EXTRADITION.
By Lawrence Irwell.
MANY and intricate as are the problems
of international law, the question of
extradition remains the most important and
the most familiar. The complexity of busi
ness transactions and the vast extension of
credit, coupled with the multiplication of
the means of travel, have rendered the subject one of the greatest importance. The
historic origin of the practice is to be found
in the relations of the different provinces of
ancient Rome. Under the Republic a citi
zen accused of a capital offense might at
any time, before judgment was pronounced,
escape the sentence by going into voluntary
exile; and certain of the allied cities were
specified by treaty as inviolable places of
refuge; but, under the Empire, these cities
were absorbed into the imperial dominions
and lost their protective character. As to
claims of extradition made by the Romans
upon independent nations, they seem, as far
as I can ascertain, to have been confined to
enemies of the State. Thus we find that at
the end of the war with Antiochus, king of
Syria, the Romans stipulated for the sur
render of Hannibal, who, however, escaped
and fled to the king of Bithynia, from whom
he was also demanded, and would have
been surrendered had he not committed
suicide.
It is a remarkable fact that in the early
cases in modern history it was always for
political offenses that surrender was claimed,
although at present it is almost the only
ground of refusal. But such an offense
does not mean a crime committed from po
litical motives, but one committed during
a time of civil war or open insurrection.
The French government, in 1880, refused
to extradite Hartmann, who was suspected
of planning the plot against the Czar of Russia at Moscow, in December, 1879. When the Swiss government, in November, 1890, demanded the extradition of one Castioni, who had shot a member of the ministry, the English judges gave him the benefit of the exception in the extradition treaty which provides for the safety of those who are charged with having com mitted crimes during a period of open in surrection. The English king, Charles II., as is well known, pursued some of the murderers of his father with relentless hate, and in 1661 concluded a treaty with Denmark in which the latter agreed to deliver upon requisition all persons who had been concerned in the murder of Charles I. The States of Hol land surrendered some of the regicides with out treaty stipulations, and in 1 662 they agreed to. give up to the English govern ment all persons except those who, in Eng land, would not have come under the British Indemnity Act. James II. of Eng land demanded the surrender from Holland of Gilbert Burnet, not then a bishop, but acting as private secretary to the Prince of Orange. He describes the affair very fully in his History of Our Times. He asserts that the English king's principal cause of anger against him was a report of his in tended marriage to a wealthy lady at The Hague. Proceedings for extradition were set on foot in Scotland. Burnet, however, heard of the matter before news of it reached D'Albeville, then English ambassa dor, and he petitioned for naturalization, which was readily granted. When the am bassador demanded his banishment, Burnet claimed protection of the Dutch States as a
