* * * * Meanwhile an incident in connexion with
the unofficial publication of the terms of the Anglo-French compromise is driving the French and American publics further apart. Mr. Horan, the Paris correspondent of Mr. Hearst's paper, the New York American, has been accused by the French police of improperly procuring and publishing a secret paper, and he has been given the choice between prison and deportation. He has chosen deportation. The Anglo-American Press Association has intervened on his behalf, adopting his explanation that he is not to blame, as Mr. Hearst gave him the document without telling him where it came from, and ordered him to transmit it to America. The reply of the French Government is that Mr. Horan must have known from the nature of the docu- ment that he was not entitled to publish it. Mr. Hearst is beyond the grasp of the French police, but it is widely felt, even in France, that Mr. Horan is not the right victim. There has been a series of leakages of French official documents ; the French Government would surely have been wiser to search for the foot of the mischief and not to make a-scapegoat of a more or less innocent accomplice, particularly as he is a foreigner. M. Poincare has been appealed to and has stated that the matter is outside his province.
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