Chapter 2

"A telegram from Sochi, in the Caucasus, states that last night the steamer _Tchernomor_, while on a trip from Tchubgia to Tuapse on the Black Sea, was plundered on the high seas by robbers, who forced the passengers to deliver up their money and valuables. One passenger was wounded by a revolver shot. The robbers, who numbered 15, took possession of the ship's safe and forced the captain to stop the ship and to land them. They further ordered him not to stop at Tuapse, but to proceed direct to Sochi, threatening him with murder if he disobeyed.

"A later telegram from Sochi states that the passengers were robbed of 10,000 roubles (£1,000), and that 1,700 roubles (£170) were stolen from the ship's safe."

SECTION VI

21. _The Case of the Trent._

On Nov. 8th, 1861, during the American Civil War, the Federal cruiser _San Jacinto_ stopped the British mail steam _Trent_ on her voyage from Havana to the British port of Nassau in the Bahamas, forcibly took off Messrs. Mason and Slidell, political agents sent by the Confederate States to Great Britain and France, together with their secretaries, and then allowed the vessel to continue her voyage.

22. _A Double Murderer._

In 1885 James Smith, an English subject, commits a murder in London, but succeeds in escaping. In 1886 he appears in Rome under the name of Edward Fox, and commits a murder there also. He is tried in Rome and condemned to penal servitude for life. In 1906, after having served 20 years and exhibited exemplary conduct, his sentence is remitted by the King of Italy. His real identity having been established during the trial, on his release the question of the possibility of his extradition for the previous murder is discussed in the English press.

23. _A Masterful Customs Official._

On Dec. 24th, 1907, the following appeared in the morning papers, dated Winnipeg, Dec. 23rd:

"An American Customs official, suspecting two Canadian farmers of smuggling barley, surprised them near the boundary, and, threatening them with a revolver, compelled them to cross into American territory. The official had no warrant, and the farmers returned into Canada. The matter has been laid before the British Ambassador in Washington and the Canadian Government. Ten thousand dollars damages are claimed."

24. _Russian Refugees and Foreign Asylum._

The following appeared in the _Times_ of March 6th, 1908, dated Paris, March 5th:

"Signatures are being collected in Paris for an address 'to the Swiss people,' which already bears the names of MM. Anatole France, Octave Mirbeau, Painlevé, Jaurès, Seignobos, and others, urging them to refuse the extradition of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Bromar Vassilieff, who killed the Prefect of Police of Penza in January, 1906. The address declares the deed of Bromar Vassilieff to have been purely political. France, it contends, refused to surrender Hartmann, who had taken part in the attempt against Alexander II. Italy refused to extradite Michel Gotz, a member of the organization that assassinated M. Sipiagin and M. Plehve. Sweden refused to give up Tcherniak, accused of having participated in the attempt against M. Stolypin. Only a few days ago, says this address, an Austrian jury acquitted Wanda Kraguelska, who boasted of having thrown a bomb at the Governor-General of Poland. The Swiss Republic, it adds, will not do what monarchies and Empires have not done. It was deceived when it handed over to the Russian authorities Belentsoff, who before his trial died from flogging in prison. Free Switzerland having always done itself honour by defending the political refugees of all nations against the largest Powers, the signatories to the address feel certain that she will not be false to this noble tradition by allowing Bromar Vassilieff to be extradited."

SECTION VII

25. _A Conversion at Sea._

On July 4th and 6th, 1904, during the Russo-Japanese war, the _Peterburg_ and the _Smolensk_, vessels belonging to the Russian volunteer fleet in the Black Sea, passed the Turkish Straits, flying the Russian commercial flag. They likewise passed the Suez Canal under their commercial flag, but after leaving Suez they converted themselves into men-of-war by hoisting the Russian war flag, and began to exercise the right of visit and search over neutral merchantmen. On July 19th the _Peterburg_ captured the British P. and O. steamer _Malacca_, for alleged carriage of contraband, and put a prize crew on board for the purpose of navigating her to Libau.

