STARTLING REVELATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18895, 18 December 1924, Page 11

STARTLING REVELATIONS.

BONNET ROUGE CASE. SUBSIDIES PAID TO PAPER. FRENCH EX-MINISTERS* ACT. By 'telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received 11.5 p.m.) Reuter. PARIS. Dec. 16. In the course of a discussion in the Chamber of Deputies on the clause in the amnesty law concerning MM. Malvy and Caillaux, M. Malvy made a revelation with regard to the late French Government's connection with the defeatist newspaper, Bonnet Rouge, the director of which, Almeyreda, died in prison.

]\L Malvy said ho did nothing with regard to the Bonnet Rjouge which was not known to and approved of by the Government of tho day. He was now released from a promise he made to ML. "Vivian, then Minister for Justice.

He had paid Almeyreda subsidies after a discussion by a 'council of Ministers presided over by Poincare, who was President at the time. This council considered it better in the interests of national defence to take under its wing a paper which influenced a certain part of the population. M. Malvy added that ]\L \ iviani gave him 20,000 francs for Almeyreda, The sum was made up of 10,000 francs each from M. Millorand, who v/as then Minister for War, and M. Delcar.se, who was Minister for Foreign Affairs.

The French Senate on Noverpber 18 passed a resolution granting amnesties to M. Joseph Caillaux, a former Premier, and to M. Malvy, a former Minister, who had been banished for alleged defeatist activities during the Great War. In reply to protests M. Herriot, the Premier, said M. Caillaux was condemned not for communicating with the enemy, but for correspondence with enemy subjects.. He urged senators to consign to oblivion the political quarrels which had been so dangerous during the war. Replying to a question by a senator as to whether ho thought M. Malvy guilty, M. Poincare recalled that Malvy was tried at his own request. No act by M. Malvy denoting a lack of patriotism had ever come to M. Poincare s knowledge.