THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, JULY 19, 1886.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7693, 19 July 1886, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, JULY 19, 1886.

The termination of the notorious Petrel case strongly suggests the necessity of some radical change in the Extradition Treaty of the United States of America. According to the provisions of that treaty there is, it would appear, only one offence for which parties can be sent to America in custody for trial, namely, murder in the first degree. To understand what is meant by this it is necessary to remember that the law respecting murder is different in America to what it is in England. In the latter country murder has a fixed definition, which denotes the taking of life with malice aforethought ; but in the former country it is regarded as consisting of three degrees ; the first of which corresponds to the definition of murder by the law of England, the second being assault with intent to do bodily harm, while the third is equivalent to what the English law recognises as manslaughter. Judging from the evidence in the Petrel case, the last of these definitions indicates the charge which would in ordinary circumstances have been laid against the culprits. That is to say, in America they would have been tried for murder in the third degree while, if the offence which led to their apprehension had been committed by English subjects, and dealt with in any part of the British dominions, they would have been tried for manslaughter.

According, however, to the peculiarity of the American Extradition Treaty the officers of the barque Petrel could not be charged with manslaughter in a British court of justice, and it was therefore necessary to charge them with murder as defined in English law, or what the American law regards as murder in the first degree; that is, if the facts disclosed in the consular investigation amounted to presumptive evidence of a prima facie case. That these facts did appear to justify such a charge cannot be disputed. They showed indubitably that treatment not merely cruel, but in some cases grossly brutal, was perpetrated by the officers upon men who were wholly in their power ; that in one case, namely that of the cooper, death resulted from such treatment; and that the circumstances attending the administering of medicine to • him shortly before his death were such as to warrant the suspicion of a design to prevent future trouble by effectually getting rid of him. During the protracted hearing of the case the evidence adduced was somewhat conflicting, and did not appear to the extradition commissioner to justify the charge of murder in the first degree against the captain and the first mate, and they were, therefore, discharged, the second mate having been previously acquitted at the close of the examination. It was, however, stated to them that certain acts of cruelty had been proved against the captain and mate, which would have entailed on them serious consequences had the American Extradition Treaty been broader and more elastic. Thus these two men, from having been charged with crime in the only form which that treaty recognises, have escaped the punishment they had merited on account of the barbarous cruelties they had perpetrated. For these, it is true, they may still be tried and punished according to the laws of their own country, to which an account of the whole proceedings in the case will doubtless be sent. Against this, however, they may take precautions by making it convenient not to return; and meanwhile there has occurred what is tantamount to a miscarriage of justice. It must be admitted that all the circumstances attending this Petrel case amount to a very strong plea for immediate measures being adopted by the American Government for so amending their Extradition Treaty as to lessen the chances of misdemeanants escaping from the operation of their own law, and especially to afford greater personal security to their subjects on the high seas. And no time could be more opportune for their taking action than the present, while they are negotiating with the British Government for the extradition of dynamitards and Socialists. In the case of most other countries there is a considerable number of crimes besides that of murder — in some instances as many as twenty—included under the provisions of their Extradition Treaty ; i and, with all their strong convictions about freedom, it would obviously be in their own interests, as well as those of humanity, if the Americans were in this respect to assimilate their law in at least a greater degree to that of other nations. Indeed it would greatly facilitate the ends of justice, and the furnishing of greater security to life and property, if in such a matter the

law of all civilised countries were the same. In that case the advantage which wickedly disposed persons take of the lax and varying character of international law would be impossible, and men would be restrained from committing on the high seas such barbarous acts of cruelty as those which occurred on board the Petrel by the knowledge that the persons accused of them would be effectually dealt with at the first port of arrival. This matter cannot be too speedily taken into consideration by the United States Government ; and, from the high respect with which any movement made by America in the interests of humanity is regarded throughout the world, it may be concluded that whatever amelioration might be resolved on in that quarter, would commend itself to the whole community of nations.