The New York herald., 1874-11-12

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Of doubts arising, not be settled by the official
to whom it was intrusted, but by that
superior authority to which he was and re-
mains responsible for his official conduct
Papers which, in official business and form,
touching upon official relations and duties
are not private but official documents, and
hence belong to the archives.
In the present case this demonstration can
be the less impugned as the papers quoted
above are numbered-i. e., officially marked
in their order of succession, both for the sender
! and receiver
BETTER AND BETTER
! These considerations are SO simple that the
Foreign Office does not for the present enter
into the motives asserted by Your Excellency,
and simply remarks that the chief of a foreign
mission is permitted, under certain circum-
stances, to secrete some papers, owing to their
political or other significance, but that this
right ceases with the end of his official term,
and consequently that he is bound, on pain of
being considered guilty of violation of his
duty, to deliver the entire archives to his rep
resentative or successor. If it can be proved
from the register of the Foreign Office, in re-
gard to the Legation in Paris, and from the
statements of the officials in question-what
however, has even partially been admitted by
Your Excelency-that the still missing papers
were either taken from the archives of the
Legation or never placed among them, Your
Excellency will not deny, after mature delib-
Grafton, that your conduct in this matter is
apt to necessitate not only disciplinary
but also criminal proceeding.
THE DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDING.
As far as an explanation by way Of civil
suit is concerned, the provisions of the Prus-
sian law which, according to section 10 of
the law relating to officials of the Empire, are
to pe applied to the present case and to papers
Of courts and administrative authorities, ex-
clude the recognition OF the respective docu-
ments. On the other hand, the very appro-
priation or abstraction of official papers from
the archives OF the Legation such as is pre-
sented in this case and still continued, re-
quires the institution Of the disciplinary pro-
, | IaJ hxyk kba Ia 10
officials of the Empire also against retired
officials. Besides, according to the provisions
Of the Prussian criminal code, page 345. an
official is punishable who removes document
officially intrusted to him, and, according to
section $50, if he embezzles money or other
things. Even if it should be questionable
whether dispatches and papers Of legation
are documents in the technical mean
| ing of the word (as the Roya
Prussian Supreme Tribunal assumes,
7 there can, nevertheless, be no doubt in
view of sections 1873 and 276 of the Code,
that everything confded to an official belongs
to the class to which the punishment for
embezzlement applies
SEVERE FINALE
If, then, the criminallty of the removal of
archives is established, Your Excellency is
responsible to the criminal and not to the
civil law for the complete surrender of
the papers in your possession While
the Foreign Office reserves to the Chancellor
of the Empire the action required by the case,
it acknowledges the receipt from Your Excel
lency of the above quoted draughts of your
political reports from Paris, Nos. 131, 1872,
1873, of the year 1873.
v. BULOw,
State Secretary of the Foreign Office
To His Excellency the Royal Actual In
innate Counsellor Count Won ABNn.
ARNM TO BuLow.
EAssERHEDE August II, 1874.
have had the honor to receive upon my
return the kind letter of Your Excellency,
dated August S.
I should leave it unanswered if had
not special reasons for avoiding all doubts
as to my position in this case. Your Ex-
cellency has felt constrained to take my
private letter as an official one, and 80 to
treat it.
HE CANNOT HELP IT.
cannot prevent Your Excellency from
doing this. However, have the honor to
declare that my view of our mutual relations
cannot be changed. I continue to maintain