26. _A Frontier Affray._

On May 12th, 1908, the _Petite République_ published a telegram from Lisbon announcing that a collision between Portuguese and Spanish troops had occurred at Porto Allegro. It appeared that several Spanish smugglers were surprised while attempting to smuggle quantities of tobacco and silk across the frontier into Portugal, and resisted the Portuguese guards. A detachment of Spanish troops arrived on the scene during the fight and crossed over on to Portuguese territory. Here they were fired upon by the Portuguese, who, in the darkness, mistook them for a second band of smugglers. The Spaniards together with the smugglers now opened fire and a terrible fight ensued in which even women took part. Before long, however, the Spaniards, who were evidently under the impression that they, too, had to deal with smugglers, discovered their error, and ceased fire, and the smugglers immediately fled to the mountains leaving several dead, including two women. Several of the soldiers on both sides were either killed or wounded.

27. _General Vukotitch._

On Oct. 19th, 1908, during the state of tension in the Balkan peninsula resulting from the declaration by Austria-Hungary of her sovereignty over the provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina, General Vukotitch, a Montenegrin envoy, was charged with a special mission for Belgrade by Prince Nicholas. He travelled to his destination by way of Fiume, but, on arriving at Agram, he was ordered from the train by gendarmes and conducted to the Prefecture of Police. There he was searched, and his purse and everything else he had in his possession were taken from him. At the same time his baggage was completely ransacked. He told the _Gendarmerie_ officers his name, explained his _status_, and showed them the passport and the permit delivered to him by the Austro-Hungarian Legation at Cettigne, but all without any effect. He was, however, allowed to send a telegram to Baron von Aehrenthal, complaining of the treatment he had received as a violation of international usage, and, after some time, an order came from Vienna for his release.

28. _An Anglo-French Burglar._

François Lebrun, having committed a burglary in Paris, is sentenced to ten years' hard labour, but after one year's imprisonment succeeds in escaping to England. On the request of the French police he is arrested in London and brought before the magistrate in order that he may be extradited. His counsel however objects to his extradition on the ground that Lebrun was born in London and was therefore, although his parents were French, an English subject.

SECTION VIII

29. _Signals of Distress._

Vattel (III. § 178) relates the following case: In 1755, during war between Great Britain and France, a British man-of-war appeared off Calais, made signals of distress for the purpose of soliciting French vessels to approach to her succour, and then seized a sloop and some sailors who came out to bring her help.

30. _A Change of Parts._

Aaron Nietitsch, a native of one of the Balkan states, while residing in London for two years for the purpose of learning English, contracted heavy debts which he did not pay on leaving the country. Shortly afterwards he came again to England as he was appointed secretary to the diplomatic envoy of his home state in this country. His creditors, who knew quite well that they could not sue a member of a foreign legation for debts contracted during the time of his mission, thought that they could proceed against Aaron Nietitsch, because he had contracted his debts while staying in this country as a private individual.

How would the case have to be decided if Aaron Nietitsch had contracted debts while in England as an attaché, had left the country at the end of his mission, and had afterwards returned as a private individual?

31. _Violation of a Foreign Flag._

A political criminal, imprisoned in Port-au-Prince, in Hayti, escapes from the prison and makes for the harbour, with the intention of taking refuge on board a foreign man-of-war lying there. On his way he meets the diplomatic envoy of the state to which the man-of-war belongs, and as the Haytian police are on his heels he asks for the envoy's protection and safe conduct to the vessel. The latter calls a passing fly and enters it with the fugitive, but is overtaken by the police. Thereupon he takes the flag of his home state out of his pocket and throws the folds of it over the fugitive for the purpose of protecting him. The police nevertheless arrest the man. The envoy sends a report of the affair to his government, which requests from Hayti not only severe punishment of the police for the violation of the envoy's privileges and the insult to its flag, but also the release of the rearrested political criminal and his safe conduct to its man-of-war lying in the harbour of Port-au-Prince.

