THE ALSATIAN AUTONOMIST TRIAL
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sra,—In speaking of the Alsatian Autonomist trial, you referred to a letter in which Dr. Ricklin, one of the convicted men, was said to have remarked that the phrase "autonomy within France" was a mere pretext. That is correct, but the circumstances under which that letter was written cast rather a different light on the matter. It was written in March, 1926, in reply to a series of violently anti-French letters received from a man Dr. Ricklin did not know, called Riehl. He turned out to be an agent provocateur, who succeeded in extracting- several letters from the doctor before he was detected. The passage in question was known to the public before the end of that year. Dr. Ricklin declared that such was never his real opinion, and he had merely written the words from a fear* that Riehl, wiio appeared so hot-headed, would commit some act of violence. This may seem weak, but it was entirely borne out by the rest of the correspondence which was produced in court at the recent trial.
Furthermore, Dr. Rieklin's statement, made before he had re-entered political life, is worthless as evidence against anyone but himself. It may have weighed, however, with the jury in their purely political and illogical verdict, which was given seven against five.
I agree that there were some points which came up during the trial which were not absolutely satisfactorily cleared up, but the responsibility for that rests above all on the prosecu- tion, who refused to hear several important witnesses who offered to put themselves at the disposal of the court.
A journalist friend of mine who was present at Colmar writes me as follows : "Either this case was brought on in the absence of any proofs, in which case what lack of common sense ! Or else there were proofs—relations with certain German milieus—criminal relations, naturally—and they were not produced for political reasons (Briand)." That is the familiar excuse which is still dished up by many people about the Dreyfus case. It was incredible in that connexion and a thousand times more so in this.
The sentimental and " patriotic " jury (drawn entirely from the small proportion of those Alsatians who understand French well enough to follow judicial proceedings) has put the authorities in a worse position by its condemnation of the four accused (including two deputies) out of fifteen, than it would have done by acquitting the lot. There was no more evidence against those condemned than against the others ; which was also nil from the legal point of view., But now, if there is no amnesty and the appeal to the higher court fails, there will be two by-elections in which there can be no doubt of the result. The legal case for appeal will, however, be very strong.
Finally, the sensational cases in connexion with Alsace are by no means over. In July eight other men who were indicted under the same plot-charge as has just been heard at Colmar are to be tried in contumely. Most of these have even less to do with either each other or those already tried than was the case at Colmar, where those in the dock were a heterogeneous lot, represented as a group for the express purpose of confusing federal autonomy and separatism. After the lesson in police methods supplied at Colmar, it will be well to take accounts of this second trial, where there will be no defence, with some caution. Two of them ought to be, and I believe one is, in a lunatic asylum ; but there are possibly some suspicious characters among them. In the meanwhile, the so-called " Sapart " affair, concerning a kind of mutual benefit society for civil servants, will probably prove another fiasco for the authorities who staged it.—I am, Sir, &e.,
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