The trial of M. Malvy before the French Benate sitting
as a High Court ended on Tuesday. M. Malvy, who was Minister of the In- terior during the first three years of the war, was acquitted on the charges of treason brought against 'him by M. Leon Daudet. The Senate then declared its right to raise new charges of negligence in administration against M. Malvy. This remarkable claim was affirmed on a division by 102 votes to 78. The new charges were, in effect, that M. Malvy had not tried to suppress the Anarchist and pro-German intrigues in which such men as Duval and Bolo were engaged, and had hindered the efforts of the police and the mili- tary authorities to unveil the plots. The Senate found M. Malvy guilty of these charges, and sentenced him to five years' banish- ment, without the loss of his civic rights. There has been no such trial of an ex-Minister in recent French history. .General Boulanger. who was condemned in his absence in 1889, and M. Deroulede, who was exiled by the Senate in 1900, were tried for plotting against the Republic. For a similar case in Great Britain we must go back to 1806, when Lord Melville was tried and acquitted by the House of Lords on a charge of corruption.
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