THE BENTON CASE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 16 March 1914, Page 3

THE BENTON CASE.

In connection with the case of William Benton, who has just been done to death by the Mexican insurgent, .General Villa, it may be interesting to recall a' few notable instances of Government action to uphold the rights and liberties of British subjects'" in foreign countries. There have been several cases of a more or less similar nature in British history, and in some of them very drastic measures were taken to secure redress and make British nationality respected. . One of the most notable of the cases m point was that of Don Pacifico which created great excitement in England, and nearly caused a European war. It is memorable for the length to which the British Government carried the principle of protecting its subjects in foreign lands In connection with it Lord Palmerston, who was then Secretary for Foreign Affairs, made his famous speech comparing the rights of the British citizen to those enjoyed by the proud Roman in the ancient world. Don Pacifico was by descent a Portuguese Jew, but. as a native of Gibraltar, a British subject by birth. In 1847 he was residing at Athens, where it had been customary for the people to burn an etfagy of Judas Iscariot at Easter In that year, however, the authorities prohibited the ceremony, whereupon an aggrieved mob, attributing the order to Jewish influence, attacked and plundered Don Pacifico's house. Having complained in vain to the Greek Government, and believing with reason that he had little hope of obtaining justice in the Greek courts, he appealed to the British Government which promptly made a demand, for compensation. The Greek Government resisted the claim, and thereupon the British fleet was sent to the Piraeus to seize all Greek vessels, whether belonging to the Government or to private merchants, that were found there Lord Palmerston was under the impression that the Greeks were being secretly instigated to resistance by the French. | Government, and for a while England 1 and France were brought to the verge ot war the French Ambassador actually being withdrawn from London. At last, through French mediation a convention was arrived at. Don Pacifico s claim was referred to a commission, which awarded him £150 His ni^ 00?' In, hls blll he had charged £ i. ? io L? bedstea<3, £30 for the sheets. £25 for two coverlets, and £10 for a pillow-case. He had also estimated the jewellery of his wife and daughters at £2000. The claim made by the British Government, however, was much, more moderate, namely £500. on account of personal sufferings, and £4400 on account of losses sustained The discrepancy between iJon Pacifico's demands and his actual! losses naturally gave Lord Palmerston s political ..opponents an opportunity for an attack in force, and the wags of the time made merry orer the Don's "pots and pans." The House of Lords passed a resolution which amounted to a vote of censure, whereupon Mr Roebuck, an Independent member, acting in this case with the Government^ brought forward a motion in the House of Commons af-' farming that the principles' on which; the Government had acted were "sueh1 as were calculated to maintain the honor and dignity of this country."! It was upon this motion that Lord Palmerston made his great speech. It took five hours to deliver, and it was greeted with ringing applause. He in-' sjsted upon the necessity of protecting British subjects abroad, and in a thrilling peroration asked the House to decide "whether, as the Roman in! the days of old held himself free from indignity when he could say, 'I am a Roman citizen.' so also the British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will nrotect him against injustice and, wroiw." Though the action of the' British Government in this case has been the subject of much adverse criti-L cism. and the measures adopted by itj are actually held to have been too. drastic, yet high authorities on inter-! national law admit that in the circumstances intervention may have been Justified.

The expedition under Sir Robert' Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala), sent against King i'heodore; af Abyssinia in 1868, is another strik-j ins instance of the drastic measures! which the British Government has from time to time taken to enforce the Drinciples laid down by Lord Palmerston. Thinking that" the hpd a grievance against Great Britain, Theodore, who is reputed to have cherished "n ambi+ion to become the husband of Queen Victoria, revenged himself by' seizing all the British subjects within, his reach. He put them in chains, I and kept them in his rugged strong-' hold of Magdala. Among his captives was Captain Cameron, the British Consul at Massawah, a Turkish island off the African shore in the Red Sea, v-Mch was, and is., the. chief outlet for Abyssinian trade. "At first the British Government tried to obtain the release of the prisoners by -oeacefu] means. "Mr Rassam, Assistant Resident at Aden, was sent with Lieutenant Prideaux and Dr Blanc on a mission to Theodore, who, after a pretence of negotiations, added Mr Rassam and his companions to the number of captives at Magdala. Lord Nanier's exoedition was then despatched from Bombaay, and had to cross about 400 miles of mountainous and roadless country before it reached that fort-!

ress. One battle was fought, and the Abyssinians showed great courage, but could do nothing against the British force, which killed 500 of them without

losing a single man. Theodore then sent back his prisoners to the British, camp, but this was not enough, to satisfy Napier,, who stormed Magdala on Theodore's refusal to sunonder. The Abyssinian king committed suicide as the British troops entered the stronghold. Retribution, the evidence of which is still to be seen in the ruins of the Summer Palace at Yuan Ming Yuan outside Pekin, was exacted in 1859 for ill-treatment of Sir Henry Parkes, Lord Loch, and a number of British officers, who were treacherously seized by the ■ Chinese while under a flag of truce. Lord Elgin, who, with the French Baron Gros, was conducting an expedition to enforce fulfilment of the treaty of Tientsin, had suspended hostilities, and halted his force some distance from Pekin. This was at the request of the Chinese, who had opened negotiations with him. It was in pursuance of the negotiations that Parkes and his comrades had cone forward. He, Loch, and 11 others were subseqtiently released, but 13 of the prisoners died from the ill-treatment they bad received. It wa.s only after he subsequently entered Pekin that Lord Elgin heard of the deaths. He tben decided to have the Summer Palace burnt down. As the palace covered "an area of many miles, and was full of rich treasures of Chinese art. it took two days to complete the work of destruction. A monument explaining in Chinese the reason for this act of punisbment was put up on the spot asa warning. In a like way, after the capture of Cabul by the expedition sent to avenge the murder of Macneghten, and the treacherous annihilation of a British force by Akbar Khan, the brutal and cunning son of Dost Mohammed^ det>osed Ameer of Afghanistan, the great bazaar, which, was the glory of the

city, was given over to utter destruction. Again, in 1863, as punishment /or a brutal murder, a British squadron of seven ships bombarded and completely destroyed the rich Japanese town of Kagoshima. It is worth mentioning too, that, in spite of Mr Cleveland's notorious "note" in 1895, Lord Salisbury positively declined to let the Venezuelan boundary dispute be settled by arbitration until Venezuela had made substantial redress for the seizure of two British Guiana police officers on the disputed territory. The seizures had been made, by Venezuelan officers on the spot, and the prisoners had been released as soon as news of their arrest reached the Venezuelan Government. Nevertheless, even at the risk of a quarrel with the United States. Lord Salisbury insisted upon adeqtiate compensation for the indignity put upon British subjects. In fact, precedents go to show that British Governments have, as a rule, been very much alive to the need of exacting prompt retribution for even comparatively slight injuries improperly inflicted on their nationals abroad. The fate of Kagoshima is an illustration of the penalty inflicted when the murder of a British subject went unpunished and unredressed.