The personal instructions to our diplomatic ministers read in this way: In some countries where frequent insurrections occur and consequent instability of government exists. the practice of extraterritorial asylum has become so firmly established that it is often invoked by unsuccessful insurgents and is practically recognizedby the local government to the extent even of repeeting the premises of a consulate in which such fugitive may take refugo. Thi Government does not sanction the usage. and enjoins upon its rcfrentL tiv in such countries the avoidance of all pretense for its exercise. The difference between the right of asylum which we furnish us of course to political refugees who voluntarily seek our shores and the right of asylum -which depends for its exercise on the extraterritoriality of our ships of war or our consulates is of course too obvious to need any elaboration from me. There is. then. nothing in the claim that this man was a political refugee and entitled to the right of asylum. even if it were a tact that he was only a political refugee. and not also a common criminal. IfI have been successful. then. in my argument I have demonstrated. I think. that the public reprimand of Commander Reiter by the S&cretary of the Navy was not only unauthorized in law. but was fluwarranted and unjust. that the conduct of Commander Reiter was in consonance with the wellestablished rules of practice in such cases. w.as in consonance with the wellrecognized principles of international 1tw as laid down by the textbooks. as laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States. and as laid down by distinguished Secretaries of State throughout at least half a century of our history.
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refugees refugee