32. _A Pickpocket at Sea._

An Italian passenger on board the French mail-boat _Le Nord_, plying between Calais and Dover, picks the pocket of an Englishman while the boat is two miles out on her way from Dover to Calais. The thief is arrested in Calais. Can England claim his extradition?

SECTION IX

33. _Gypsies in Straits._

In March, 1908, the _Westminster Gazette_ contained the following paragraph:

"On the first day of October last a gipsy van containing a family of eight was escorted by Belgian gendarmes to the French frontier. On attempting to cross the boundary the wanderers were stopped by French gendarmes, who forbade any further advance. Thus beset behind and before by the authorities, the van-dwellers perforce made the best of a bad job, and resigned themselves to a long stay. On the whole, they have had the best of it; for they, at any rate, had a comfortable roof over their heads, while the four policemen who were on constant guard by day and night, keeping the unwelcome travellers at bay, were exposed to all the chances of the weather. Days, weeks, and months rolled slowly by. February commenced, and still the gipsy-van stood on no-man's-land, guarded by weary gendarmes, each drawing a franc and a half a day, and wondering when the other side was going to give in, and allow the gipsies to resume their wanderings. As far as is known the van is there to-day, and nobody appears to care very much about its fate. Perhaps in future years when the six gipsy children are grown up and leave the old home, and its paintwork has grown still more shabby, and the wheels have sunk up to their hubs into the soil, somebody will come across it and the patient gendarmes, and begin asking questions. Meantime the little comedy has already cost the French municipality of Mont Saint-Martin more than 1,000 fr., while the local police force has had to be helped by the neighbouring brigade to perform its ordinary duties.

"It is true that negotiations are going on with a view to settling the matter, but as four months have already passed since the van reached the frontier, there seems no particular reason for expecting a speedy conclusion to the farce."

34. _A Question of Annexation._

Karl Abel, born in Nassau in 1840, left that country in 1865 for England for the purpose of settling there in business. In 1866 Nassau is conquered by Prussia and subjugated. Has Abel become a Prussian subject?

What would the decision be in the case of the native of a province transferred by cession to another state, who was domiciled abroad at the time of cession?

35. _Disputed Fisheries._

An island rises in the open sea three and a half miles from the shore of state A and is acquired through occupation by state B, which establishes a fishing-station there. Very soon a conflict arises between states A and B on account of the fisheries in the waters between the new-born island and the continent.

How is the controversy to be settled?

36. _Imperial Coasting Trade._

At the Colonial Conferences in 1902 and 1907 Australian statesmen brought before the Imperial Government the question whether the term "coasting trade," as used in British commercial treaties, could not be given such an extension of definition as would allow the entire exclusion of foreign shipping from the carrying trade between the United Kingdom and Australia.

SECTION X

37. _A Russian Crime tried in Austria._

The following appeared in the _Westminster Gazette_ on Feb. 19th, 1908:

"WADOWICE (GALICIA), _Feb._ 18.

"Judgment was pronounced to-day in the trial, which began in the District Court here yesterday, of Wanda Dobrodzicka, a young Russian woman charged with having thrown a bomb at General Skallon, Governor-General of Warsaw, on May 18th, 1906.

"The indictment set forth the existence of a very skilfully devised plot to kill the Governor-General. As he very seldom left the castle it was necessary to do something to compel him to come out. Accordingly one of the conspirators, in the uniform of a Russian officer, grossly insulted the German Vice-Consul. It became necessary, therefore, for the Governor-General to pay a personal visit to the Vice-Consul to express his regret, officially, at such an occurrence. This was exactly what the conspirators had reckoned upon, and they laid their plans accordingly. Wanda Dobrodzicka, who was only twenty years of age, was, it was alleged, entrusted with the task of killing the Governor. According to the prosecution, she took up her position on a balcony which he would pass, and when his carriage came she hurled a bomb at it. The bomb, however, failed to explode. In the confusion the woman escaped and succeeded in making her way to Trieste, going thence to Italy and Switzerland, and afterwards coming to Galicia, where she married and settled down.

