The third letter published by the Figaro was from another member of the Prieu syndicate, Monsieur Prosper Sauvage: “I was present at the meeting which was called to discuss the situation created by the articles in the Figaro,” he wrote. “I was one of the first to arrive, and met Messieurs Monniot, Mazars, and Boileau. Naturally the conversation bore on the incidents of the day, and when I expressed my astonishment and my indignation at the proposal that the Government should take 80 per cent. for its electoral needs while the heirs received only 20 per cent. of the money, Monsieur Monniot declared that Monsieur Schneider had told him about the interview which he had had, and had confirmed these figures. He added that Monsieur Schneider had found the rate excessively high, and quite unacceptable. (Signed) Prosper Sauvage.”
These letters appeared in the Figaro on January 12. The same day Monsieur Calmette accused Monsieur Caillaux of having extorted £16,000 from the Comptoir d’Escompte for the party funds. Monsieur Calmette wrote that Monsieur Ulmann, of the Comptoir d’Escompte, had been received at five o’clock one afternoon by Monsieur Caillaux, and that some days afterwards the £16,000 had been placed at the disposition of the Minister of Finance. Everybody concerned contradicted these statements very flatly, and as they have no bearing on the Caillaux drama other than to show the bitterness and personal nature of the attacks in the Figaro against Monsieur Caillaux we may leave them on one side.
Three days later, on January 15, Monsieur Francois Lebon published in L’Œuvre, a little weekly paper which has been in bitter opposition to the present Government, an article on the scandals of the week, in which he referred to the Prieu affair, and to the affair of the Comptoir d’Escompte. In this article, which is the more worth quoting because it attacks not only Monsieur Caillaux but the present parliamentary régime in France as well, Monsieur Lebon exclaims against the outcry which many people raise against such revelations as those made by the Figaro, that “they tarnish the good name of the Republic.”
“The republican régime,” writes Monsieur Lebon, “is settling down in the mud. We may consider it permissible to think that a few more stains will not be much more visible. When a man is drowning it is perhaps an excess of precaution to refrain from throwing him a rope for fear of splashing him with a few drops of water. One of these days it will become perceptible that if the Third Republic fell so low, it was because the Third Republic was ‘la République des camarades. ’”
This is severe language from a Frenchman about France, but unfortunately there is much in the political history of recent years to support this charge of graft and of corruption. Charges of corruption in the N’Goko Tanga affair, charges which were not altogether denied satisfactorily, were brought by Monsieur Ceccaldi when the colonial Budget came up for discussion, and the fact that Monsieur Ceccaldi has since become a close friend and supporter of the Caillaux Government makes these charges all the more significant now. Each Government in France has a secret fund of £44,000; £24,000 of this fund are used comparatively openly. The little balance of £20,000 is not nearly enough for the funds needed by the Government at the general elections, and it is a well-known fact that a great deal more is spent.
The question as to where this money comes from is hardly a mystery. The Mascuraud committee, an association of parliamentarians and commercial men, has been generous with money in the past. This year it is said to have withheld a large proportion of its usual subsidy, and the Figaro and other Opposition papers declare that Monsieur Caillaux did what he did for the purpose of ensuring at the coming elections the election of Government candidates for the Chamber of Deputies.
Agence Nouvelle—Photo, Paris.
MONSIEUR CAILLAUX’S FRIEND, M. CECCALDI.