"AGENTS PROVOCATEURS" IN FRANCE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1331, 8 January 1912, Page 6

"AGENTS PROVOCATEURS" IN FRANCE.

GOVERNMENTAL DENIAL.

There.was a stormy discussion in the Cluuubcr of Deputies on' November 23 on a Socialist motion that tho Government be asked'to publish the'names of the "agents provocateurs" who; as the Socialists allege, are attached to the Secret Police and take an active part in fomenting strike riots. A few months ago the Socialists professed to have unmasked one :of their own party whom they believed to, have been in At.' Clemericeau's pay. when he was .Prime Minister. Ever since making this discovery they have been suffering from a severe, attack of spy mania. Kecoutly M. CaillauV addressed, to a Socialist Deputy iii the lobbies a remark which was interpreted to mean that agent of this kind were a recognised institution at the Ministry of the Interior., M. Caillaiix subsequently denied that. his' words were susceptible of. this interpretation, while the Socialist Deputy emphatically maintained his own version of the-conversation. Hence'the motion. • .'["

After the mover had delivered a violent attack upon the Administration of M. Cleinenceau and of M. Briand, and had narrated his conversation with M. Caillaiix, (he Prime Minister briefly denied that ho had ever countenanced the employment" of "agents provocateurs," or that he bad ever given anybody' reason to suppose (hat they were employed by the authorities.

Excitement rose to fever boat when M. Bi-iaud followed M. Caillaux at the Tribune,'and, in terms which carried conviction to the House, _ repudiated the Socialist charges. Neither as Prime Minister nor. as Minister of Justice in the Clemenceau Cabinet—for he was not one to dissociate himself from the acts of the Ministries to whicli he bad -belonged —bad he authorised the. police to employ agents of this kind. Throughout the wjiolo of his ' Administration the police had received strict orders to use the utmost circumspection in dealing with men who offered their services against their fellows', and who were njerely the renegades of Socialism and. of Labour. The accusation was preposterous. The House had but to recall the incidents of the railway strike and to ask itself _whether, at" a moment when public feeling was moved to indignation by a series of criminal acts of violence and sabotage, it was necessary to justify by artificial incitements the extraordinary measures which the Government was compelled to take in tho interests of law jind order. Incidents like those of the railway'strike entailed responsibilities which were among 1 the heaviest that a statesman could be called upon to assume, and no man was likely ■wantonly to provoke them. The police might employ "informers" in order to obtain information.'with regard to criminals; that was their duty. But. there wa*s no such thing as an "agent provocateur," and he was not the man to make use of sucli weapons. The measures which he had adopted as Prime Minister were directed not against the working classes, but against criminals. He utterly condemned those who, without a shadow of ; proof,, had brought against him (his infamous arid dastardly charge.

Sl.' Briaud, who had taken no part in donate since his retirement,from offico last February, was loudly cheeked, and his 'reception showed that the' former Prime Minister retains strong sympathies in Ihe Chamber.. With perhaps the single exception of SI. Clemenocan, no statesman is more hated by the Socialists. Tlie'suspension of oho. of them cooled their violence for a time, but there was a fresh outburst when, by 335 votes to 103. the House decided to proceed to the order of the day.