The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-10-17
THE FRENCHMAN'S VIEW.

The Reverend Mr. Kincaid gave to
the members or the Research Club on
Friday evening an unusually interest
ing description and analysis of the
motives of the men who prosecuted
Dreyfus to the end and secured his
conviction. He describes the dominant
motive to be the destruction of the
French Republic and the restoration
of the Empire which would carry with
it the dominance of the Jesuits in
spiritual matters.
Those who have studied the case
will agree partially in this view of it.
Others take an entirely different view.
This remarkable case illustrates the
difficulty that foreigners meet with in
analyzing or estimating the motives
or forces which govern large or ma
tiOnal movements
During the American Civil war, the
educated British, the French and the
German higher classes looked upon the
war as one of conquest by the North.
Even Gladstone regarded the men who
fought for the Union as cruel and mis-
guided individuals who were slaughter
ing their Southern brethren without
any justification whatsoever.
Some who condemn the attitude of
the French nation towards Dreyfus,
feel that foreigners may not under
OF no
Rightly or wrongly the majority of
Frenchmen have been persuaded to be-
lieve that Dreyfus, in spite of the want
of sufficient evidence, was involved in
transactions which might weaken and
cripple the army in it's efforts to sue
cessfully confront Germany, in the
event of war. This desire to protect
their fatherland against a powerful foe
has led them to sacrifice Dreyfus for
the sake of the country. The efficiency
% the army is all in all to them, and it's
decentralization by an acquittal of
Dreyfus would cause serious disaster if
not revolution. Other nations may
cOldly look at the affair. and criticise
their apparent failure to do justice in
it, but they may not understand the
drift of French thought any more than
Europe understood the motives and
thoughts of the Union men of America,
when they laid desolate the Southern
States j,
Powerful as the Jesuits have been in
France, if we can believe the best
modern writer's on the religious con-
dition of that country, the dominant
men, and the newspapers which in
fiuence public opinion in Paris, are be-
yOnd the reach of the Roman church. or
the Jesuits. While the women of France
are devout Catholics, the men who live
near the political centres are so merely
in name. The statesmen agree with
the first Napoleon. that a nation needs
some kind of a religion as a balance
wheel for the mob France has already
stricken down the political power of
the Romantic church in France.
The Pope, wiser than the Jesuits, or
the Propaganda, accepts the growing
power of republicanism, not only in
France, but in the United States and
will not peril his own interests by TAX
ing any action whatsoever that has a
political bearing on French politics.
The Jesuits no doubt would like to
aid in restoring the Monarchy, but the
massacre Of the Archbishop OF Paris.
by the Commune in 1871, leads them
tn avoid interfering with public affairs.
The safety Of the Romantic church in
France lies in developing it's spiritual
and not temporal power. The extraor-
binary extension of Roman Catholicism
in America, in spite of the total in
difference and even secret hostility of
the temporal power, has finally taught
its sagacious and experienced leaders
where it's only safety lies.
There will be many volumes of liter
AZURE published during the next fifty