government officials and at the Vatican. M. Briand telegraphed that the Italian Government should feel " absolutely free' to act as it sees fit in order to put an end to these intrigues." On December 22, 1916, the French Naval Attache at Rome sent his Government a long report of a conversation between Caillaux and an Italian Government official, in which Caillaux predicted that he would shortly be called to power in France and would then sign a peace with Germany. The naval attache also reported that M. Caillaux and his wife had been in secret conversation with several of the strongly pacificist prelates at the Vatican. • M. Glemenceau and Intrigues.

These despatches were not given to the French public until the subterranean doings of M. Caillaux had continued another year. In the summer of 1917 the intrigues of 8010 Pasha went on until his arrest in September. About the same time the French Army Intelligence Service uncovered the seditious activities of a pacificist paper called the Bonnet Rouge, which had been employed by Caillaux in times past. "Miguel Almereyda, the editor, was arrested, and talked of dramatic disclosures that he might make concerning the Oriental matter." Before he had a chance to make them someone murdered him in his cell. All this occurred while M. Malvy, Caillaux's old associate, was Minister of the Interior and charged with the duty of suppressing foreign intrigue. He had done nothing to stop it. His dereliction was a cause of the fall of the Ivibot Ministry. Gradually Caillaux's presumptive connection with all these disloyal activities began to be apparent, and M. Clemenceau came into power because he was believed to be the man to save France from _ the poison of German intrigue and the peril of defeat. A resolution to deprive M. Caillaux of his parliamentary immunity and placa him on trial for high treason was introduced into the Chamber of Deputies, a.nd on December 22. 1917, it was finally passed by a vote of 417 to 2.