Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-01-26
The bill as formulated by the road ,and hedged in by restrictions in which the road itself will no doubt acquiesce, ought to pass the legislature.
THE BRITISH TREATY.

which awaits action by the United States senate as a defective and unsafe interna- tional compact. Dr McCahey alleges, as the chief objection against the treaty,
 that criminal offenses against women
 and children are left unpunishable, but extraordinary ingenuity is displayed in constructing the clauses aimed at Irish
 sympathizers. The doctor might have gone still further and asserted, as was shown shortly before the recent election
 by John Boyle O'Reilly and Congress
 man Collins in the Boston Pilot, that the
 clauses to which he objects were copied for Minister West into the treaty from
 an Irish coercion act-the explosives act
 of 1883. This was done by the republi-
 can senators of the senate foreign affairs committee, of which John Sherman IS the chairman, after the administration had refused to do so, at the request of Lord Sackville West.
 The treaty, in the form in which 1t
 now lies before the senate, is a most ex- traordinary document in that it Is con- trary to all international precedent and constitutional government. Contrary to
 the fundamental principle of interna- tional law laid down by Wheaton in
 his great work on the subject which pro-
 vides that mo state should authorize the
 extradition of it's own citizens or sub- | iects," and which is incorporated in our
 treaties with Germany, Spain, Belgium,
 Holland, Mexico, Peru, Turkey and
 various other countries. the British treaty
 makes possible the extradition of Am
 erican citizens for acts done and words
 spoken on American soil within the
 shadow of the American flag and under
 the sanction of American institutions. This is not new position for England,
 for in 1866 she made the specific claim
 to such right in the case of Stephen J. Meany, the late editor of the DEMOCRAT, though she was forced to abandon the
 claim later by President Grant. It has
 always been a cardinal principle with
 Americans that any citizen of the United
 States, be he native or naturalized, is ex-
 empt from arrest or imprisonment by any foreign power for acts done or words spoken in this country. Any other doc Urine would be disastrous to the peace and safety of this republic, and could not be tolerated for moment by the Am erican people. It will need little argu- ment to show that any treaty which fails to ensure to the American citizen his
 proper privileges and sovereignty as such
 should find no favor with American leg l islators.
 \ It is no more difficult to divine the in l. tent of England in the singular omis : sions-and the one quoted is but a sin l gle instance-that are noted in the ex n tradition treaty than it is to discover he1 q exact purpose in having the fourth clause S of the first article of the treaty SC j. to allow of the extradition of politica f offenders from the United States. There T. is a care and ingenuity exercised in th' e construction of those clauses that refe e to this purpose that is characteristic O n British diplomacy. By the origina IS draft of the treaty, which Secretar. n Bayard positively refused to amend a }. suggested by Lord Sackville, it would b e imperative to extradite a single persol n from the United States for political of l, lenses against England. By the amend IS ment, however, made. at the instance o 7. Lord Sackville, by the republican sen 1T ators on the foreign affairs committee, IS man becomes eXtraditable if the aC l. committed is crime by the law of tn e state of the country where he is arreste e and by the law of the political division # of the country where the act was con is mitted. In other words, he can be take e from one of the United States for a k act which is no offense unde l. United States law and be carrie n to Ireland to be tried for the ao SO which is no offence under the laws ( a. Great Britain generally but only in Ir, i'd land under some exceptional statut, of The treaty as thus amended is a vicior of and reprehensible measure, contrary t ,h all international precedent and oppose Id to the very fundamental ideas of const e. tutional government.
 to Whatever may have been the notion
 of Senator Sherman and his colleagues a. listening to Minister West, the duty lg the senate is plain. There can be no e: h. cuse for such vicious piece of legisl De tion as the ratification of this British e. oe tradition treaty. In it's present form Il, is not acceptable to the administrator to it is distasteful to nine-tenths of tl n- American people, and is disastrous to u be peace and safety of thousands of uprigl A American citizens. It is better that he few American boodlers enjoy their i at gotten gains in Canada than that u nd lives and liberty of thousands of our pc he pie be jeopardized. The treaty shou ns be rejected for one that will prote ny Americans in their rights and keep the ole safe from the wiles and the machin mt tions of the tory government of Englan