we naturally expect no less tolerance for our own in the ample fields of competition abroad." President Cleveland, annual message, Dec. 2, 1894, For. Rel. 1894. xiii. "However clear may be the strict right of each state to determine the conditions on which it will permit foreign corporations to carry on business within its jurisdiction, there prevails in such matters a comity which it is the interest of all nations to maintain, and which is well illustrated in the freedom and equality with which foreign corporations are permitted to extend their operations to the United States. There is ground for the belief that the necessary result of the course lately adopted by the Prussian authorities in respect to the Mutual Life Insurance Company would be to give to the beneficent principle of comity a restricted and uncertain operation. Under the circumstances, the President is of the opinion that the subject is one proper for presentation through the present diplomatic channels, for consideration in all its aspects by the royal government of Prussia and by the imperial authorities as well, so far as the latter may have jurisdiction in the premises." Mr. Uhl, Act. Sec. of State, to Mr. Runyon, ambass. to Germany, No. 313, For further correspondence, see For. Rel. 1896, 192-198; For. Rel. 1897, In consequence of the exclusion of American life insurance companies from Prussia, Prussian insurance companies were prohibited to do business in the State of New York. In October, 1899, the New York Life Insurance Company was readmitted to do business in Prussia, and the German companies were readmitted to New York. (For. Rel. 1899, 291-293; President McKinley, annual message, Dec. 5, 1899.) In the voluminous record of diplomatic negotiations with reference to trade and commerce not a little space, especially in the correspondence of the United States, is occupied with discussions as to the prohibition or restriction of the importation of cattle and hogs, beef and pork. As examples, see the following: Austria-Hungary, For. Rel. 1891, 31. Belgium, For. Rel. 1891, 33-38; For. Rel. 1895, I. 25-37, referring to Denmark, For. Rel. 1891, 487; For. Rel. 1894, 205; For. Rel. 1895, I. 210. Germany, For. Rel. 1891, 501-528; For. Rel. 1894, 226-233; For. Rel. 1895, Great Britain, For. Rel. 1896, 317-363, the "Diseases of Animals Act, (2) APPEALS FOR CLEMENCY. § 921. The government of the United States will, through the Secretary of State, interpose its good offices for the alleviation of the punishment of citizens of the United States convicted in a foreign country of political offenses against such country. Mr. Webster, Sec. of State, to Mr. Cushing and others, Aug. 27, 1842, 32 "The judgment of mankind is that in revolutionary movements which are carried on by large masses, and which appeal to popular sympathy, capital executions of individuals who fall within the power of the government are unwise and often unjust. Such severity, when practiced upon a citizen of a foreign state, excites a new sympathy by enlisting feelings of nationality and patriotism. "The fellow-citizens at home of the sufferer in a foreign country naturally incline to believe that the just and generous principle to which I have referred is violated in his case. The soundness of this principle is quite easily understood after the revolutionary movement is ended, although it is difficult to accept the truth in the midst of revolutionary terror or violence. When the President of the United States dismissed the prosecutions in the United States courts of the so-called Fenians who attempted an unlawful and forbidden invasion of Canada, and returned them to their homes at the expense of the government, and at the same time obtained, through the wise counsels of Sir Frederick Bruce and the governor-general of Canada, a mitigation of the capital punishments adjudged against those who were convicted in the Canadian courts, the President adopted proceedings which have practically assured the continuance of peace upon the Canadian border. It was believed here that similar clemency could be practiced in the Manchester case with benign results. Your dispatch leads us to believe that Her Majesty's government was so thoroughly convinced of the necessity of pursuing a different course in that case that further interposition than that which adopted would have been unavailing and injurious to citizens of the United States. Certainly it belonged to the British government to decide whether the principle which we invoked could be wisely applied in the Manchester case." you Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Adams, min. to England, No. 2106, "Mr. Frelinghuysen informed Mr. Lowell of the action of the House of Representatives, as contained in the resolution of December 10, repeated his former instruction to consider the citizenship of O'Donnell established, and concluded by saying: "There being in Great Britain no judicial examination on appeal of the proceedings at a criminal trial, possible errors can only be corrected through a new trial or by executive action upon the sentence. Therefore this government is anxious that such careful examination be given to the proceedings in this case as to discover error, should one have been committed. You are therefore directed by the President to request a delay of the execution of the sentence, and that a careful examination of the case be made by Her Majesty's government, and that the prisoner's counsel be permitted to present any alleged points of error.' ” Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Lowell, min to England, tel., With reference to a petition signed by prominent officials and private citizens of St. Louis, Missouri, and addressed to the King of . Hawaii, praying for the pardon of a person who had been convicted of homicide at Honolulu, the Department of State said: "I have enclosed a copy of the correspondence to Mr. Rollin M. Daggett, United States minister there, for his information. The Department's understanding of this case is that Mr. - was fairly and impartially tried and convicted. Under these circumstances it is not perceived how Mr. Daggett could be instructed to intervene officially in the prisoner's behalf. Besides, it is not the province of this government to interfere in the judicial proceedings of a friendly foreign power, especially when those proceedings have been marked by a spirit of fairness and impartiality. At the same time I have every desire to extend Mr. such assistance as his friends think him entitled to, and this Department consistently can. In this sense copies of the papers have gone to Mr. Daggett, who has been instructed that should the matter be brought to his attention by the King or the minister for foreign affairs, after the petition had been duly presented to His Majesty, or should a convenient opportunity present itself for Mr. Daggett to speak to the King or the minister for foreign affairs upon the subject, he was at liberty to do so unofficially, making such representations as from his position, and the circumstances of Mr. case, he might consider him entitled to." