Le Petit Matin
- A Water Congress for North Africa
- A New and Serious Espionage Affair
- Germany and Sport
This page of Le Petit Matin, dated 28 October 1926, carried a signed column by Paul Lafitte on an Algerian farmers' plan to hold a North African Water Congress in October 1927, alongside wheat and cotton congresses. Lafitte praised the organisers for looking beyond immediate profit, but predicted that Tunisia would come a poor third behind Algeria and even the more recently occupied Morocco, above all on water policy. A Paris dispatch reported the arrest of Maurice Charton, a thirty-six-year-old PLM railway clerk who had drawn suspicion through frequent trips to the occupied territories; he was seized at the Gare de l'Est as he was about to board the Cologne express. A short sports item reported a motion to readmit the German tennis federation to the international federation, on the British view that Germany's League of Nations membership made its players eligible again.
Translation
A Water Congress for North Africa
The General Confederation of Farmers of Algeria has decided to organise, for the month of October 1927, a Water Congress for North Africa. That is to say that Tunisia is invited to it. The same body intends, moreover, to hold at the same time a Wheat Congress and a Cotton Congress. Tunisia could not remain indifferent to these undertakings either. Let us note, in passing, that here is a body of farmers that does not confine its concerns and efforts to questions of immediate profit, but extends them to vast general problems. Tunisia, for that matter, will cut a brilliant figure at none of the great gatherings being planned. It will be a poor third, for even Morocco, whose occupation is nevertheless much more recent, will everywhere present results superior to those the Regency will be able to show, because work there has been done with far more energy, competence and sense of the necessary sacrifices. It is above all with regard to water policy that Tunisia will appear mediocre.
Paul LAFITTE
A New and Serious Espionage Affair
PARIS, 29 October. – A new espionage affair, uncovered by the services of M. Descloux, commissioner of the Sûreté Générale, has since yesterday been entrusted to M. Peyre, examining magistrate of the Seine. It concerns an employee of the central office of the P.L.M. Company, Maurice Charton, aged thirty-six, who, after undergoing an identity examination before the magistrate, was immediately committed to the Santé prison. Although the strictest silence is being kept, at the Ministry of the Interior as well as at the Palais de Justice, on this affair touching national security, it has been possible to gather the following details: for some time the inspectors of our espionage service had been discreetly shadowing Maurice Charton, who had drawn attention to himself by frequent trips to the occupied countries. On Sunday, as the P.L.M. employee was about to board the Cologne express at the Gare de l'Est, he was seized by the inspectors and taken immediately by taxi to the offices of the Sûreté Générale, rue des Saussaies.
Germany and Sport
… motion asking the International Tennis Federation to agree to the readmission of the German tennis federation into its ranks. The British Federation considers, in fact, that since Germany has become part of the League of Nations, German players may once again take part in international tennis competitions.
Context
Théodore Steeg, Algeria's 'water governor'
Paul Lafitte's column holds up the Algerian farmers' congress plan as the work of a colony that took water seriously, and the Algerian record of the early 1920s explains the comparison. Théodore Steeg was appointed governor-general of Algeria on 28 July 1921, at a time when the colony was in crisis, and he initiated major irrigation projects to improve agricultural productivity, a policy he later repeated in Morocco. He became known as the 'water governor'. Steeg encouraged irrigation projects in order to provide land for French colons, so the water policy that Lafitte admired was also a settlement policy. The confederation's plan for a water congress in October 1927, and its pairing with wheat and cotton congresses, is what the paper reports.
Why Lafitte expected Morocco to outshine Tunisia
Lafitte's prediction that Morocco, despite its more recent occupation, would surpass Tunisia rested on a real shift of personnel and policy. In October 1925 Steeg replaced Lyautey as resident-general in Morocco, with a mandate to restore peace and manage the transition from military to civilian government, and he took his Algerian irrigation policy with him. On 4 January 1927, a little over two months after this column, he issued a decree creating a fund for large-scale irrigation projects, and through his 'grands barrages' programme he planned to bring year-round irrigation to 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres) of land; irrigation was meant to make new land available for French settlers and allow denser settlement. Tunisia in the same years was governed by Resident General Lucien Saint, in office from 1921 to January 1929, who had met Steeg and Lyautey in Algiers in February 1923 to discuss common problems. The verdict that Tunisia's water policy was 'mediocre' is Lafitte's own opinion.
