Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/36

 An Imperium in Imperio in London.

AN IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO IN LONDON. ONE night in the last week of Novem ber, 1896, a profound sensation was created in the British metropolis by the shouts of newsboys flying along the streets and holding up before them contents-bills on which were printed in type of the most emphatic style the startling words, " A China man kidnapped by the Chinese Embassy in London." There was, of course, an imme diate movement on the part of press circles towards the Chinese Embassy — or Legation, as it ought more properly to be called, — for information. At first there was some disposition on the part of subordinate offi cials in that establishment to deny, or at least preserve an attitude of reticence on the subject. But Sir Halliday Macartney, the secretary of the Legation, who is a British subject, soon boldly avowed the fact that a Chinaman named Sun Yat Sen was indeed detained within its walls, and justified the detention on the ground that by the fiction of " exterritoriality " the Legation was in reality " China in London." Lord Salisbury did not embark on any juristic discussion with Sir Halliday Macartney. He simply directed a peremptory letter to the Legation demanding the immediate re lease of Sun Yat Sen — and Sun Yat Sen was straightway released. The incident has had — as it ought to have — the effect of raising the whole question of exterritorial jurisdiction. According to Sun Yat Sen, he was entrapped into the Legation. Accord ing to Sir Halliday Macartney, the China man went into the Legation of his own will and was simply detained there. But it is quite immaterial whether the feat accom plished by the Legation was kidnapping or only false imprisonment. No British (or for that matter civilized) government would

tolerate for an instant the claim put forward by the Chinese Legation in this case in the name of exterritoriality, and it will be well if the possibility of such an incident occurring again is excluded by an international con vention. The jurists who propounded and have maintained the theory of exterritorial ity one and all admit that it is only a fiction created to subserve the purposes of inter national comity. Moreover, the precedents, so far as they go, are directly contradictory of the Chinese official position — there is on the one hand, a long line of authorities in favor of the ac tion which Lord Salisbury took. There is, on the other, at least one precedent con demnatory of the Legation's claim of right. When, in the beginning of the I /th century, Sully was ambassador to England for the French Court, one of his suite killed an Englishman. Sully tried the murderer and sentenced him to death, and sent him to the Lord Mayor for execution. That functionary declined, however, to recognize the competency of the Ambassador in the matter, and the irregularity of the proceed ings was admitted by Sully himself. If this was the law with reference to one of an Ambassador's suite, a fortiori must it be so in regard to a person over whom he had no jurisdiction at all and who was at the time of his arrest entitled to the protection of the British Crown. A similar case occurred in the time of Cromwell. An attaché of the Portuguese Legation, named Pantaleone da Sa, shot an Englishman on the Exchange. The Ambassador claimed exclusive cognizance of the offense. But the claim was success fully resisted, and Da Sa was convicted. Now that the immunities of ambassadors are