_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.
[Illustration: _Agence Nouvelle—Photo, Paris_
MONSIEUR CAILLAUX’S FRIEND, M. CECCALDI]
On January 15 another long article over Monsieur Calmette’s signature
in the _Figaro_ dealt severely with Monsieur Caillaux’s relations with
financial men in Paris. The suggestion made was that Monsieur Caillaux,
who was a member of the board of the Argentine Crédit Foncier, the
Egyptian Crédit Foncier and other enterprises of international finance,
was for personal and pecuniary reasons unable to resist the pressure
brought to bear on him by his colleagues among the directors of
these financial boards, and was obliged to do what they told him to
do, irrespective of his own political convictions or of the higher
interests of the country, which interests he as a Minister of the State
should have considered first.
According to the _Figaro_, a Monsieur Arthur Spitzer, an Austrian by
birth, a Frenchman by naturalization, and one of the most influential
directors of the big French bank, the Société Générale, had gained his
position there owing to the influence and recommendation of Sir Ernest
Cassel.
“Since 1911,” said the _Figaro_, “the French Prime Ministers and
Finance Ministers had successively expressed their opinions that
Monsieur Spitzer took too large a share in every sense of the word of
the big loans which were launched on the Paris market. In consequence
Monsieur Spitzer’s re-election to the board of the Société Générale
in 1913 was indirectly opposed by the Government. Monsieur Spitzer,
in deference to the expression of this opinion which was conveyed
to the Société Générale by a permanent official of the Ministry of
Finance, resigned his position on the board of the Société Générale,
but he remained on the board of the Crédit Foncier Argentin and on the
board of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien, of which two boards of directors
Monsieur Caillaux was a member. The intermediary between the Government
and the Société Générale in the secret and delicate negotiations which
resulted in the resignation of Monsieur Spitzer had been Monsieur
Luquet, one of the principal permanent officials in the Ministry of
Finance. Shortly after Monsieur Caillaux’s return to power an intimate
friend of Monsieur Spitzer, Monsieur André Homberg, a director of
the Société Générale, and another financial magnate whose name the
_Figaro_ does not mention, called on Monsieur Caillaux at the Ministry
of Finance, and shortly afterwards Monsieur Luquet was superseded and
was succeeded in his post by Monsieur Privat-Deschanel, the general
secretary of the Financial office, the man in whose presence Madame
Gueydan had burned her husband’s, Monsieur Caillaux, letters. In other
words, Monsieur Calmette accused Monsieur Caillaux of allowing himself
to be influenced by his financial friends to serve their financial
needs by the removal of a useful servant of the country. On the
following day, January 16, the _Figaro_ launched another accusation
against Monsieur Caillaux, that of interfering between two big shipping
companies in order to please his financial friends.”
There is no need to go into the details of the quarrel between the
South Atlantic Company and the Compagnie Transatlantique. Suffice it to
say that the _Figaro_ accused Monsieur Caillaux of acting in an
arbitrary fashion and taking orders for his conduct from certain
financial magnates, among whom was Monsieur André Homberg of the
Société Générale. On January 19, Monsieur Gaston Calmette announced for
the following day a series of articles describing “the nefarious part
played by Monsieur Caillaux in the events which preceded the sending of
a German gunboat to Agadir.” On the 20th this series of articles began.
They continued without intermission till January 24. I shall refer to
them more fully in another chapter of this book.
On January 26, Monsieur Gaston Calmette called Monsieur Caillaux to
account in the _Figaro_ on the question of a heavy fine of £325,000
which had been inflicted on a Paris bank (the Banque Perrier) for the
non-observance of certain formalities in connexion with an emission of
two million pounds sterling of Ottoman bonds. Monsieur Gaston Calmette
returned the next day to the question, twitting Monsieur Caillaux
somewhat cruelly with his inability to give a satisfactory reply. On
Wednesday, January 28, he returned to the charge again and at some
length on the front page of the _Figaro_, dropping it on the 29th for
an article of two columns and a half on Monsieur Caillaux’s connexion
with the Crédit Foncier Egyptien and the Crédit Foncier Argentin.
In this article Monsieur Calmette deliberately accused Monsieur
Caillaux of allowing quantities of South American bonds and shares
an official quotation on the Paris Bourse because Monsieur Spitzer,
Monsieur Ullmann and others of his financial friends were interested
in placing these bonds in France. Monsieur Calmette declared that
during the six months of Monsieur Caillaux’s tenure of office as
Finance Minister in 1911, that is to say from February to June of that
year, South American bonds and shares to the amount of forty million
pounds sterling received an official quotation on the Paris Bourse,
and he drew up and published a Table showing the prices at which the
quotations had been given, and the depreciation of these stocks and
shares during the three years which followed. The depreciation is
about twenty-five per cent. In other words, according to the _Figaro_,
Monsieur Caillaux’s admission of these enormous blocks of South
American bonds on the Paris Bourse resulted in a loss to French
investors of ten millions sterling.
