Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/423

 3^8

EXTERRITORIALITY OF ORIENTALS IN ENGLAND. THAT the Oriental use of the privilege of exterritoriality is extensive and pe culiar is a fact of which London citizens are becoming increasingly aware. The privi lege of exemption from the jurisdiction of English courts has been tested by actual experience for only thirteen or fourteen years, as far as the bulk of our Eastern visit ors are concerned : the Chinese Embassy being established in 1878. Before that date, the fiction — consecrated in England by the statute of Queen Anne — that for eigners attached to an embassy were ex empt from the local jurisdiction, was dying a natural death, owing to the fact that few European ambassadors felt called upon to claim the exemption: wisely preferring, in stead, to keep out of embarrassing situ ations which might lead to legal dispute. But now, with the oblique light shed upon it by the Oriental mind, exterritoriality is rap idly becoming a license to seduce, a charter to kill if not to murder, and a monopoly to commit suicide without the inconveniences of a coroner's inquiry in prospect, besides furnishing a protection for the more every day pastime of incurring debts and refusing to pay. The Chinese and Japanese Em bassies have developed with perturbing facility into a veritable Alsatia, wherein the law applicable to common Englishmen may be contemned. A very flagrant instance of exterritoriality in pessimis occurred some months ago. A servant of the Japanese minister seduced an unhappy English girl, and then refused to support her child, or, indeed, to acknow ledge in any way the jurisdiction of English courts to adjudicate on his conduct. The general public was surprised in a passing way about the baseness to which diplomatic privilege could be turned. That surprise

was not shared by lawyers, who are obliged to have a longer memory for cases, and so have been led to catch the perspective of the Oriental tendency. The view of our Eastern visitors appears to be that perfect license to do what they like, free from legal consequences, would be conferred in pure waste, and perhaps would become atrophied from want of exercise, if it were not made use of. Accordingly, the Chinese delegates, who condescended in 1878 to come to London in the interests of the Middle Kingdom, have managed, in the brief space which has elapsed, to exclude the coroner twice. The latter troublesome barbarian wanted to decide on the causes of two violent deaths, one, that of a child, occurring within the precincts of the Chinese functionaries' house, the other, alleged to be a case of suicide, occurring outside the sacred enclosure. Another illustration of the strange uses of the privilege possible to the Asiatic, is furnished by the remarkable case of the "Sultan " of Johorc. This Malay chief, on whom the British Government had not then conferred the title. of " Sultan," came to London in 1885, to enter into an agreement with the Foreign Office as to his territory near the Straits Settlements. The not very important negotiation was concluded on December II, 1885; and in reward for placing the supervision over his local affairs in the hands of the British Government, the chief was to be supplied with various things, including coinage from the Straits Settle ments, and the title of Sultan. Meanwhile, during the arrangement of these details, he beguiled his hours of leisure by assuming an English name, and entering into intimate relations with an English woman. When recently sued in an English court, he im