FRENCH ESPIONAGE LAW.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7636, 9 August 1886, Page 4

FRENCH ESPIONAGE LAW.

A recent cable message announced that in consequence of the operation of the French Espionage Law the German officers who wore then studying in Franco had been recalled. Tlie severity of the new law which led to this course was, according to telegrams in the latest Bombay papers, the subject of very strong adverse comment .•ibout the time mentioned in the leading German papers. Tlic North German Gazette said: —" The characteristic feature of the law is that nowhere does it demand the existence or proof of a penal intention. With the vague wording of the law its chief importance will consist in the manner in which Chauvinistic judges will apply it. To what petty oppressions (clticancn) it can lead may be seen, among other things, from line 1 of article 5, according to which anyone entering a fortified place under concealment of his position or profession may be visited withji minimum punishment of imprisonment for one year. It lias been notorious for several years back that every person who sots foot on French soil at Pagny, and looks like a German ollicer iii civil dross, is asked for bis papers. Should the new arrival turn out to be an officer, his name and description are teleirraphed to the well-known ' Bureau contra Espionnage 'at Paris, of which an agent is. then ready to receive him at the station and follow him to his quarters. Now as most (Gorman) officers, from an apprehension of trouble—which, it must be said, is seldom justified--deny their nationality and rank in their (Paris) hotels, it may be assumed that a large number of these harmless travellers for pleasure figure as spies in the thick dossier of the AV.ir Minister, which he laid before the committee of the Chamber. But, according to the letter of the law, such a. cautious tourist, who sojourns in Paris, and therefore hi a ' place forte,' would be liable to punishment, or should his innocent excursions lead him, while being watched, to the environs of Paris and to the neighbourhood of forts, and should he inquire his way of a paysan, he can now pretty safely rely on his being arrested."