Naturally enough Monsieur Caillaux replied through the official Havas
agency, and in reply to his _communiqué_ Monsieur Calmette on January
30 returned to the charge, emphasising his original accusations.
On the first of February Monsieur Caillaux visited his constituency of
Mamers. The _Figaro_ on that day published a long and bitter article
describing the misdeeds of the Minister of Finance since his entry
into politics. On the 2nd it published two columns more containing
a sarcastic appreciation of Monsieur Caillaux’s visit to Mamers.
On February 5, Monsieur Caillaux was accused in the _Figaro_ of
postponing the French loan and so inducing French investors to place
their money elsewhere, notably in Italy. On February 7 the _Figaro_
accuses Monsieur Caillaux, of “continuing to earn the gratitude of the
Triple Alliance.” After adjourning the French loan and so facilitating
the success of one Prussian loan, and the preparation of a second,
“Monsieur Caillaux,” he is told by the _Figaro_, “has enabled
the Hungarian Government to contract a loan of twenty millions
sterling.” “When all our enemies have filled their Treasuries,” says
the _Figaro_ of February 7, “perhaps Monsieur Caillaux will make
up his mind to reveal the great plans and schemes to which he has
subordinated the eventual issue of a French loan.“ On Sunday February 8
the _Figaro_ contented itself with publishing a photograph of Monsieur
Caillaux, and making fun of it, but day by day no number of the paper
appeared without an attack on him of one kind or another. On February
11, announcing the Finance Minister’s resignation from the board of
the Crédit Foncier Argentin, Monsieur Calmette comments on it in these
words: “Monsieur Henri Poirier, an intimate friend of Monsieur Spitzer,
has taken his, Monsieur Caillaux’s, place provisionally. When Monsieur
Caillaux wishes to return to the board there is no doubt that Monsieur
Poirier will make way for him.” On February 19, commenting on the
statement in the Senate of Monsieur Caillaux, two days before, that he
had never said in 1901 that a Minister of Finance would never consent
to interfere with all the taxes, the _Figaro_ gives him the lie direct,
quotes the speech he made on July 4, 1901, and declares that it is a
complete condemnation of his whole fiscal policy at the present time.
On the 20th Monsieur Calmette returns to the charge, compares several
speeches of Monsieur Caillaux made at different dates, and comments on
them in these words: “Monsieur Caillaux modifies his declarations and
his financial programme according to whether he is a Minister in power
or anxious to become one, according to whether he is speaking so as to
remain in office or speaking against the Ministry so as to overthrow
it.” On February 25 Monsieur Gaston Calmette returns to “the secret
combinations of Monsieur Caillaux,” and the big fine of £325,000,
“which was imposed but never collected,” and ends his article by the
accusation that Monsieur Caillaux, for private reasons, authorized a
loan issued by a South American bank after the authorization had been
refused three times by his predecessor Monsieur Pichon. On Thursday,
February 26, the _Figaro_ returns to the attack on the same subject.
On March 2, 1914, Monsieur Calmette published a letter written on
December 19, 1908, by Monsieur Caillaux, who was then Minister of
Finance, to Monsieur Clemenceau, who was then Prime Minister and
Minister of the Interior. In this letter Monsieur Caillaux protests
against the publication in the _Journal Officiel_ of advertisements of
foreign lottery bonds. “Six months after the date of this letter,” says
Monsieur Calmette, “the Clemenceau Cabinet fell, and Monsieur Caillaux
in the following autumn became President of the board of the Crédit
Foncier Egyptien. He remained President of that board till January
1914, even while he was a member of the Cabinet again from March 2,
1911, till January 10, 1912. In December 1908 while Monsieur Caillaux
was Minister of Finance and was not yet on the board of the Crédit
Foncier Egyptien he had refused the introduction on the Paris market of
800,000 lottery bonds. In 1912 he authorized their introduction.” “Our
plutocratic demagogue,” writes Monsieur Calmette, “had found in the
interval between 1908 and 1912, 100,000 good reasons for suppressing
his refusal of 1908 to give these bonds a market.”
This article is of course a deliberate accusation of financial and
political dishonesty. On March 3, Monsieur Calmette returns to the
question of the South Atlantic Shipping Company. On the 4th, Monsieur
Calmette warns the public against a loan which is to be issued by this
company, and suggests that Monsieur Caillaux’s reasons for encouraging
it are reasons of party policy, and anything but straightforward. On
March 5 the _Figaro_, over the signature of Monsieur Gaston Calmette,
accuses Monsieur Caillaux publicly of facilitating a Stock Exchange
_coup_ by enabling his friends to gamble, with a certainty of success,
in the price of French Rentes on the Paris Bourse.
