GERMAN ITEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 10 May 1923, Page 2

GERMAN ITEMS

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. FRENCH CHAMBER. PARIS, May 8. The Chamber resumed deliberations after the recess. M. Poincare cm- ___ phatically refused a debate on Ruhr and Lausanne, as tho time was Inopportune. Tho Chamber passed a vote of confidence in the Government by 498 to 76, adjourning the Ruhr interpellations. GERMAN PRISONERS REVOLT. LONDON, May 9. The “Daily Chronicle’s” Berlin correspondent reports that eight hundred inmates of the Brandenburg Prison revolted and overwhelmed the warders because they were not allowed to smoke or have freedom cf choice in reading matter. They demanded a thousand marks a day extra pay for convict labour. and better food. The convicts, who include the most desperate criminals in Germany, smashed the furniture in the cells, broke the windows, and tore the tiles from the roofs. The damage amounts to hundreds of millions of marks. Finally armed police laid siege to the prison, firing upon tho rebels. The prison is still surrounded.

HEAVY MILITARY SENTENCES

BERLIN, May 8. Following is a full list of the sentences at the Krupp trials:— Krupp and his fellow directors, Osterlen and Hartwig, fifteen years’ imprisonment and fine of one hundred million marks. Briilin. ten years and one hundred millions fine: Mueller, a member of the Workers’ Council, six months. These were present at the trial.

The following were absent: Bauer, Schaeffer, ICuntz, and Schraepler. They were each sentenced to twenty years and fined one hundred million marks, tiroes, head of the apprentices, was sentenced to ten years, and fined fifty millions.

The closing scenes of the trial at Werden wore marked by intense excitement. The whole neighbourhood of the Courthouse was guarded by I reach troops, the Market Place being occupied by cavalry and tanks, as tbe French feared that an effort might bo made to rescue Krupp. In his filial evidence, Herr Krupp admitted that his firm received official instructions from Berlin regarding the lilies on which resistance should be carried on, and which was the same as the whole German nation reeei\ed. Captain Duvert, in a bitter closing speech for the prosecution insisted that Krupp’s personal responsibility was incontestable. “The Germans are a disciplined people who never act on their own initiative,” declared Duvert, adding that the order for an attack on tho litle group of ten French soldiers came from Berlin and was issued by the Krupp firm itself. “Some thousands of disguised police agents took part in the attack. Imagine how these great Krupp chiefs remained motionless in the board room while thousands of their employees were threatening these ten French soldiers with death; inia* pjnc their smile when they peeped down on the spectacle Ironi the windows. We saw the same smile during tho war. Their 'generals displayed it when German troops were burning French villages and massacring inhabitants. The hands of these men,” Duvert concluded “are red with the blood of their own workmen, and with the French blood that flowed that day.”

Maitre Moriaud. the famous Swiss International lawyer, in ail impassioned speech on behalf of Krupp, maintained with a wealth of argument that the charges were not supported by a. single fact. A sensation followed when Duvert rose and said seven persons were to be tried in Dussoldorf the following day. who already admitted they belonged to a society whose purpose was to murder persons objectionable to Germany. These persons declared that they received pay in the Krupp building from an ex-officer, who was once a Krupp engineer. Amidst the amazement of the people in the Courthouse, who were accustomed to the procedure of outer countries Moriaud sprang up and protested against this statement, adding; “Anyone who said that is guilty of a lie Raising his voice, Moriaud concluded: “You call this justice in the name ot France! In the name of France I say ‘Render Justice.’ ” , The Court agreed upon Krupp s and Brulin’s sentences by a majority only, namely, three, to two. The decision m the other cases was unanimous. Herr Krupp and his co-directors will be taken to a French prison.