Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1899. FRANCE AND LAFFAIRE DREYFUS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8412, 11 January 1899, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1899. FRANCE AND L AFFAIRE DREYFUS.

If the report recei ved in our cables be tru e, as no doubt it is, that the Court of Cassation has drawn up a verdict in favor of the unfortunate man Dreyfus, then everybody outside of France will agree that an act of simple but tardy justice is being done to the innocent victim of one of the most shocking conspiracies that ever disgraced the administration of any country, and the world will be thankful that the curtain is about to be rung down upon a drama of many acts, that has too long held the wearied attention of the people of all lands. Within France itself it is hopeless to expect agreement or to look for anything like general satisfaction or contentment at the result. We are assured by shrewd students of the case, residing in France, that the average Frenchman does not care a fig whether: Dreyfus be guilty or innocent, " Dreyfus is innocent, you may say to a Frenchman. " Very likely," he will reply, "on the whole I think he probably is, if it were worth going into such an old question. But if I had my way I would have had him made away with years ago, before he brought all this disorganisation upon the country. His supporters are the Little France party, the Protestants, the Jews, the foreigners — everyone whom the patriotic Frenchman naturally distrusts. The people that his supporters attack are the heads of the army, which every good Frenchman naturally defends. The Dreyfusards have brought us so low that all the world can insult us. Oh yes, if I had my way I would shoot Dreyfus and be done with it." Of course the Dreyfusard will reply that the evil results are not due to his party but to the anti-Dreyfusards. "If Ministers and generals have condemned the innocent, broken the law, suborned to perjury, and connived at forgery, it is not ourfault that the State is troubled when we denounce them, but theirs who have made denunciation necessary." Such are the most reasonable arguments heard on either side on the Boulevards or in the Parisian press. The question of the guilt or innocence of Dreyfus has long been left behind, and his name is but the battle-cry of what is more like an early-Christian creed war than anything else. The rival factions take sides according as they hate the army or hate the Jews. It is strange that a military people such as the French should hate their army, but there are thousands who do The system of conscription is at the birth of this hate, and Socialistic working men, who have become a very powerful factor in the State, hate it on principle. The peasants, it is complained, return to their villages diseased in body and mind by the debauches of garrison life, with no respect for God or woman, spoiled for any productive occupation. For the better nurtured youth the army is said to be a purgatory, and many of them come out of the army with their patriotism dead. These, we are informed by the Daily Mail, which gives them print, are not English criticisms, but the criticisms that may be heard any day in and all over France. But the hatred of the army — at anyrate in the violence witli which it finds utterance — is hardly comparable with the hatred of the Jews. No Western naturally likes an Oriental ; there is always an undefined barrier of mutual repugnance between them, but it is the fact that a body of astute and generally wealthy men, knit together in a close freemasonry, have obtained excessive power in a weaklygoverned country, that adds fuel to the fire of hatred which bums in the hearts of Frenchmen to-day, and causes bitter invectives and cruel persecutions, so that men who were the fastest friends three years ago have taken different sides, one hating the army and the other hating the Jews, and do not speak to one another. Clubs have been broken up and relatives have be:ome strangers, all through this tragic affaire Dreyfus. What the end will be it is impossible to predict. The internal affairs of France are in a state of topsyturveydoni, and the race and religious hatreds that have been engendered will not soon die away. The verdict of the Court of Cassation if it goes against the army and compels the impeachment of a number of its leaders will have a most disturbing influence, and to avert that which would be regarded by them as a calamity, the military officers and their friends have more than once hinted at the possibility of a coup, which would mean a complete overthrow of civil jurisdiction and the setting up of a military autocracy. France is fortunate, however, in having at the helm a strong man, and the Premier, M. Dupuy. may be trusted to guide the nation through its perilous course. Dupuy is a man who with three worda made himself famous. " The sitting continues !" The words were uttered immediately after the throwing of the bomb by an anarchist in the Chamber of Deputies. AI. Charles Dupuy was President of the Chamber, or, in other words, its Speaker, and the bomb was thrown at its head. Fortunately, however, it struck a pillar and rebounded close to the thrower, who with a number of members and spectators was injured. The echoes of the explosion, the cries of pain and anger, the fracas, were stilled by the Btern pronouncement from the man at whom the missile had been aimed, "The sitting continues," and a panic was averted because Dupuy had kept his head. So it is hoped that in the troubles which now beset France, and in the sensational denouements which may follow the hearing of the Dreyfus case the "strong minded, strong willed, and intelligent Premier will control the passions of an excitable people, and bring the country to an era of peace. He has already mapped out a prqgramme of reforms, and set himself busily to work to repair the weakened defences of the natioD, to restore decreasing industry and commerce, and to lessen the burden of taxation which presses heavily upon the Freoeh people. He is also, our cables to-day inform us, taking the sensible course of mediation with England, and no doubt sees that the policy of irritation of British sensibilities and opposition to British interests, so long pursued by the Anglophobes, is one that brings with it no satisfaction, but becomes a positive danger to the peace of the nations.