THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1898. THE DREYFUS SCANDAL.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 3329, 11 January 1898, Page 2

THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1898. THE DREYFUS SCANDAL.

With which are incorporated the Wellington Independent, established 1845 t and the New Zealander ,

Some six weeks ago, in this column, there were placed before our readers the facts which are at present being submitted to the French people in proof of the innocence of Captain Dreyfus. These were drawn from various sources and showed that something very like a conspiracy had been engaged in to bring about the downfall of Captain Dreyfus, that the real offender might escape. The chief facts which go to prove the innocence of Alfred Dreytns were not disclosed until after the trial and departure of the prisoner, Yet, thpugh the Vice-President of the Senate was able to show that the same leakage from the Ministry of War continued after Dreyfus was condemned and after an officer of the garrison near Paris was dismissed, we have seen that the Chamber of Deputies accepted the ex parte statement of the Minister for War and confirmed the sentence of the prisoner of the Devil’s Isle. There is evidence now to prove that the document unearthed long after Captain Dreyfus was banished for life to his island gaol bears upon it the stigma of a terrible suspicion. It will be remembered that the document on which the Court found Captain Dreyfus guilty in tho first instance was said to have been purloined from a wastepaper basket at the German Embassy. Then another document was-produced secretly, which neither Dreyfus nor his counsel ever saw, and on the strength of that secret paper the sentence was confirmed. Long after the banishment, as we have said, another paper is ■ said to have been found in the same wastepaper basket and at the same Embassy ! This cruel device has been stigmatised as “ an aftermanceuvre of guilt to fortify the condemnation - of innocence.” The VicePresident of the Senate, M. ScheurerKestner, wrote to a colleague declaring that after awaiting some answer from General Billot, and receiving none during a fortnight of stipulated silence, he felt bound to re-assert the innocence of the condemned man, as his conscience would be for ever troubled if he had to contend with the ever-rising conviction that the condemned man was expiating the crime of another. M. Soheucer-Kestner sent to another Senator a letter of which the following' is a part, and which serves to emphasise what ,we have already quoted from his pen : On October 30, in a semi-official interview which I had with General Billot, Minister of \y a -, x proved, with the documents in my hands, that the abstract ascribed to Captain Dreyfus was not mado by him, but by someone else, and I requested the to open on enquiry with a view to discovering the real Culprit. General Billot, without asking me to leave the documents, promised that such an enquiry, which would only deal with facts subsequent to the condemnation of Captain Dreyfus, would be made. He requested me on the other hand not to make public any of our conversation for a fortnight, and undertook to let me know the result of his investigation. Since then I have waited in vain and the fortnight hae elapsed. That is tho reason for my silence which hae appeared so singular. I repeat, without fear of contradiction, that a fortnight ago. I showed the Govirnment documents proving that the guilty party was not Captain Dreyfus, and that a regular enquiry, which it ia tor the Minister of War to open and to bring to a satisfactory conclusion, would without difficulty establish the culpability of another person. ' The presumption regarding the innocence of Captain Dreyfus has grown from a mere speck until it now fills the view of every French writer and public man, if not of the whole populace. Every effort has been made to stills any attempt at open enquiry, and crowded -anti-Semitic meetings have been held at which fiery speeches have been made against the “ present cosmopolitan conspiracy ip favour of the traitor Dreyfus.” The chairman of the Students’ Anti-Jewlsh League declared that ** every ’national organisation, every branch -of the administration, had been dragged in the mire. It was now the turn of the army. Men paid by (Germany were trying to sow distrust in the chiefs who were the trustees of the defences of Prance against'her enemies,; resolved to stamp out these hostile plots/* Another speaker declared that Germany was spending money profusely to spread distrust and confusion in the French Army# but the machinations of William 11., although aided by a coadjutor occupying a high place in the Parliament of Prance, would fall to the ground i And there has been much more to the same purpose. It. so happens that what the Kaiser has done to bring about the release of Dreyfus or the institution of a further enquiry, has been made use of to. stir up the bitterest feeling in Prance against the condemned and tortured man. It. is interesting k to know that Mi Emile Zola believes in tho innocence of Captain Dreyfus. He says the dramatic aspect of the case appeals strongly to him. He eulogises M. ScheurerKestner and declares that the case in itself is very simple and very clear if it is regarded in its true light. " Truth marches onwards/* he adds, " and nothing will arrest it/* This belief . is shared in by Commandant Porzinetti. Governor of the Chorche-Midi Prison, to which place Captain Dreyfus was taken surreptitiously, and under sealed instructions, the warrant for his arrest having been signed before the accused was joyfin interrogated. The Governor has never to proclaim the innocence of his prisoner. • All knowledge of the arrest, Porzinetti, was withhold from General hf-oar flier until the prisoner had been iiinnnreu in j the moat secret call of ‘ the military • The agitation of the captain was of bo painful and alarming a character that a doctor was sent for to give him some calming mo Ucme. Tho Commandant’s long experience- of prisoners led him to the solemn conviction that the accusation was utterly unfounded. This was strengthened by his conversations with the unfortunate officer. On oi-e occasion he informed General de after a conversation with tho Minister of War, the former said to him. “ General Mercior is obliged to go away, to he present at the mat* riagepf his niece. Try and keep Dreyfus quiet.. •till he returns.” Tho only person allowed to enter the prisoner’s cell was Commandant (Paty do Clam, wilf-ae mis ion was to obtain specimens of his handwriting by dictation. Captain Driytoa him>,elf had up doubt of bw

