The morning call., 1890-12-31
ExrRAD1TIoN PROPOSITION.

An ,ffort is being made by the Russian
Government to persuade the nations of
Europe to adopt a uniform law against con-
spirators, in order to prevent plots against
life and order being c0ncocted i'll foreign
countries. The dispatch states that the
chief obstacle in the way of the proposed
action is the unwillingness of Great Britain
to deny the right of asylum to political
refugees.
One of the principal planks in the plat
form of the Holy Alliance was covenant
that each monarch should ferret out and
punish plots against another monarch, and
sovereigns lived up to it by imprisoning sus-
plclous persons on many occasions. Plot
ting continued, nevertheless. When the
last Emperor of Russia was assassinated,
his successor believed. or affected to believe,
that the crime was planned in Switzerland.
and he demanded that the republic should
curtail the right of asylum without success.
Again. in 1888, when the German socialists
met in congress at Copenhagen, Bismarck
insisted on the dispersion of the body and
the Danish Government obeyed the mandate.
A similar result befell the congress of 1855,
which was held at The Hague. The ex-
perience of all these measures of repression
has been the same; sovereigns have hunted
conspirators from pillar to post, but the con-
spiraces have gone on.
No political agitator has right to plot in
foreign country the violent overthrow of
his government or the murder of his sover-
eiGn. To do so is to abuse the right of asy-
lum. No European is justified in coming
to the United States and there engaging in
a conspiracy TO overthrow peace and order
in the country from which he came. Per-
sons who do so violate the implied condi-
ton on which they are allowed to live here,
and commit an offense against the peace and
dignity of the United States. We might
not be willing to surrender them to their
enemies; but we resent their conversion of
this country into hotbed for conspiracies
against power with which we are allied.
But the machinery by which foreign
conspirator can be extradited is so compi-
work in countries where Personal liberty
flourishes.
The true way for European sovereigns to
check conspiraces is to remove their cause.
Men do not embark in plots which may cost
them their lives without some reason. Men
do not form plans for the violent overthrow
of government unless they are satisfied
that the government fails in its purpose.
But when private individual may be
seized in his house and spirited away so
thai no one ever knows what has become of
him, it is natural that his friends should
plot; they would be less than human if
they did not do so. So when government
sucks the life-blood of people to sustain
an overgrown army, and there is no consti-
tutional means OF redress, it is natural that
the people should conspire; they would be
recreant to their manhood if they did not do
so and this is what is happening in por-
tons Of Europe. Trying to stop such plots
and conspiracies by international anti
socialist legislation is like trying to cure
yarioIoid by cauterizing the pustules. Better
strike at the root and endeavor to cure the
disease by eradieating its cause.