Feb. 24, Reference is made-in a Note find Comment elsewhere to the clause in Article VI of the new chinese Courts agreement for:
shanghai under which it will be possible for demands to be made from outside the Settlement for the surrender of any Chinese ing in it,.and on proof of identity the Court in Shanghai will simply hand the man over forthwith. This clause is 50 extremely serious, so fraught With danger for all'Chinese bu niess, men living in Shanghai, sthut even at this late hour, when this bad agreement has actually been signed, every possible effort should be made to introduce game safeguard, or at least to have the operation of the clause there clearly defined. For gen-@ral convenience we repeat it:
No person found in the Intermational Settlement shall be handed the extra-Settlement autho-tities without a preliminary investigation in court at which counsel for the accused shall have the right to be present and heard, except in the case of requests emanating from other Modern Law Courts when the accused may be handed over after his identity has been established by the Count, Uf the demand for the surrender of, any person from a seem that no specific, charge need be laid, no counsel can be present, the accused can say nothing in his own defence: if the local Court is satisfied that hemis the man wanted, it must hand him over. In the. first place, what is to, be the definition ofa "Modern Law Court"? So far as can be seen, anything might be called that, and probably would be if the "wanted" man were wanted badly enough. Furthermore, how will the ""Modern Law Court" arrive at the conclusions on which it will demand the surrender of an in-@ividual? Tu the new Courts in Shanghai the procurator will have to work in public, that one of the small safeguards jured by the new agreement.
in other Chinese Courts the Procurator's proceedings—take place in comerd and there appears no reason to suppose that this practice will be changed whether in modern or ancient courts. The accused man will know nothing of the crfine alleged against him until, having been seized by the Ju wal police of the Shanghai Court, bundled across the border into the hands of those who are after him, During the course of the Provisional Court conference it was stated as a principle on the foreigners' side that they are not concerned to defend Chinese against their own officials. A more utterly pernicious _half-truth it would be difficult " to imagine, nor one which betray-more hopeless ignorance of abuses that always have been practised im Chiia and are possibly more flagrant to-day than they have ever been. In the. sense that residence in the Interhatfonal Settlement does not confer extraterritorial status on Chinese, and that the Council would never dream of trying to prevent a man against whom there was a bond fide charge from being handed over to the extra-Settlement, authorities, this statement is true enough. But as the party responsible for the peace and good order of the Settlement the Council are' in duty bound to satisfy themselves that there is a genuine presumptidii'of guilt in-the man whose surrender is demanded and that hhe:'is not merely the Victim of exposed him to official We have but last seen what is likely to hap-
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Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.