ALLEGED BRIBERY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5311, 24 June 1904, Page 5

ALLEGED BRIBERY.

THE OFFER TO THE FRENCH t PREMIER. STORMY COMMITTEE MEETING, PARIS, June 22. ,A great uproar took place at the meeting of the committee appointed by tho Chamber‘of Deputies to investigate the alleged attempt of the Grande Chartreuse monks to bribe the French Premier. owing to discrepancies in the evidence tendered by M. Michel la Grave, an official in the Ministry of Commerce, and M. Edgar Combes, the Premier's sou. Epithets were bandied about, inkpots were thrown, and blows exchanged between several members of the majority and minority, the latter eventually withdrawing.

Tho monks of the Caruiusinn Order did not, as an Order, apply for authorisation when the French Iteligious. Associations law came into operation. The-monastery of the-Grande Chartreuse, world-famed for its liqueur which is made by tho monks, provided the exception. - They applied, basing their application on the ground that the monastery was a commercial institution.’ Towards the beginning of 1903 (says the “Sydney-Daily Telegraph”), the “Petit alleged that M. Edgar Combos, the Premier's son, had offered to- obtain authorisation for the Carthusians for .£-10,000. Later, in April, a monk of the institution informed a representative of the Paris journal, “Lo Ganlois/* that a person professing to represent a political group in the Chamber of Deputies had offered to secure Government authorisation under tho Association Law .for the monastery if it would pay <£12,000 down and contribute .£BO,OOO to the electoral fund. Tho offer was refused. Last week when an angry scene occurred in the Chamber of Deputies between M. Combes, the Premier, and 31. Millorand, a Socialist member, 31. Combes declared that when the Associations Law was being enforced <£Bo,ooo had been indirectly offered to him (M. Combes) on behalf of the monks of the Grande Chartreuse if he would introduce a Bill exempting them from tho operation of the law, M, Millernnd knew of that offer, but he had urged him, the Premier, “in the higher interests of the country,” not to divulge the name of the person who had offered tho bribe. - A committee was thereupon inquire into the allegation of the Premier.