This accusation needs a few words of explanation. The budget proposals
contained one item of supreme interest to French investors. This was
the taxation of stocks. On March 4 at five o’clock it became “known”
in the lobbies of the Chamber and in the newspaper offices of Paris
that Monsieur Caillaux intended to omit French Rentes from his scheme
of taxation. Naturally this expected immunity of French Rentes from
taxation was the reason of a rise of French Rentes. On the Thursday,
March 5, Monsieur Caillaux contradicted the rumour of the afternoon
before, and declared that he intended to propose the taxation of French
Rentes. At twenty minutes to twelve on that morning, when the sworn
brokers of the Paris Bourse fixed the opening price, the official
contradiction had not reached them. At twelve o’clock, when the opening
price was published on the Bourse, Rentes were up to 88.80, the highest
price which had been reached since the declaration of war in the
Balkans. A large amount of stock changed hands at this high price.
Seven minutes later Monsieur Caillaux’s _communiqué_ was generally
known, and Rentes fell forty centimes in a few minutes, entailing heavy
losses.
Monsieur Barthou made a cynical and characteristic comment on this
Bourse operation. “The money was not lost to everybody,” he said.
On March 8 Monsieur Gaston Calmette stigmatizes Monsieur Caillaux’s
behaviour with reference to the immunity and taxation of French Rentes
as “a double pirouette, a looping-the-loop act which allowed certain
friends of the Minister of Finance, of whom he was very fond and whom
he kept very well informed, to execute a most audacious Stock Exchange
_coup_.”
Monsieur Calmette follows this up by a personal attack on Monsieur
Caillaux, who, he declared, stated through the Agence Havas on December
28 that he had resigned his position on the board of the Crédit Foncier
Egyptien and the Crédit Foncier Argentin, that Monsieur Caillaux had
mis-stated the truth, and that he was still a member of these boards
and drawing a large sum for his services. On March 10 Monsieur Calmette
attacked Monsieur Caillaux in an article which occupied nearly three
columns of the front page of the _Figaro_, on his behaviour in the
Rochette case.
This article was of course written with the knowledge that the letter
of Monsieur Victor Fabre, the Procureur Général, which appears earlier
in this volume, would, if published, support the charges made by
Monsieur Gaston Calmette against Monsieur Caillaux, and Monsieur Monis.
It marks the last stage of this long series of personal attacks in the
_Figaro_, far too many of which attacks appear to be only too well
deserved.
“For Rochette to escape from legal punishment for his crime against the
investing public it was necessary that his case should not come on for
trial on April 27, 1911,” wrote Monsieur Calmette in the _Figaro_ on
March 10, 1914. The meaning of this is that by French law a prosecution
which has not been followed by execution within three years falls to
the ground and becomes null and void. Rochette would be a free man if
he remained unsentenced three years after his first prosecution in
1908. On March 2, 1911, wrote Monsieur Calmette, “Monsieur Caillaux
became Minister of Finance in the Cabinet of which Monsieur Monis was
Prime Minister, and Monsieur Perrier Minister of Justice. Rochette
had been arrested on March 20, 1908. On May 8 he was released
provisionally. He was tried on July 27, 1910, sentenced to prison,
appealed, and was able to continue his inroads on the private fortunes
of France in all tranquillity. Rochette in 1908 continued to speculate
and continued to empty France’s woollen stocking. He got seventy-two
million francs of small investors’ money before his arrest, he got
sixty-eight million francs more out of it afterwards. If his case did
not come on before the three years were up he would be a free man.”
Monsieur Calmette then tells the story of the pressure which was
brought to bear by Monsieur Monis and Monsieur Caillaux on Monsieur
Fabre and on Judge Bidault de L’Isle, which story we know in all its
details now, and he comments on it in these words: “Rochette was
saved. All he had to do was to wait for the previous procedure to
be proclaimed null and void, and this was done on February 2, 1912.
When, to his amazement, a new suit was commenced under the Cabinet of
which Monsieur Poincaré was Prime Minister, Rochette took flight. He
is a free man to-day, freer and better protected than all of us. He
will smile as he reads this indiscreet account of his troubles which
are over, and in his gratitude he will send from overseas a gracious
greeting to the Minister of Finance, his saviour and his friend.
Monsieur Caillaux it was who demanded, who obtained, who insisted
on, the various postponements which allowed Rochette to thieve with
impunity. Monsieur Caillaux it was who allowed Rochette to proceed
during the long legal procedure with the systematic spoliation of the
public purse for which he had been arrested, tried, and sentenced once.