"She was arrested on October 20th, 1907, and the Russian Government demanded her extradition. As, however, through her marriage, she had become an Austrian subject, the Galician authorities decided that she must be tried in Galicia. The jury returned a verdict of 'Not guilty' on both counts of the indictment. The accused was acquitted, and was immediately released, as no notice of appeal was given by the Public Prosecutor. The prisoner having been declared 'Not guilty' by the Polish jury, notwithstanding her full admission of having thrown the bombs, was accorded a great ovation by the crowd, who presented her with flowers."

38. _Stratagem or Perfidy?_

In 1783, during war between Great Britain and France, the _Sybille_, a French frigate, enticed the _Hussar_, a British man-of-war, by displaying the British flag and intimating herself to be a distressed prize of a British captor. The _Hussar_ approached to succour her, but the latter at once attacked the _Hussar_ without shewing the French flag. She was, however, overpowered and captured.

39. _Murder of a German Consul in Mexico._

In 1906 the German consul in Oaxaca, a town in the Mexican state of Puebla, was murdered while in the house of a Mexican named Conttolene, with whom he had had a dispute. Conttolene was arrested and prosecuted, but acquitted. However his nephew, a Mexican named Rangel, gave himself up for the crime and was condemned to two years' imprisonment. As this punishment was considered too light the prosecuting counsel appealed, but withdrew his appeal by order of the public prosecutor; and the light sentence on Rangel was therefore allowed to stand. The German government considered the punishment meted out to Rangel insufficient, and made representations to the Mexican government complaining of the fact that the appeal was withdrawn by order of the public prosecutor. The Mexican government answered that it disapproved of the action of the public prosecutor, because it recognised its international duty sufficiently to protect the lives of foreigners in Mexico and to punish adequately any murder of a foreign resident. On its recommendation the governor of the state of Puebla deprived the public prosecutor concerned of his office.

40. _Cossacks at Large._

On June 27th, 1908, a telegram from Brody, in Eastern Galicia, stated that a party of 14 Cossacks crossed the frontier into Austria, plundered a house near Radziwilloff, shot dead the owner and his wife, and cut off his daughter's hands and carried them away. They also mutilated two other persons who were returning across the frontier. Austrian gendarmes captured two of the Cossacks.

SECTION XI

41. _Islanders in Revolt._

The natives of a small island in the possession of England rise and, after murdering the majority of the whites, imprison the remainder. No English man-of-war is on the spot, but the commander of a French war vessel in the neighbourhood, who is informed of the insurrection by a fugitive, resolves to interfere to save the lives of the surviving whites. He therefore sails at once for the island, shells the harbour, disembarks a number of men, relieves the white prisoners, and remains in command of the island until an English man-of-war arrives on the spot.

42. _Seizure of Ambassadors._

The Marquis de Monti, the French envoy in Poland during a war between Poland and Russia, being in Dantzic when, in 1734, that town capitulated to the Russians, was seized and made prisoner because he had taken an active part in the war; he was not released until 1736, although France protested against his captivity.

When the Maréchal de Belle Isle, the French ambassador to Prussia, passed, in 1774, on his way to Berlin, through Hanover, he was seized, made a prisoner, and sent to England, which country, together with Hanover, was then at war with France.

43. _An Envoy in Debt._

Baron de Wrech, who had for some time been minister plenipotentiary of the Landgraf of Hesse-Cassel at Paris, was recalled in 1772. When he asked for his passports, the Duc d'Aiguillon, the French foreign secretary, refused to deliver them to him before he had paid debts due to the Marquis de Bezons and other creditors.

44. _Treaty Bargaining._

States A and B enter into a new commercial treaty in which, among other stipulations, it is agreed that state A should lower by 20 per cent. its general import duty on manufactured cotton goods coming from state B, and that, in return for this reduction, the latter should reduce by 20 per cent. its general import duty on manufactured leather goods coming from state A.