acquittal. lie counted upon some cffi-'ial compensation, and when brought back after his terrible sentence hU grief and despair were so alarming that the Governor was afraid of a fatal issue. Every effort was again made by Commandant Paty de Clam 1° induce the condemned man to acknowledge at least that he bad held out a bant to the agents of a foreign Power, but this plea was rejected. We now know, and for the first lime, that _in July, 1896, the chance of escape was deliberately given to Captain Dreyfus. The offer, it is said, was peremptorily declined, the double reason given being that it might be a snare laid in his way to suppress him, and above all that he would rather die than compromise tho eventual proof that his honour is a French officer was unblemished. The episode was made known to the Government. It certainly led to such increased rigour that the captain’s letters to his wife were only sent in the form of copies made at the Ministry of the Colonies. But its moral effect was more far-reaching than might have been supposed. Every effort was made by the members of the Dreyfus family to obtain supplementary testimony from European War Offices. The highest personages accepted the cause as humanitarian, and the Czar himself in conversation inclined to the side of doubt. Every crowned head in Europe, from the boy King of Spain and the girl Queen of Holland to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, must have received petitions from the wife of Captain Dreyfus. Of the petition sent to His Holiness the Pope, the Daily Chronicle, of London —a journal to whose enterprise we are much indebted for the material of this article —gives the following extract: —

Lucie EugiSnie Dreyfus, at tho feet of your Holiness, humbly supplicates the compassion of the Father of the Catholic Church, bhe declares that her husband is innocent, and the victim of a judicial error Ho being isolated from his fcllow-raou, this appeal is signed by his grief-stricken wife, who, through her tears, gazes at the Vicar of Christ as the daughters of Jerusalem looked upon Christ Himself on His way to Calvary. Captain Dreyfus himself was interviewed by M. Gadaud, Governor of Cayenne, who was accompanied by M. Michel Pignol, the Prefect Apostolic and Chief Missionary of French Guiana. What took place on that occasion is not even known to the former, for the prisoner would only confer in secret with the Chief Missionary, who by virtue of his office received a verbal statement, with leave to communicate it to an august personage. The initiative on the Catholic side was followed by the noble and resolute move of M. Soheurer-Kestner. Only those who know the virulent hatred and slander which pervade public life in France —says the special correspondent of the Chronicle —can realise the courage and self-sacrifice which the Vice-President of the Senate has shown. “ Every epithet has been hurled at him. Although a staunch descendant of the Huguenots, he is a clandestine Jew. Although rich by the industry of his family and an Alsatian patriot, he is the spy of Germany and a confederate in treachery i Under all this, as he smilingly said to me recently, he has imitated the muteness of the carp. Patient investigation having once le I him to the conviction that Alfred Dreyfus was innocent, he has fortified that conviction by every legal means. He has never had friendly or social intercourse with any member of the Dreyfus family, with the exception of one visit from M. Mathieu Dreyfus, the condemned man’s brother, immediately after the sentence. He only felt bound to ask Maitre Demange to inform Mme. Dreyfus that his client was innocent, and that he had a solid hope of tracking the guilty party.” Who that gnilty party is there seems little doubt. The evidence almost certainly points to Colonel Esterhazy. Colonel von Sohwartzkoppen—with whom Captain Dreyfus once had a quarrel on a delicate matter-—was relieved from any obligation of secrecy regarding the real culprit by the Kaiser himself, and he has taken an early opportunity of stating what he knows of the affair. Strangely enough, ho alleges that there :s no traitor in the business.