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. O'Neill, March 25, 1885, 154 MS. Dom. "Full brief Sproule's case presented to imperial government by American minister earnestly urging clemency; execution sonsequently postponed by Canadian authorities. This Department has made every possible appeal and still hopes for commutation." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Collins, tel., Oct. 25, 1886, 162 MS. Dom. See, as to Sproule's case, Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. West, Brit. "In the cause of mercy, I beg leave to place in your hands the cnclosed letters of Baron Fava, the Italian minister at this capital, and of His Eminence, the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples, relating to the case of Vicenze Vika, an Italian now under sentence of death in the State of Pennsylvania, and already respited by your order. While I yield to the earnest request of Baron Fava to become the personal intermediary for placing in your hands these proofs of deep interest in the prisoner's fate, and appeals for the exercise of your official clemency, yet I have not such knowledge of the circumstances of the case as would warrant me in the expression of any opinion in relation thereto. "The sincerity and earnestness of Baron Fava and his reverend correspondent induce, however, an expression of my hope that you may find ground for an interposition of the great discretion which is your official prerogative, by which a mitigation of the extreme penalty of the law can be granted." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Gov. Beaver, April 16, 1888, 168 MS. Dom. August 2, 1888, the Department of State communicated to the governor of Missouri a note of the preceding day from the British minister expressing the earnest desire of his Government that a respite of the sentence pronounced against Maxwell, alias Brooks, who was then under sentence of death at St. Louis for the murder of one Preller, might be granted. The Department of State, though without information of the reasons on which the respite was requested, felt bound to lay before the governor the application made by the minister of a friendly power, whose appeal to the governor's high official discretion and clemency in behalf of one of his countrymen was justly entitled to and doubtless would receive serious consideration. Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Governor Morehouse, Aug. 2, 1888, 169 MS. Maxwell was in due time hanged. (Mr. Rives, Act. Sec. of State, to The petition of numerous Ottoman subjects residing in Massachusetts, municated to the Department of State by the Turkish minister at Washington, was transmitted by the Department to the governor of Massachusetts for his consideration. (Mr. Blaine, Sec. of State, to the governor of Mass., May 4, 1889, 172 MS. Dom. Let. 665.) "Circumstances have prevented an earlier acknowledgment of your letter, without date, but received here on the 3d of December last, in which you ask the intervention of this Department to cause the transmission to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, of a petition of three thousand American women, having for its object the release of Mrs. Florence Maybrick, recently convicted in England of murder and now imprisoned at Woking under a life-sentence. "Mrs. Maybrick's case had enlisted the Department's attention, and, shortly after her conviction, the minister of the United States at London, Mr. Robt. T. Lincoln, used his unofficial good offices with the authorities there to the end that the original capital sentence of the court, since commuted, might not be carried into execution. "The question of any interference by one government in the administration of justice within the jurisdiction of another is, at all times, a delicate one, and the difficulty was increased in the present case by the fact that the defendant, although of American origin, had become the wife of a British subject. As Mrs. Maybrick's case is here understood, it is not perceived upon what grounds the government of the United States could at present further interfere in her behalf. I do not, therefore, feel warranted in making our legation at London the channel for the communication of the petition in question to the British government, especially as, in somewhat analogous cases heretofore, the direct presentation of such a petition, by the signers, to the British home office, has been advised as the regular and proper course to pursue." Mr. Blaine, Sec. of State, to Mr. Campbell, Feb. 14, 1890, 176 MS. Dom. See, to the same effect, Mr. Blaine, Sec. of State, to Mr. Ingraham, Feb. 1, 66 Mr. Lincoln was subsequently informed that a feeling of great interest attached to the pardon of Mrs. Maybrick, and he was instructed to go as far as diplomatic privilege will allow and justify." (Mr. Blaine, Sec. of State, to Mr. Lincoln, min. to England, tel., April 18, 1891, MS. Inst. Gr. Br. XXIX. 469.) The application was unsuccessful. See H. Doc. 370, 54 Cong. 1 sess. 10. The British authorities, while admitting the right of petition for the pardon of persons under criminal sentence, require the prayer to come to the proper officer of the government, the home secretary, directly, and not through a foreign government. As a similar rule |