Some of the other states possessing commercial treaties with A and B, which embody the most favoured nation clause, at once demand from A and B that the reduction of 20 per cent. of import duty on manufactured cotton and leather goods should also be granted to the imports from their respective territories.

SECTION XII

45. _A Fallen President._

The following appeared in the papers on Dec. 4th, 1908, during a revolution in Hayti, when the president Alexis had fled to a French training ship in the harbour of Port-au-Prince:

"PORT-AU-PRINCE, _Dec._ 2.

"President Nord Alexis is safe on board the French training ship _Duguay Trouin_. At the last moment the President yielded to the pleas of those about him, and precisely at five o'clock a salute of 21 guns announced his departure from the Palace.

"Previously to his departure the French Minister and other foreign representatives, with a specially-formed committee, forced themselves on the President, who finally consented to withdraw. Shouts and jeers of derision greeted President Nord Alexis as he entered his carriage. The French Minister sat beside him, and threw the folds of the Tricolor over the shoulder of the President to protect him. Along the route the people lining the streets greeted the President with curses. When he arrived at the wharf the mob lost all restraint. Infuriated women penetrated the cordon of troops, and shrieked the coarsest insults in the face of President Alexis. The people tried to hurl themselves upon him, fighting with hands and feet with the soldiers, who, in order to disengage the President, discharged their muskets, and the crowd then fell back. President Alexis, still draped in the Tricolor, boarded a skiff, his suite tumbling in after him. Haitian, French, and American warships fired a salute to the fallen President. As he was embarking a woman aimed a blow at his side with a knife, but missed him. A man, however, succeeded in striking the President a glancing blow on the neck with his fist."

46. _A Murder in Monaco._

In August, 1907, Mr. and Mrs. Goold, the Monte Carlo murderers, were arrested in Marseilles, to which town they had succeeded in escaping before the murder became known. The Monacan government demanded their extradition and France was ready to comply with the request. Mrs. Goold, however, was by birth of French nationality, and it was doubtful whether she had been legally married to Mr. Goold. Under these circumstances the French government refused to extradite Mrs. Goold, before it had been proved by inquiries in England whether or not a legal marriage had taken place between herself and Goold.

47. _A Question of Interpretation._

According to Article XIII of the Treaty of July 11th, 1799,--confirmed by Article XII of the Treaty of May 1st, 1828,--between the United States of America and Prussia which is now valid for the whole German empire, in case one of the contracting parties is a belligerent, no articles carried by vessels of the other contracting party shall be considered contraband, but nevertheless the belligerent party shall have the right to seize any military stores carried by vessels of the other party on payment of their full value.

Has the Declaration of London, 1909, any influence on the validity of this old treaty stipulation?

If not, in the event of war between Germany and another power, can powers possessing most favoured nation treaties with Germany claim the same treatment with regard to contraband for their own vessels as Germany must grant to vessels of the United States?

48. _The Island of Santa Lucia._

In 1639 the island of Santa Lucia, in the Antilles, was occupied by England, but in the following year the English settlers were massacred by the natives, and no attempt was made by England to re-establish the colony. In 1650 France, considering the island no man's land, took possession of it. England, however, contended for many years that she had not abandoned the island. After the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, the question of ownership was referred to the decision of certain commissioners, and England claimed that having been driven out by force she had not abandoned the island _sine spe redeundi_, and that therefore France, in 1650, had no right to consider the island as no man's land. Finally, by the peace treaty of Paris of 1763, England resigned her claims.

SECTION XIII

49. _An Attaché's Chauffeur._

In November, 1908, the driver to the Military Attaché at the United States Embassy was summoned at Huntingdon for driving a motor-car at Little Stukeley at a speed dangerous to the public, and which was stated to be 36 miles an hour. The solicitor for the defendant, who did not appear, claimed that he was exempt from proceedings such as these, but admitted that he was not in a position to prove it. A letter of explanation was read, which stated that it was very embarrassing to have a servant charged with an offence against English law, and asking that the charge be withdrawn. The bench decided to go on with the case, and imposed a fine of £12 and costs.

50. _In Quest of Balata._