The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1898-01-24

ment names the foreign power TO which
DBEYBUs communicated h secrets OF the
French War Department. Evidently, IL
that foreign power were Germany, there
could be no i~nsurmountable objection to an
announcement Of the fact, for there is no
pretence OF friendship between Germany
and France, and neither power ls squeam-
ish with regard to the methods Of detecting
the military secrets Of the other.
We're It true, on the other hand, that
DHEYFUs was an agent not OF the German,
but Of the Russian Government, andt that,
at the very time when negotiations were
proceeding for an intimate alliance be-
tween France and Russia, the latter power
was persuadlng q French officer to betray
his country, the revelation might produce,
"a M. MsL1NE ~apprehends, %arevulsion In the
public mind thai would render the alliance
with Russia unacceptable. At all events,
the discovery would cause some abate-
ment Of the enthusiasm with which the
Gear and the Czarina were received in
Paris, though no sensible Frenchman could
complain because the st. Petersburg Gov
eminent, before committing itself to a
coalition, took measures to ascertain the
precise extent and value of the French
military resources. That the outcome of
the prudential inquiry was satisfactory
seems to be attested by the fact that the
alliance was concluded.
It was, doubtless, the impolicy Of chill
ing the popular regard for Russia which
was accepted rs o sufficient reason for
Withholding the Dreyfus confession by M.
CAvAIaNAc, who has himself known the
responsibilities Of Office, and who expects
to be, one day, Prime Minister. IL not
President Of the Republic. There is, how
ever, a still graver danger to which France
may be exposed, IL the agitation Of the
Dreyfus affair goes on. 1t might be q mat
ter of regret that the French people should
lose faith In the Gear, but 1t would be a de-
plorable misfortune II they should lose con-
fidence In their army. That 10 an evil
which French Statesmen should, at all
risks, avert. Whether they are taking the
right course to avert 1t seems open to some
doubt. As long as the guilt OF DREYFUs is
not established in some convincing way, as,
for instance, by q confession, his friends and
champions will continue to assert, and a
considerable part Of the public will con-
tinue to believe that he was made the
scapegoat for acts really committed by
other officers. hat is the charge made by
NJ. lola, and, sooner or later, 1t will have
to be met squarely, though, strange to say,
the Meline Government has, thus far,
seemed anxious to evade it, the indictment
of the novelist being SO framed that the
question of the truth or falsity of his gravest
imputations is not directly raised.
On the whole, it seems to distant onlook-
ers that the less p~erilous course would DO
to confront the risk of dispelling some Of
the illusions which rave invested the Rus
sian alliance in the eyes of the French peo-
pie by the publication of the confession at
tributed to D~REYFUs, IL such q document is
really in existence. Such a publication
would stop forever the mouths of those who
describe DREYFUs as a scapegoat, and
would relieve the officers composing the
general staff of the French Army from the
cloud of suspicion which, for the moment,
! rests upon them in the eyes of many of
their countrymen.