THE DREYFUS TRIAL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2379, 5 October 1899, Page 62

THE DREYFUS TRIAL.

TRAGEDY AND FARCE

EXTRAORDINARY PROCEEDINGS. (From Ocu Own Correspondent.) i LONDON, August 26. France still continues to present to the world at large a spectacle of unparalleled • ulness. The world at large can only I store and gaze and gr.pe, almost speechless ' with astonishment, at the alternation and con- , tiuuation of tragedy and farce of^ which that, amazing nation has been tho theatre during the past few weeks. -It would be utterly idle wore I to attempt; to describe in detail the proceedings either at llennes or in Paris. . Seeing that the London daily paper* accord from ejsfhl to~teu columns daily to Renncs alono and another two or 1 three to I'aris, it i-s obvioud that I should fill about four of the .largest papers in New Zea- • land every week, beside excluding all advertisements, were I to attempt the feat. So I must content myself with offering a few "search-lights" and "side-lights" and " inwardnesses." But iheic in themselves are full ol interest and importance. As to the progie.-s of the Dreyfus courtmartial at Rennes, 1 receive a good deal of. '. "special" information. The trial has prou bably had no parallel or evert and approxii mate parallel, in the history v of the "world. ' Making due allowance for the curious character of French evidence-methods and their diametrically opposite nature to all English prae- '■ tice.s, it is only just to say that Colonel Jouaust and his colleagues appear to be conducting' tho case with fairness, impartiality, I and dignity. But the style of the stuff which 'is offered as " evidence " simply makes an i Englishman's hair stand on end, especially if 1 he be a lawyer- or an experienced journalist. ; It is safe to say that nine-tenths — aye, or '_ ninety-nine hundredth^ — of what has been said in court by witnesses would lie sternly ruled out by any British tribunal a* " not I evidence." It consists mainly in mere hearsay vague personal impressions or suspicions ; reckless allegations, unsupported by proof; gross and admitted forgeries ; deliberate and ■ undisputed perjuries ; foul insinuations ; basei less reports ; gutter gossip ; chance chatter ; : spurious documents; purloined private letters ; flimsy rumours and lyings, vapourings and gassings generally. No fair-minded or clear-headed person who 1 has read tho daily reports of tho proceedings will venture for I a moment to question the strict accuracy and 1 justice of this summing up. j Take, for iij&tance,' the famous bordereau. I A year or two ago 1 did not hesitate to affirm ', that the bardereau was a forgery by the infamous scoundrel Esterhazy. Many months afterwards Esterhazy confessed this forgery, and pleaded that he committed it as an act of soldierly obedience to his military superiors, j Will it be believed that these same superiors, now driven into a corner, deny the j truth of Eslerhazy's confession, and still in- , si*l that it was the work of Dreyfus, notwitliI slandin'-.- that this' has ~ been - shown to be i impossible? Yes. That is actually the line ' taken by General Mercier, who represents ! about the most despicable figure of tho whole i gang — Esterhazy not excepted. Then, as to the secret dowdier, which was Vleclared to contain conclusive proof of Dreyfus's guilt, which could not be published for fear of involving France in war, this now turns out to be a. tissue of rubbish, which has nothing whatever to do with Dreyfus. That this fellow Mercier did fear war with Germany seems true, for the miserable creature actually described how he shook and trembled and whimpered with dread lest Germany sKbuld make her alleged connection with Dreyfus a cadtis belli, for he confessed that the French army was utterly unprepared and must have | been crushed, and as he was Minister for War he would have " got in for it " very heavily. j Here is a pretty confession! Incompetence ' and corruption and cowardice too seem to I ride rampant among French military official- , dom. The general staff has learned nothing from Sedan, and the French army, although } numerically larger, is as unfit for real war j as it wa> in l''o, and as the navy and the coast defences were at the Fashoda crisis. It a melancholy revelation. But it would not 'be fair to blame the Frencl* people. They are as a rule sound and " straight ' enough. It is their rulers and their military commanders who arc sucli frauds. Mercier under- ! went a terrible experience at the hands of ! Dreyhis's splendid counsel, Maitre Labori, who simply turned him inside out, and would j have demolished him still more utterly but for ] fear of injuring Dreyfus by exciting the rej senlmcnt of the Military Court at the humiliaI ton of a military chief. j Then look at the attempt at assassination i of the noble Labori! Will anyone tell me that was a mere act of personal fanaticism? IDo not believe a word of it. Labori's murder j was ordered by tho rascally imposter he has been exposing just as the murder of Henry and of several others was ordered and carried out when they showed signs of becoming dangerous to their employers, and as that of th.9 saUjyifc JMcquarfc woi*ld also ha,Y© feaei»

2one but for his outspoken warning. It is % loathsome and sickening experience. "Observe the paltry fraud in which Madame Henry was the tool. She created some Fensation by defending in court the name of her dead husband. But Labori 'was m possession of documentary proof that' this pretended spontaneous outburst waa deliberately planned some days beforehand as a coup de theatre, even- the very words spoken by "Madame Henry — as if on the spur of momentary indignation — being written down beforehand and carefully rehearsed ! Isn't it wonderful? Again, General Mercier put in an alleged letter of Colonel Schneider, a German at tache, as prpof of Dreyfus's guilt. Schneider denounced the letter as a forgery. Yet Mercier actually refused to accept the denial and persisted in maintaining the genuineness of the spurious document, assorting that the cliselaiiner was a mere act of policy. Of this •more will yet be heard. There is no doubt that a strong feeling of irritation and disgust 08 growing up among all France's neighbours. England, Germany, and Italy all resent the bad spirit, and disreputable lying, and utter ■untrustworthiness and corruption revealed in French high quarters. This feeling is distinctly dangerous* to France, and may take a disagreeable shape. Already it has been suggested that if the Rennes court-martial should reconvict Dreyfus, a contingency unhappily by no means improbable, considering the relations between the unscrupulous accusers and the military judges, the Paris Exhibition of 1900 should be boycotted. Its success is already gravely endangered, not only by what is happening at Hermes, but also by the events of the past week in Paris. The arrest of a. man named Guerin, one of rampant anti-Semitic gutter journalists, had been ordered. He at once surrounded himself with friends, fortified his house in the Rue Chabrol, just off the Rue Lafayette, one^of the principal Paris thoroughfares — the one^by which the heart of the city is reached from the great termini of the Nord and Est railways. He has been besieged for many days by tho police" and soldiery, but still holds out. They have cut off. the supplies of food and water, and as a final coup they have stopped up his drains ! The result has been so repulsive in the present intense heat that it has been necessary to drench the house with carbolic _ acid and other disinfectants. Guerin's "friends try to throw him food of various kinds, but as a rule the missiles are interceptedr He boasts that he has a large stock of mineral waters, so thirst does not yet -threaten, the garrison. As for washing — ■well, that class of Frenchman can manage "without it at a pinch ! Already several disturbances have occurred opposite the besieged house. Two churches have been sacked by the mob. Guerin once fired at the police, but so far no serious in- ' juries have been caused. Yesterday his friends invited the market .women of Paris to assemble 4000 strong,' and assist the " poor man" With supplies of * food. A complete fiasco resulted, only four women attending, and these were politely "removed by the police. It all seotns too absurd to 'be happening in such a city as Paris_in the' last year but one of the nineteenth century, But it has its darker mdc. It shows the existence of a turbulent and dangerous spirit, which at any time may blaze into destructive flame os it did -in 1871. I do very much fear that sad jvnd sombre events arei brewing in France. He would be a bold and rash man. indeed, •who should venture to predict what may happen even in the course of the -coming week.