The American Government appears to be deeply offended by the
refusal of the British Government, acting under the Extra- dition Act of 1870, to surrender the alleged forger, E. D. Wins- low, without a pledge that he shall not be tried for any other offence. We have endeavoured elsewhere, by giving the text of the tenth clause in the Ashburton Treaty, and of the twenty-seventh clause in the Extradition Act, to enable our readers to judge for themselves as to' the propriety of the deef sion arrived at by her Majesty's Government. It seems to us that it is unsustainable in law, but Lord Cairns may be able to come to the rescue of the Attorney-General. Lord Derby and Mr. Bourke have promised that the papers shall be at once produced, and as the denunciation of the Extradition Clause of the Ashburton Treaty is threatened, and if carried out operates at once, and will greatly alarm the commercial classes, the de- bating is sure to be sharp and spirited. American statesmen are very often much too exigeant in their interpretation of treaties ; but in this instance they seem to have a very good prima facie case, because even if we have a right, in spite of omissions in a treaty, to guard our right of asylum by internal legislation, we expressly excepted our treaty with the United States from the effect of the precautionary Act.
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