The 'occupied countries' and the Cologne express
The 'occupied countries' to which Charton travelled were the zones of western Germany still held by the Allies under the post-war settlement, and by October 1926 that area had already shrunk. The northern zone around Cologne, the destination of the express Charton was about to board, had been evacuated in January 1926. The Koblenz region, which the Americans had handed over to the French in 1923, remained occupied until November 1929, and the southern zone around Mainz until 30 June 1930, when the occupation ended. The area was overseen by the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission, headquartered in Koblenz and led by the French high commissioner Paul Tirard. A Paris railway clerk making repeated trips there was moving between France and territory still under French-led Allied control; the report does not say what Charton was suspected of passing on.
Who hunted spies in 1920s France
The officials named in the Charton report follow the division of French counter-espionage work established a generation earlier. The Dreyfus affair proved so divisive that in May 1899 the government shifted responsibility for counter-espionage to the Ministry of the Interior, and an agency of the Sûreté générale became responsible for pursuing foreign spies on French soil. This explains why the case was uncovered by a Sûreté Générale commissioner, why the Interior Ministry kept silent, and why the suspect was taken to the Sûreté's offices before being handed to an examining magistrate of the Seine. The army's Deuxième Bureau, by contrast, developed intelligence concerning enemy troops. The Sûreté générale kept its name until April 1934, when it became the Sûreté nationale. The names of Descloux and Peyre and the details of the arrest come from the paper's report.
Germany's return to international tennis
The motion reported here concerned one of the world's oldest sports federations: the German tennis federation was founded in Berlin on 19 May 1902 as the German Lawn Tennis Federation (DLTB). The paper reports the British federation's view that Germany's membership of the League of Nations made German players eligible again for international competition. The independent record shows the result in the leading team event: in the 1927 International Lawn Tennis Challenge, the 22nd edition of the competition now known as the Davis Cup, Germany returned for the first time since 1914. German players were thus back in that competition in the season following this report.
Original
Un Congrès de l’Eau pour l’Afrique du Nord
La Confédération Générale des Agriculteurs d'Algérie a décidé d'organiser, pour le mois d'octobre 1927, un Congrès de l'Eau pour l'Afrique du Nord. C'est dire que la Tunisie y est conviée. Le même groupement compte, d'aileurs, tenir, en même temps, un Congrès du Blé et un Congrès du Coton. La Tunisie ne saurait non plus se désintéresser de ces œuvres. Remarquons, en passant, que voilà une collectivité d'agriculteurs qui ne limite point ses préoccupations et ses efforts à des questions de profits immédiats, mais les étend à de vastes problèmes généraux. La Tunisie ne fera, d'ailleurs, brillante figure dans aucune des grandes réunions projetées. Elle sera piètre troisième, car même le Maroc dont pourtant l'occupation est beaucoup plus récente, présentera partout des résultats supérieurs à ceux que la Régence pourra indiquer parce qu'on y a travaillé avec beaucoup plus d'énergie, de compétence et de sentiment des sacrifices nécessai res. C'est surtout en ce qui concerne la politique de l'eau que la Tunisie apparaîtra médiocre.
Une nouvelle et grave affaire d’espionnage
PARIS, 29 octobre. - Une nouvelle affaire d'espionnage découverte par les services de M. Descloux, commissaire de la Sûreté Générale est depuis hier confiée à M. Peyre, juge d'instruction de la Seine. Elle vise un employé de bureau central de la Compagnie P. L. M., Maurice Charton, âgé de trente-six ans, qui après avoir subi un interrogatoire d'identité devant le magistrat a été aussitôt écroué à la prison de la santé. Bien qu'on conserve tant au ministère de l'Intérieur qu'au Palais de Justice la plus grand mutisme sur cette affaire intéressant la Sûreté nationale, il a été permis de recueillir les précisions suivantes: Depuis quelque temps les inspecteurs de notre service d'espionnage avaient pris en discrète filature, Maurice Charton qui avait attiré l'attention sur lui par de fréquents voyages dans les pays occupés. Dimanche, comme l'employé du P. L. M. se disposait à la gare de l'Est à monter dans le rapide de Cologne, il fut appréhendé par les inspecteurs en emmené immédiatement en taxi dans les bureaux de la Sûreté générale, rue Saaussaies.
L’Allemagne et les Sports
motion demandant à la Fédération Internationale de Tennis d'accepter la réadmission de la Fédération allemande de tennis dans son sein. La Fédération britannique estime en effet, que depuis que l'Allemagne fait partie de la S. D. N., les joueurs allemands peuvent à nouveau participer aux épreuves internationales de tennis