GENERAL BUTLER ON DYNAMITE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 2, 1 May 1885, Page 19

GENERAL BUTLER ON DYNAMITE.

General Btttleb was interviewed at Washington, last month, on the subject of dynamite and said tbal the question whether it is a lawful weapon to be used by a disorganised people contending for their rights against another organised and powerful Government would forever be a debatable question, like the use of poison and explosive bullets in warfare or fire-ships ; letters of marque in warfare by sea, or permitting a body of prisoners of war actually surrendered and disarmed to be left unguarde:! to be murdered by their savage allies, as was done in the French-Indian wars of 1757-8 by the French in the State of New York ; by employing savages and letting them loose along the borders of civilization, to murder and scalp women and children, as was done by the British Government in the war of our revolution, or exploding or burning the buildings of the cities of an enemy, or sending infected clothing into the enemy's country freighted with small-pox and yellow fever, as was claimed to be done in our own late war.

" Upon these topics," he said, " the weaker people will always be on the one side, and the stronger nation will always be on the other side, and each can see. for themselves on which side they range themselves. It is claimed that there is some duty on the part of the United States to so arrange it? laws that giant powder, dynamite and other explosive compounds should not ba made or exported, so as to be used in annoying* or destroying the public defences of Great Britain or any other nation. I deny that there is any such duty imposed by public law upon this or any other country. We have no more duty imposed upon us by the law of nations in this regard than that it is our duty to prevent the manufacture of poison, offensive or defensive weapons, or any other article that may be used for illicit or nefarious purposes in other nations.

"As to articles which can have no possible beneficial or legitimate use for anybody and anywhere, the question would be different, and it is useless to be discussed here because the dynamite, nitroglycerine, nitrogenous and chlorate explosives at which the State Departments Bill, presented by Mr. Edmunds, is aimed, are of the greatest mechanical and commercial value in the industries of the country. Ido not see how the lawa in the United States under any power given by the Constitution save one (and that is not contemplated by Mr. B imunds' Bill) can be exerted to control such manufactures, and certainly not except in .the territories and other special places of jurisdiction of the United States. Mr. Edmunds' Bill, if it become a law, would be wholly inoperative. Even suppose the intent, which is made an ingredient of the crime it prohibits should be proven, a dynamite cartridge can blow up a wing of the Capitol as well as the House of Parliament, or the White House as well as the Tower of London. Putting it under the bed-chamber of the President, with a little fuse attached, which would enable the assassin to run away and conceal himself, would certainly be a safer mode of killing the President to the perpetrator than was the shot by Gniteau at noonday, and one against which no possible foresight could guard. Illustrations on this matter might be indefinitely multiplied."

" What is your plan, General ? " "To guard against such illicit uses of these very destructive agencies, the best that federal legislation can do would be to' so con* trol and regulate the manufacture of these explosives that no considerable amount could be made or distributed without being traced. Precisely as we have now laws by which poisons are prohibited from being sold, except that the person who sells them and the person who buys are identified and recorded."

" How could this be accomplished ? " " This could be done by the United States constitutionally under the internal revenue power. Let the Government tax all classes of such explosives, require a license for their manufacture, and the record by whom and to whom sold in every transfer, and make the

unlicensed and the irregular sale of any suchr highly penal, giving the revenue officers full powers, as now in the case ol whiskey, and all would be done that can be done by legislation to prevent crime in. this direction. The taxation need not be high enough to cripple these industries, but simply large enough to cover the expense of regulating and preserving them. In other words, make our own laws to protect our own people, and then we shall have done our whole duty to other nations, leaving them to regulate the introduction of our manufactures into their own borders in their own way,"