MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1899.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11399, 17 April 1899, Page 4

MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1899.

The Dreyfus affair is without parallel, and one of the gravest national scandals of the century. .As the searchlight of truth is tardily applied to the murky stream of foul conspiracy in which the leaders of the Frenoh Army appear to havo wallowed, the outside world is ..mazed at the spectacle. That the men who should have been the custodians of the honour aiid guardians of the welfare of the nation should stand revealed as its worst traitors is a revelation that must be anything but comforting to the French people who have entrusted them witli such high office. The prosecution of Captain Dreyfus, the first .Tew to attain to, the honourable position of a member of the General Staff, was begotten of race hatred, and the feeling of the .French populace towards the Jewish race was fully demonstrated at the public degradation of Dreyfus. The scene was a memorable one. The spectacle of the infuriated crowd who cried out for his death aud hurled opprobrious epithets at him; tho troops drawn up in line, including his own company, with the outward appearance of calm while inwardly wrestling with intense excitement; the condemned man calmly facing the infuriated mob and declaring his innocence, is one the rest of the world is not likely to forget.

-—-————— ' .'• Tho French military leaders sowed, ai!- ---' crop of serpents' teeth that day whose y progeny will .most assuredly rise up and rend them. When we last reviewed the : Droyfus case in an article published i somo months since there seemetl a pros- i pect of proceedings for the revision of j tlio scandal coming before the civil , courts. In spite of the oppositiqn of tho generals of tho French Army a, revision of the ease by the French High Court, the Cour de Cassation, was decided upon towards' the end of November. With what tardy progress the proceed""ings have been conducted our readers have been . made cognisant of by the cable from time to time. First the battle raged round the question whether the whole of the incriminating evidence adduced at the military trial should be presented to the Court of Cassation, cr whether the secret dossiers should be withheld. One of those, known as the ultra secret dossier, was shown to none but tho six Ministers for War, and wag supposed to contain proofs, without naming individuals, of attempts made by Russia to procure plans of French quick-firing cannon through tho medium of secret agents who were supposed to gam tho necessary information by forming relations with the French Army staff. But the proceedings before the Court of Cassation have failed to elicit any proof that Dreyfus had secret relations with Russia or any other foreign Power. Then at a subsequent date the issue was raised whether the revision of the case should be confined to the criminal section of the Court of Cassation or go before the Full Court. After wasting mouths of time it has beeu finally decided that the - revision, shall go before the Full Court, and thus the machinations of the French military conspirators are likely to be set at naught, although they will resort to every known artifice to retard the. progress of the case m the hope that the victim of their 'foul conspiracy, languishing oil Devil's Island, may die before he is brought back to meet his accusers face to face. Acting under instructions from' the Court of Cassation different officials have' interviewed Droyfus in prison for the purpose of producing evidence for'his defence to present to the court, and on one occasion an official of the court went from Paris for that express purpose, his instructions-being to cable the principal features of the prisoner's defence; but Dreyfus, forewarned by the previous distortion of all evidence in bis favour, resolutely refused to give any evidence for fear it should be mutilated in passing through corrupt channels and be used agaiiist him instead of in his defence. ' All. the world outside the corrupt section that dominates the .French ' Army and hesmudges the honour of her law courts will support, the determination- bf the cruelly-wronged- prisoner of Devil's Island to give his evidence only, when, brought face to face with his accusers iv the open Court of Cassation. Confident in the. residuum of honour still left to the French nation, Dreyfus is prepared to face the mob who have accomplished his ruin. Matters have .now proceeded so far that right must' in the ' end triumph; and if Dreyfus lives ho will yet be able to declare-his innocence before the world. . But what", of - the French loaders ? They have played.a desperate game;, but in their terrible purpose- they .Have been foiled, -inanity by! the determination of the brother of the' victim of their, hate to' have, tho truth disclosed, aided by a devoted woman in the person of the prisoner's wife. Out of the profound depths of their inhuman minds the French military leaders had a special law passed having for its ulterior purpose the separation of Dreyfus from his wife, to whom he is fondly attached, as well as his banishment to a pestiferous climate, where they hoped Nature would accomplish that which they had not Tthe couraga to consummate themselves. Had they sentenced Dreyfus as an ordinary criminal his destination would have h'eeii New Caledonia, and nnder the peiial ; law his wife would have been allowed to accompany him.. But no; m the madness of their hate they had an exceptional law passed, and the devoted wife was' left behind in France to circumvent tho machinations of the military conspirators, to bring about. the liberation of her husband, and to heap ruin and disaster upon the heads of his accusers. Thus do criminal minds defeat their own objects, and instead of the wife accompanying her husband to bless the military authorities for a. modicum of compassion, she was left behincl..,,,?; to curse them by letting in the light : of day upon their dark deeds. It is difficult' to comprehend with what feelings of consternation the parties to the foul plot see, one after another, the barriers behind which they have buttressed themselves being broken down. The suicide of Colonel Henry, who, could not face the prospect of exposure before the people who had conferred aii honourable position upon him, and -the later suicide of his secretary the other

clay in London when summoned to Paris to give evidence before the Court' of Cassation, pretty well reveal how, the French military leaders view the situation. Little wonder that they are trying by tho most strenuous endeavours to burke the fullest inquiry, and to cover their retreat hy a masked battery in the shape of the cry that the secret dossiers must not be made public for fear of exposing Russian espionage. It would not now be very startling if these secret documents reveal the fact that the French military leaders themselves are the real traitors, for they have proved themselves wholly unworthy to be the guardians of either tho national honour or of State military secrets. Meanwhile the civilised world awaits with startled interest the gradual unfolding of the plot, which will, go down to history as the crime of the century.