CAILLAUX.

Not since the trial of Warren Hastings for High Crimes and Misdemeanors has any prosecution attracted such wide interest as the trial of Joseph Caillaux. Trials for murder have ceased to interest a public used to violence of all kinds, but a trial for treason is sufficiently rare to greatly excite the public mind. The placing of Joseph Caillaux, former Premier of France, on trial on the charge of conspiracy against his country in time of war is the latest attempt to punish a man whose political career has been so shadowy as to excite grave suspicion, but who, up to the present time, has always been clever enough to obey the letter, while manifestly violating the spirit, of the law. That M. Caillaux is guilty there seems little doubt, but whether his guilt can be proved is quite another consideration.

It will be remembered that while he was Premier in 1916 his wife shot and killed Gaston Calmette, editor of the Figure for accusing her husband of betraying France in the Morocco incident. Her own beauty and brilliance and M Calmette's reputation of nasty meanness caused her acquittal. M. Caillaux resigned his office shortly afterward and retired from politics. During the war he served in the paymaster's department of the French army, but soon got into trouble with superior English officers for unexplained reasons. As a result he was removed and punished. In November, 1914, he sailed for Buenos Ayres, where he is said to have conferred with Count Karl of Luxembourg, the German minister to Argentine, who is noteworthy as the man who originated the phrase "spurlos versenkt." Two years later he was accused by the Rome correspondent of the London Times of trying to engineer a separate peace among the Germanophiles of the Vatican and the Italian aristocracy. Since that time he has been in France and the subject of much uncomplimentary discussion.

The case against Caillaux is similar to that against Bolo Pasha who was executed as a spy in April 1918 and that against M. Duval editor of the Bonnet Rouge which was subsidised by a German slush fund, who also went to death at Vincennes for treachery the July following. M. Malvy, a close friend of the accused and Minister of the Interior while he was Premier, is now in exile in Spain as the result of his diplomatic machinations.

Just what the government will be able to establish is a matter of conjecture for a veil of mystery has surrounded the proceedings up to the time of trial. It is safe to say that M. Caillaux will be ready with a masterly defence for he is not a man to yield without supreme effort and now he is fighting for his life. Let us hope that the French government will be able to lay its finger on some definite action of a man, who, in the mind of everyone, has tried to betray France.