THE ESCAPED COMMUNISTS.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 279, 4 May 1875, Page 4

THE ESCAPED COMMUNISTS.

The Argus publishes the following, with reference to the Communists who have recently escaped from New Caledonia:— We have received from Madame Rastoul, from Sydney, a letter explanatory of the object of her husband's (Dr Rastoul) escape from New Caledonia, in which that lady informs us that his principal object in so doing is to make known to all civilised nations the odious treatment to which the political deportes in that island have been subjected by order of the French Government, or of the authorities to whom it has delegated the supervision and custody of the exiled Communists. "The law of deportation exists no longer," observes Madame Rastoul. " A Governor decrees famine and forced labour." In support of this statement, various documents are enclosed. One of these is a copy of a letter addressed by herself to the editor of the Ceurrier de VEurope, in London; in which she explains that united in marriage, in affection, and in political sympathy to Dr Rastoul, she accompanied him to New Caledonia, from whence she was banished on account of an intercepted letter, from which it was ascertained that she and tier husband were " criminal enough to encourage their friends in France to have patience, and to remain firm, in the hope that justice would eventually triumph, and that the martyrdom of the sufferers would come to an end; Such conduct could not remain unpunished; and, accordingly, Dr Rastoul was brusquely arrested, and sent from the Chef-lieu to the Isle of Pines," while Madame Rastoul was banished from New Caledonia. All protests and appeals were treated with contempt, and every solicitation for letters addressed to the exiles from France was met by the invariable reply of —" Silence. The proper time has not arrived.'' .Accrmpinying this is a letter signed by eight of the deported Communists whose names, for obvious reasons, we suppress, and containing a pathetic protest against the malignity of the usage to which they are exposed. " If," say they, " it were the glorious death upon the field of battle, or the brilliant end of martyrs sacrificing themselves for the sake of a great idea, we would have undergone without a murmur that which we have often braved. But what now menaces is a hideous death by hunger, a horrible decease by famine, by the exhaustion of our forces, and the slow agony which breaks down the vital strength and extinguishes the last glimmering of intelligence. After four years of cruel sufferings, undergone in silence and in obscurity, we thought that we had wearied our gaolers, but we under-estimated the fertile imagination of our torturers. Finding that moral and physical agonies, misery and privations, exile from our families and from our native land, combined with the ravages of a debilitating climate, were not accomplishing the work of destruction with sufficient celerity, they have hit upon the abominable device of getting rid of us by famine ! You will find subjoined copies of two official documents which will enlighten you as to their projects." [The first is a despatch from the Minister of Marine, and the second a circular from the Governor of New Caledonia, professedlyinterpreting the former, but probably —it is suggested—repeating the terms of a private despatch, leaving the public one to be produced by the Governmeat at Versailles, in case any interpellations should be addressed to it on the subject in the National Assembly.] " The Governor's circular, as you will perceive, establishes five categories of deportes. The first comprises all persons incapable of productive labour, such as the wounded, the infirm, the invalids, and the aged. Those whose health is already ruined by four years of a detestable regime are irrevocably condemned, according to the good jpleasure of the Governor, to die of hunger 1 And this is so true, that by Jan excess of refined precautions, and in order that none may escape the common destiny, the Penitentiary Administration detains all money and other succours that our unhappy wives send us from France, depriving us thus of the necessary means of supplementing the insufficiency of our diet. In this way we are aU inexorably condemned to bread and water—that is to say, to anaemia—which conducts us fatally to the tomb. " How long will this agony last ? Is there in the world a man sufficiently robust to support such a regime for any length of time beneath a sky of fire 1 Besides, it is easy to discover what sinister intentions are concealed beneath the pretext of restricting to penal labor an urban population, almost entirely composed of men belonging to the liberal professions, or to the industries of great cities. Forced labor, supreme refuge against famine, will speedily put an end to those whom the curse will have spared. " And yet we have no other desire than to render ourselves useful. We have incessantly asked to be transferred to the mainland of the large island, where we might find employment suitable to our aptitudes, and thus contribute to the development of colonisation, The merchants and artificers of Nou-

raea, the chief place of the colony, have backed up our petitions and have undertaken to charge themselves with our support. But these requests have always been refused, in the belief, no doubt, that a population so active and intelligent would speedily make for itself a position, and might ultimately escape from the fate reserved for it." Under these circumstances, the subscribers to the letter addressed themselves some time since to M. Bouchet, one of the deputies for the Bouches du Rhone, in the National Assembly, imploring him to raise his voice on their behalf at Versailles; but his reply was that if he did so it would only have the effect of redoubling the barbarity of their treatment. Therefore, they appeal to the public opinion of civilised Europe through the press of " great, free, and hospitable England," in the hope that a sentiment of indignation may be aroused, and that France may be shamed into the exercise of humanity towards some hundreds of French citizens, exiled for political offences, and threatened with a lingering death by starvation.