TuE statement received from Reuter's correspondent in Peking aid published in our last issue, relative to the in-fiction of the death penalty on Russians in. China, is of the most serious nature. Tt is earnestly to. be hoped that the Diplomatic Body will give this matter their most diligent attention. It will be remembered that, last month, the news came that the Chinese Court at Harbin had been authorized by the Ministry of Justice in Peking to sentence Russian criminals to death. Some doubt having arisen as to the authenticity of this news, Reuter's correspondent made inquiries of the Ministry of Justice, and was informed that the report was quite true as far as it went, but did not go far enough. The correspondent was then referred to a law introduced by mandate of December 30, 1920, _and published in the Official Gazette of January 9, 1921, which provided for capital punishment, with certain restrictions, being inflicted on all non-extraterritorial nationalities throughout China. The essential part of the memorandum from the Ministry of Justice, which was approved by Presidential Mandate, says:
"Tt is, therefore, recommended that hereafter if a citizen of a non-extraterritorial nation is convicted of a crime that carries with it the death penalty according to Chinese law, the death penalty shall be imposed upon the offender if the laws of his own country provide for the death penalty, and if they do not, that a sentence of life imprisonment be imposed in lieu thereof.
The memorandum then points out that, the Provisonal Criminal Code not having yet been passed by Parliament, the above recommendation is to be regarded as an emergency measure. So far as we know, it had escaped foreign attention until the Harbin Court sought to make use of its powers.
Now it cannot be too strongly emphasized that this memorandum and mandate have no legal applicability to Russians, and the Minisiry of Justice had no right whatever to authorize the Harbin Court to inflict on them the death penalty; for the simple and unanswerable reason that the Russian people are not -non-extraterritorial nation.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.