FRANCE. 



275 



which 286,743,155 francs were gold and, 194,971,090 

 francs were silver. 



The values imported from and exported to the 

 principal foreign countries in the special commerce 

 of 1896 are shown in the following table : 



Navigation. During 1896 there were 101,843 

 vessels, of 21,753,227 tons, entered and 102,891, of 

 22,385,657 tons, cleared at French ports. Of the 

 total number entered 8,432, of 4,323,226 tons, were 

 French vessels engaged in the foreign trade, of 

 which 7,644, of 4,210,683 tons, carried cargoes and 

 788, of 112,543 tons, came in ballast ; 19,766, of 10,- 

 374,025 tons, were foreign vessels, of which 17,451, 

 of 'J.865,925 tons, carried cargoes and 2,315, of 508,- 

 100 tons, were in ballast ; and 73,645, of 7,055,976 

 tons, were French coasting vessels, of which 55,932, 

 of 6,080,736 tons, carried cargoes and 17,713, of 

 !)7r>.240 tons, were in ballast. Of the total number 

 cleared 9,122. of 4,810,734 tons, were French vessels 

 in the foreign trade, of which 7,645, of 4,222,708 

 tons, carried cargoes and 1,477, of 588,026 tons, were 

 in ballast ; 20,124, of 10,518,947 tons, were foreign 

 vessels, of which 13,176, of 6,041,952 tons, carried 

 cargoes and 6,948, of 4,476,995 tons, were in ballast ; 

 and 73,645, of 7,055,976 tons, were coasting vessels, 

 of which 55,932, of 6,080,736 tons, carried cargoes 

 and 17,713, of 975,240 tons, were in ballast. 



The French commercial navy on Jan. 1, 1897, 

 consisted of 14,301 sailing vessels, of 390,394 tons, 

 and 1,235 steamers, of 503,677 tons. Of the sailing 

 els 266, of 142,588 tons, and of the steamers 174, 

 of 263.051 tons, navigated the high seas, while 192 

 sailing vessels, of 20,288 tons, and 248 steamers, of 

 186,881 tons, were employed in European seas, and 

 i he rest in the coasting trade or in port service or 

 the fisheries. 



Communications. The railroads of France have 



!>een constructed for the most part by companies 



with a Government guarantee on the condition that 



(hey shall become the property of the State at the 



end of a fixed period. The State in recent times has 



built lines that the companies would not undertake 



find afterward leased them to companies. It also 



Iterates a system comprising 1,700 miles. Local 



lines receive subventions from the Government or 



i'rom the departments. The guarantees for four of 



(he six great companies will come to an end in 1914 



and for the other two in 1934 and 1935. All their 



>roperties will revert to the State between 1950 and 



960. The length of line in operation in 1896 was 



'3,500 miles, not including 2,519 miles of local in- 



erest. In 1895 there were 22,505 miles, built at a 



ost of 15,521,000,000 francs. 



The post office in 1895 transmitted 760,708,000 

 nternal letters, 39,899,000 registered letters and 

 ackets, 49,015,000 postal cards, and 951,267,000 

 \ewsjiapers, samples, etc., and in the international 

 nd transit service 147,397,000 letters, 2,268,000 reg- 

 stercd letters and packets, 6,516.000 postal cards, 

 nd 136,683,000 newspapers, samples, etc. 

 The telegraph lines on Jan. 1, 1896, had a total 

 -ngth of 58,267 miles, with 197,307 miles of wire, 

 'here were 44,793,860 telegrams sent in 1895. of 

 vhich 36,596,627 were internal, 5,379,917 interna- 



tional, 1,391,601 in transit, and 1,425,715 official. 

 In Paris there are 237 miles of pneumatic tubes. 



The Dreyfus Affair. The case of Alfred Drey- 

 fus, captain of artillery detailed on the general staff, 

 who was convicted of treason in December, 1894, and 

 has since been kept in solitary confinement on the 

 lie du Diable, Cayenne, gave rise to a controversy 

 affecting the political, military, and judicial insti- 

 tutions of France, the social, economic, and reli- 

 gious divisions of the French people, the foreign 

 relations of the Government, the course of domes- 

 tic policy, and the fate of parties and statesmen. 

 Dreyfus was arrested secretly on Oct. 14, 1894. His 

 wife was intimidated into silence by Col. du Paty 

 de Clam, so that it was two weeks before the public 

 knew, through a newspaper that got the informa- 

 tion from a leakage in the War Office, that an 

 officer had been arrested. He was tried by court- 

 martial with closed doors and sentenced to military 

 degradation and imprisonment for life. The public 

 was led to believe that he had been caught carrying 

 on a treasonable correspondence with the military 

 attache of a foreign embassy, presumably that of 

 Germany, that the proofs of his guilt were flagrant. 

 The facts of the case were known scarcely to the 

 ministers of the Dupuy Cabinet, except Gen. Mer- 

 cier, who was so convinced of the guilt of Dreyfus 

 that he controlled the proceedings of the court in a 

 measure and influenced its judgment. There had 

 been found a memorandum of military information, 

 none of it very important notes on a hydraulic gun 

 brake, on covering troops and tactics of the coming 

 autumn manoeuvres, ths firing manual, the dispatch 

 of troops to Madagascar, and contemplated changes 

 in the artillery. Where this was found, the military 

 police never divulged. The officials who investi- 

 gated the matter concluded that none but a staff 

 officer possessed such a variety of information, and 

 that none but an officer of artillery would employ 

 the technical language in which one or two of the 

 notes were couched. Col. Sandherr, the head of the 

 intelligence department, had his suspicions directed 

 soon to Capt. Dreyfus, the more readily because he 

 was a Jew, studious, inquisitive, ambitious, taciturn, 

 an object of dislike to his comrades. The hand- 

 writing resembled his, and the moral evidence de- 

 duced from his circulating among the bureaux 

 seeking knowledge that would be valuable to a 

 spy and from reports as to his private life and cir- 

 cumstances, which were not well founded, as it 

 turned out afterward, carried conviction to the 

 chief of the military police, who was one of the 

 most prejudiced Anti-Semites in the army. The 

 motive of avarice seemed to be wanting, for Drey- 

 fus belonged to the family of Alsatian Jewish finan- 

 ciers who had acquired wealth in Chilian specula- 

 tions, but this fact inclined his fellow-officers to 

 judge him the more harshly, imbued as they gener- 

 ally were with the peculiar form of Anti-Semitism 

 developed in France, where Jewish capitalists are 

 few, but very wealthy and powerful, and are dis- 

 trusted not alone because they have acquired con- 

 trol of the Bank of France and the railroads and 

 great influence over the Government of the repub- 

 lic, but because at the same time they have enor- 

 mous interests and family and business connections 

 in other countries and are believed to have the 

 power and the inclination to shape domestic and 

 foreign policy so' as to serve the purposes of inter- 

 national finance. 



The proceedings of the Dreyfus court-martial, 

 when they became known little by little to lead- 

 ing statesmen, impressed some of them, especially 

 jurists, like ex-Minister Trarieux, with doubts as to 

 the sufficiency of the evidence. There was the bor- 

 dereau of notes and the indirect evidence as to the 

 condemned man's habits and character. As to the 



