FOUND "GUILTY.”

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 341, 22 August 1889, Page 2

FOUND "GUILTY.”

The sentence passed upon Boulanger, of imprisonment for life, renews the interest that is taken in this phase of European politics. He has been found guilty of treason and of minor offences, but the sentence is only one of death. The vague telegrams received do not give a very clear conception of the position of affairs, and we cannot do bettar than quote from an article published in the Spectator, when the trial commenced : —Had they sent him before an ordinary tribunal, produced evidence of treason, and abided by the verdict, they would have been considered strong, and have enjoyed the credit that, in France especially, attaches to a Government which, when attacked by illegal means, entrenches itself within a severe legality. Instead of doing either of these things, they select a tribunal which their own Attorney-General informed them could not be asked to try such an indictment, that tribunal being the only one which in the nature of things must be exceptionally prejudiced against the accused. The first object of General Boulanger’s attacks is the Senate. He has denounced that body in every speech, and when demanding Revision, has made the extinction of the Senate one of the grand reasons for his proposal. He has proposed to strip all Senators of their power, of their high status in the country, and of their liberal pay, and has so irritated them, that while one-third of the Chamber votes steadily on his side, and the majority of Parisians elect him their representative he has in the Senate but one friend and two unavowed defenders. So strong in that body is the feeling against him, that any member of it, if he spoke the truth, would say, with M. Leon Renault,—"l will not sit as a Judge on General Bou’anger, because I hate him. ” Yet it is before the Senate that the Ministry send the General, upon a charge so vague that it is hardly intelligible, and under circumstances which forbid anything like effective defence. The accused cannot appear in person, no doubt by his own fault, and he is forbidden to appear by counsel, which will be no fault of his, Every chance of escape has been, aa It would seem, carefully and deliberately barred. The proposal to allow an appeal was, of course, absurd, for high as is the position of the Court of Cassation, it cannot pretend to review the sentence of a branch of the Legislature ; but the refusal to insist on a majority of fiveeighths was, according to French ideas, an iniquity, an innovation as great as it would be in England to allow the jury to decide in a single case by a simple majority. Not only was that majority required in the old Court of Peers, upon whose procedure the Government avowedly based their law settling the method of the trial, but it is demanded in a procedure intended to be of all others tho most severe and certain, —that of a general court-martial, A majority of one has been declared sufficient, and the vote for conviction or acquittal is to bo given in secret, only the decision being announced to the prisoner and the country. The result is, that all who are favorable to the accused politician, the very men whom it is desired to disenchant of their illusion, declare the tribunal packed, and regard Rs sentence as a foregone conclusion, a mare party vote deserving of attention only for its consequences, which, again, will be absolutely none. The whole proceedings is a mere farce, the General being beyond the jurisdiction, and entitled by French law, on his return, to quash the decision and demand to be tried afresh from the beginning. The correspondent of the Times, indeed, urges that General Boulanger if condemned, cannot re-enter France except to. surrender} but he does not want to reenter till the elections, when he can re-enter at will. M. de Blowitz also urges that the General, if sentenced to lose his civil rights, cannot bp e, candidate ; but what good is a candidaturb to do him ? Hejs not asking to be made Deputy, but President; and ths men on the lists of candidates which he will present to the country, and which he tells his friends will be accepted in seventy eight of the eighty-six Departements of France, will not be disqualified by (any sentence on him. If they are returned, the sentence of the Senate will st once be quashed, and the Senate itself will disappear. It is for a positively useless result that the Republican Ministry, whoso interest it is that the ue should be forgotten, have planned to keep him r seks before the world as the hero of a great ““ outwardly unjust State Halt *•♦>3 ' " "■