SUIT FOR £13,000,000.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1657, 25 January 1913, Page 9

SUIT FOR £13,000,000.

CASE JACK TO THE

days" op"napoleon' 111

The Paris correspondent of the London Daily News," 'writing on December. 8. states: i

On Tuesday next, beforo (ho Civil Tribunal of Tunis, will begin tha notion in .which the sons of the Into General Ben Aiad (or Ayed) 6uo tlio defendants,, the Government of the Regency, for a fantastic sum , of money, something like J!13,000,000. Tho claim, which has been heard of at intervals for tho last halfcentury is briefly as follows:— i 111 185G tlio Emperor Napoleon 111 was nsltcd to arbitrate between tho Bey of Tunis and his favourite, General Jlah. mud Ben Aiad. Tho Bey accused tho general, of robbing tho. public treasury. Napoleon' 111, consented lo bo umpire, and sentenced General Ben Aiad to refund to. tho Tunisian Government the sum of half a million sterling. As for Iho final settlement of accounts between tho general and tho Government, that was a matter which tho arbitrator left to tho Tunis Courts to dccidc.

• The general retired to Constantinople without calling for a settlement of accounts, and nothing further was hoard,of tho affair until 188G, when 0110 of his sons sued tho Tunis Government, before the Seine Tribunal, for 1J million sterling. Tho case was next heard of.four years ago, when tho claim had risen .to <£12,000,000. Now it is .£12,600,000. Some of the most'famous counsel in' France have, at ono timo or another, been connected with tho coso: .Tules Favro, Jules'. Grovy- (afterwards President of tho ! Republic), M. Poincaro (just clected President), M. Millorand (now Minister for War). PlnintilT's leading counsel this timo ,is Mo. Cruppi, lately Minister for Foreign' Affairs- •