The protector, the accomplice, of this shady financier is Monsieur
Caillaux. Monsieur Caillaux it was who _in exchange for subventions
of money to the newspapers which supported him and his policy_
facilitated, prolonged, and increased the strength of the influence of
this Stock Exchange adventurer on the public whom he was ruining.
“There you have the plutocratic demagogue! There you have the man of
the Congo, the man who nearly made us quarrel with England and with
Spain, the man of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien lottery bonds, the
man who drew money for serving on financial boards and for services
rendered, the man who indulged in secret machinations and criminal
intervention, the Finance Minister of the Doumergue Cabinet! Neither
the Commission of Inquiry nor Monsieur Jaurès ever really understood
the Rochette affair. They guessed something about it, they felt what it
meant, instinctively, and they stopped their inquiry, frightened by so
much illegality, disgusted at so many crimes. Now you know the truth of
it all. Here it stands revealed in all its nakedness to the public whose
savings have been stolen. It can be resumed in one word—infamy! It can
be resumed in one name—Caillaux!”
On March 11, Monsieur Calmette pointed out that Monsieur Caillaux had
issued no official contradiction to the terrible accusations in the
_Figaro_ of the day before. On Thursday, March 12, he called public
attention again to Monsieur Caillaux’s silence, and in heavy black type
in the very centre of the front page of his paper appeared these three
lines, which were, so soon, to be fraught with tragic consequence.
“WE SHALL PUBLISH TO-MORROW A CURIOUS
AUTOGRAPH DEDICATED BY MONSIEUR
JOSEPH CAILLAUX TO HIS ELECTORS.”
On Friday, March 13, 1914—those of my readers who are superstitious
will take note that it was a Friday and a thirteenth of the month—the
“Ton Jo” letter appeared on the front page of the _Figaro_.
VII
THE “TON JO” LETTER
SENAT.
With the best will in the world it was impossible
for me to write to you yesterday. I had to take
my part in two terribly tiring sessions of the
Chamber, one in the morning at nine o’clock,
which finished at midday, the other at two
o’clock, from which I only got away at eight
o’clock in the evening, dead beat.
However, I secured a magnificent success. I
=crushed=[2] the income-tax while appearing to
defend it, I received an ovation from the Centre
and from the Right, and I managed not to make the
Left too discontented. I succeeded in giving the
wheel a turn towards the Right which was quite
indispensable.
To-day I had another morning session at the
Chamber which only finished at a quarter to one.
I am now at the Senate where I am going to have
the law on the contributions directes voted, and
this evening, no doubt, the session will be over.
I shall be dead tired, stupid, ill almost, but I
shall have done a real service to my country.
Ton Jo.
[2] The word crushed is underlined in the original text.
That is the “Ton Jo” letter. That is the document which, printed in
big black type in the centre of the front page of the _Figaro_ on
Friday, March 13, 1914, and re-printed in facsimile lower down on
the same page, was followed on the 16th by the revolver shots which
killed Monsieur Gaston Calmette. The letter was written by Monsieur
Caillaux on July 5, 1901—thirteen years before it was published in
the _Figaro_. When he wrote it Monsieur Caillaux was Minister of
Finance in the Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet, and apart from the tragic
event which followed close on its publication, the letter is a curious
and upsetting confession of political duplicity. The income-tax has
been Monsieur Joseph Caillaux’s hobby horse for many years. It is
an uncomfortable sensation to read, over his own signature, this
confession, in his own handwriting, that while appearing to fight for
the tax he was really doing his best to crush it out of sight. The
natural deduction was of course that Monsieur Caillaux was now, in
1914, pursuing the same tactics which he pursued thirteen years ago.
[Illustration:
La véritable déclaration de M. Caillaux relative à l’impôt sur le revenu
THE “TON JO” LETTER FROM THE _FIGARO_
Friday, March 13, 1914]
Once again his speeches have shown him as a partisan of the income-tax,
and a partisan of the taxation of French Rentes. The “Ton Jo” letter
leaves us uncertain whether this partisanship is not merely a political
move, and whether Monsieur Caillaux may not again be “crushing the
income-tax while appearing to defend it.” His own letter is a terrible
comment on his policy, and it is difficult to exaggerate the shock
which the publication of this letter caused in Parliament and among the
supporters of the Minister of Finance and of the present Government.
Needless to say, Monsieur Gaston Calmette made the most of it. He
embodied the letter in a long article in which he repeated his former
accusations against Monsieur Caillaux, accused him of conniving at
the escape of Rochette from justice because Rochette’s money was
useful to his personal policy, accused him of deliberate lying in the
announcement he made of his resignation from the board of the Crédit
Foncier Egyptien, accused him openly of felony in connexion with the
Bourse _coup_ and the tax.