M. Soheurer-Kestner would be on the wrong scant if his aim woro to substitute the “traitor” Esterhazy for the “traitor" Dreyfus. Believe me there is neither traitor nor spy nor anything else of the kind. There is only a frightful scoundrel. I affirm that the documents upon whioh the accusation was based were never in the possession of the German Embassy, nor of any member of that Embassy, nor of the Central Military staff, nor of any agent of the German Government. And yet these documents exist. Ql course they do, but they are mere forgeries. The French Government has been the dupe of a forger. This is my. version of the affair, A ewindler bolding olose relations with the French Ministry of War—a contingency alas which notwithstanding the severest precautions may happen in any country—imagined that he could easily gain a laj-ge sum of money by inventing and fabricating -the documents in question. Ho happens to have been clover enough to sell these to your Government. All you have to do is to seek and find the individual who received money for having “ unmasked ” Dreyfus. You will then have placed your finger upon the guilty party. . . I have spoken to all those who were in a position to know. My firm conviction is that i hey are not leading mo astray. I hive no tea-on f-r condemning Commandant Esterhazy. Bat hie actions are singular and his nursery tales seem to make his position nearly untenable. May he succeed in modifying it to hia advantage ! In any .ease, you- in iy be convinced that there can be no question of treason or spying. Tour Government has been the dupe and Captain Drejfus has been the victim of a bare faced swindle. Ton are aware that for teasona of jpy own, which it would be ungenerous to disclose just now, my feelings towards Dreyfus are not those of indifference, but antipathy. Unfortunately, we are in p’resenoe of a terrible tragedy, and it is iinpnagib'e not to fed deep compassion for the sufferings of a man bo overwhelmed by cruel fate.

And here, at this rather romantic j uncture, we must leave the discussion of this case for the present. Its later developmeats will be watched with keen interest, and we feel at anyrate that our readers are now in a position to read with renewed interest the somewhat soant references made to the strange and sorry story in the cable messages filtered to us through the London agency.

As we anticipated, the charges made against Mr Moss, British Resident at Rarotonga, have been shown to be without a shadow of foundation. But the chiefs say, in effect, that though the falsity of their accusations has been clearly shown; they will not pass any laws, sign any papers, or authorise any payments, till the present Resident and his officers are removed from the island! Asked a reason for this unwarrantable decision, these chiefs reply: “It is our wish.” Whoever is responsible for having stirred up the arikis against the Resident must now be taught thatit is not a wise thing to attempt to undermine the forces of law and order even in Rarotonga,andthat there is a strong arm whioh can reach with effect, even to that outlying part of Her Majesty’s dominions. Thera is a report current that much of the trouble has- been created by the missionaries, and that they, under cover of a fancied grievance against the British Resident in permitting the sale of liquor to natives, have worked up an amount of ill-feeling that it may take considerable trouble to allay. We have to congratulate Mr Moss on his having been honourably acquitted by the Chief Justice, Sir James Prendergast, and trust that any attempt to get behind the decision of the Chief Justice wjll be met with firmness by thp Goyernnjenjt.

Thebe is no country in a greater state of unpreparedness should outside trouble come upon it than the United States.- The proposal to expend 1,200,000 upon the construction of battleships and torpedoboats does not, therefore, coma as a surprise. All that may be hoped, however, by the friends of the United States Government will he that such rottenness and rascality as have previously marked its attempts to provide ships of war will be absent on the present occasion. It is a surprising fact that at the present moment the Americans have but few ships upon which any dependence can be placed; no docks in which to refit or repair ; and scarcely an arsenal worthy the name. •On one occasion recently, an attempt was made fo fire the guns of one or more of the cruisers built “by contract” with the resnlt that tho vessels were in danger of toppling over from the violence of the concussion! This is no wild story, but a plain, unvarnished fact. And it has some home to Uncle Sam —now that there is Jikoly to be trouble with Germany in the Par East—that it would not be out of place to have a baud in the disposition of affairs there. Germany and the United States are at variance over patters oftrade, and the former Power may h.« depended upon to block the Americans so soon as all arrangements are made for opening up China to farther trading. America has very large Interests both in China and Japan and warmly supports British claims in the Far Bast because Britain has always afforded the Yankee every facility for legitimate trade there. It will not be so with Germany, and it is therefore obvious that Uncle Sam wishes to “ have a say ” it necessity should arise.