Six days have now elapsed since the second condemnation of Dreyfus, and there sign of public agitation in his favour. The government was so apprehensive of disturbances in Paris on Sunday that a strong hint was given to the President of the court-martial to postpone the decision until Monday. The trial was nevertheless finished of with startling suddenness on Saturday, and, as I foreshadowed in my letter dispatched the day before, the prisoner was convicted. Two judges out of the seven, however, voted for an acquittal, and the sentence—ten years' detention in a fortress—was consequently less severe than that which resulted from the unanimous conviction in 1894. Strictly speaking, the recondemnation entails a second degradation, but the judges themselves have signed' a petition for the ro-mission of this part of the penalty, and there is not the least doubt that their recommendation will have the desired effect. As the period of imprisonment already endured by Dreyfus must be deducted from the new sentence, he has really only five years and four months to serve, even supposing that he is required to pay his supposed debt to society to the uttermost farthing. This is not at all likely to be the case. If, us is practically certain, the military Court of Revision rejects his appeal, the President of the Republic. will, have already stated, order his release, in the general interests of the country. ' At the same time, the proceedings against General Mercier, Colonel Picquart, and M. Zola will be allowed to drop, so that the whole afsir may be at last brought to an end and the country allowed to enjoy a brief period of rest prior to the Great Exhibition of 1900. Fveryono except a handful of rabid extremists would applaud this general amnesty. Even Dreyfus' most influential supporters recognise the necessity, as business men, of no longer supporting an agitation which, though abun-dautly justifiable from one point of view, hus done a great deal of harm to France, As for Dreyfus himself, he fully realises that his innocence is clearly established in the eyes of the world, and he will rest content with this moral satisfaction. In any case he is not likely to live long. Ho is a victim to chronic dysentery, ho has taken no solid food for months past, his muscles are atrophied und, in short, ho is x complete wreck. His sufferings have shortened his existence by twenty-five years. Whatever his original faults of character he has well earned the right to spend the remainder of his days with his incomparable wife and with his two children who are still waiting for him to come homo "from a long voyage."
'The indignation abroad by Dreyfas' cor lotion is singular contrast to the One would have hat Dreyfus' French supporters ho persons chiefly affected by the decision, but they have confined themselves to written protests, whereas in Eny-land and other countries it is seriously proposed to bring the wicked French to their sonses by boycotting the 1900 oxhibition, Personally I fail to seo why foreigners should keep aloof from France 1900 because a French military tribunal 0 1899 gave n wrong decision approved by only a part of the French people. There is something distinctly ridiculous about the protest of the thousand and one nobodies who write to the English papers announcing their intention not to set foot in France. Their absence will not make the slightest difference. As for the exhibiters who talk of keeping their goods in England because France will" not be a safe place for them next year, we have only to remember that the space alloted to British exhibitors was very much less than the amount applied for and that it any exhibitors withdraw, there are scores of others who will be only'too glad to take their place. Quite apart from these material considerations, the people who are 50 quick to proclaim the wickedness of France should remember that it does not become nations, any more than individuals, to cast the first store. The sacrifice of Admiral Byng, the desertion of Gordon, and the death of the Prince Imperial might all be brought up against us, The only
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.