THE BERLIN POLITICAL LIBEL CASE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2240, 4 February 1897, Page 23

THE BERLIN POLITICAL LIBEL CASE.

The London correspondent of the Age writes :—": — " The extraordinary trial for libel at Berlin has attracted much attention throughout Europe, and has shown in a very remarkable manner the extraordinary methods adopted by the Prussian secret police, the atmosphere of duplicity which surrounds the Imperial throne, and the manner in which the German press is cajoled, subsidised, and bullied. For the origin of the wretched affair it is necessary to go back to the recent -meeting at Breslau between the Czar and the German Emperor. One version of tho toast proposed by the Russian guest was officially circulated, and aftor a brief interval another form oi words was declared to be correct. According to the Erst report Nicholas II declared that he was animated by the same sentiments as his father ; in the second he professed to be guided by the sentiments of the German Emperor. An outsider might inquire what was the difference between tweedledum and tweedledee, but the restless wirepullers who manipulate and control public opinion in Germany gave the word to their organs in the press to assert that the erroneous words were communicated to the newspapers by Count yon Eulenberg, the court marshal, aud that his intention in falsifying thn toast wan to promote the political interests of Great Britain. The secret object with which this statement was made was not so much to injure Count Eulenberg as to embroil tho Berlin Foreign Office, and it was craftily implied that the charges against the court were made at the instigation or Baron Marscha.ll, who holds the portfolio for Foreign Affairs. The tv<o personage* whom ifc was desired to set by the ears took steps to have the public action tt eared as libellous, and a prosecution was directed againtt the men primarily responsible for the story, appearing in print. These were a young man named Ltckert and another named Yon Lutzow. Baron Manchali conducted the prosecution with marked ability and determination. He proved that there had own a systematic conspiracy to represent the Foreign Office as a focus of intrigue against the other departments and against all Ministers who held office. The machinations had been employed to set one department and one Minister* against another. The War Office and the Ministry of the Interior had been dragged into the scandal. One or two acts of flagrant dishonesty were brought home to Yon Lutzow. He had falsely ascribed the authorship of an attack against the War Minister which had appeared in a Munich newspaper to a subordinate in the Home Office, and in order to give vraiserablauce to the charge he had forged a receipt for the money said to be the price for the scurrilous article, Viually he confessed that the falsehoods invented and promulgated by him were inspired by Herr yon Tausch, the chief of the political police, employed to discover the authorship of articled appearing in the public journals, and generally to explore the secrets of the editors' rooms. The incriminated chief detective stoutly denied the assertions made by bis agent, but he was compelled to make some damaging admissions, and was so flatly contradicted by independent evidence that he was finally arrested on a chttrge of perjury. Leckert and Yon LuCzow were sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment, a light punishment for men who deliberately propagated falsehoods with a view of embittering the relations between the different Ministries. But why did Yon Tausch revel in the concoction of fables intended to bring statesmanship into disrepute ? Who pulled the strings which made the puppets dance ? It was recollected that Count yon Caprivi fell in consequence of some disagreements which occurred between him and Count Euleuberg, the German Ambassador at Vienna and the kinsman of the court marshal, and it

was maintained at tho trial that the friction was caused by inspired articles of which Yon Tausch was the prompter. The light let in on the relations between the Government and tbe pres9 must bo distressing to all patriotic Germans. The highest dignitaries in the empire are at the mercy of any unscrupulous detective who chooses to charge them with tb.e Ruthorship of articles which have beeri unpopular in official quarters. A system c>i:' espionage and feigning have been deliberately encouraged, with the result that no importance henceforth will be attached ta anything which may appear in the German official press."