A quarrel has arisen between the Swiss and the german
Governments, nominally about the treatment of Herr Wohlge- ninth, a German police agent, really about the right of asylum. The Swiss expelled Wohlgemuth for illegal practices, and the Germans maintain that the expulsion was contrary to treaty rights. The Federal Council adheres to its view, and the German Foreign Office threatens reprisals in the shape of passport laws and special duties on Swiss commerce. The Swiss are legally in the right, and the incident would be of little importance, but that both Germany and Italy are press- ing for a treaty giving them larger rights of sending police agents into Switzerland to watch the revolutionaries who con- gregate there. The demand is an unreasonable one. We believe the English notion of the right of asylum to be over- strained, and that when the Powers are really friendly, dynamiters will be punished without distinction as to the objects of their attacks ; but action must be confined to local police and local tribunals.
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