THE NEW CRIME IN BELGIUM.
TB!recent discussion between Germany and Belgium is about have for its result in Belgium an addition to the list of Crimes. The Belgian Government has announced that it will pro- pose " to make the offer or proposal, not accepted, to commit a grave attack" upon any person an offence against the law, severely punishable ; and though it has formed its resolution under stress of circumstances, it has evidently done so with the full conviction that there is a defect in its criminal Code, which ought to be supplied. The Opposition in this case does not 'oppose but cordially supports the Government, and the new law is, therefore, already as good as enacted. The circum- stances in which the intended legislation has had its origin at first disinclined the Government to amend the law of Belgium immediately, and it had intimated that it would wait until some of the greater States of Europe, whose criminal codes are nearly all defective at the same point as that of Belgium, had set it the example. Its change of inten- tion testifies, we think, not so much to the existence of a great dread of Germany in Belgium—though it may do that too- -as to the prevalence throughout Belgium of a feeling that an act of an atrocious nature has been committed for which the
law does not provide, and ought to provide, a punishment. What are the facts ? A Belgian subject had written to the
Archbishop of Paris, offering, on the receipt of 60,000 francs, to kill Prince Bismarck, and it turned out that the law allowed him to do this with absolute impunity. Had Duchesne's proposal been directed against a much less important person than Prince Bismarck, and circumstances had fixed public attention upon it, we can easily believe that the result would have been the same. And we venture to think that the other States of the Continent will do at their con- venience what, notwithstanding some appearance of pressure, the Belgian Government, taught by facts, is about to do. Of course there is nothing like a presumption that an act or pro- ceeding which has not been made criminal has been overlooked by Legislatures because it is not dangerous, or is not likely to occur, or is for any reason not a proper subject of criminal punishment. Mere thoughtlessness OT unwillingness to do whatever is not pressing, accounts for many a gap in the legislation of every country. In England criminal legis- lation has scarcely ever been resorted to except to cheek some sort of conduct which, by frequently occurring or being very troublesome, had compelled the attention of officials.
The legislation which the Belgian Government is about to propose has been generally spoken of as if it were of a kind • entirely new, but this is by no means the ease. In England, at any rate, there is precedent for it ; our law, in fact, forbids and severely punishes the very act for which Duchesne has been found not liable to punishment. The vague terms in which the legislative intention of the Belgian Government was first announced, and some expressions used by Count D'Aspremont Lyndon in his note to the German Minister at Brussels, seem to be responsible for the misapprehension which has prevailed. It was stated that the Belgian Government were going to make the mere intention to commit a murder punishable, and that—though anciently it was the law of England—would have been a vuly objectionable, a very dangerous, and a very useless kind of legislation. Count D'Aspremont Lyndon, explaining the decision of the Judges in Duchesne's case, had observed that an attempt to commit a crime "is not punishable unless manifested by external acts forming a commencement of execution ;" that "a simple thought is without the reach of the law," and this is beyond question sound, but it does not appear to have any bearing on Duchesne's case. Duchesne's letter to the Archbishop of Paris was not the mere expression of an intention to murder Prince Bismarck ; indeed, it did not express such an intention at all. It was an offer to commit the murder upon certain terms, and that is a very different thing. The mere expression of criminal intention, even when made in writing, is, except in certain aggravated cases, and in the case of the person threatened being put in bodily fear, passed over by modern criminal law, and for a perfect reason. It may, after all, be only wild talk, and even when it shows mischievous and malignant inclinations, fear of punishment, fear of the reprobation of mankind, and other causes, including, of course, want of opportunity, may make it come to nothing. In far the greater number of cases, no doubt, it does come to nothing. By itself it harms nobody, it is scarcely possible to judge in advance whether there is any risk of harm in it or-not, and accordingly, as a rule, the law does not interfere until it has resulted in some harmful act. But sending a letter to another person offering to commit a murder is something overt, and the law, if it chooses, may consider it punishable. The law in all countries, Belgium in- cluded, already punishes acts similar to, and perhaps morally less culpable than this, acts, too, which come much nearer to being a bare expression of criminal intention. From the last published note of Count D'Aspremont Lyndon it appears that a threat of murder is in Belgium a crime, and if made by letter, it has long been so in England. A letter threatening to burn or destroy a man's house is also punishable by English law. These cases, if not on all-fours with the case of a pro- posal to commit a murder, differ from it not by being nearer to, but by being further away from the ordinary bounds of the criminal law. But the proposal to commit a murder itself is already under the ban of English law, and punish- able with _ten years' penal servitude. "Whosoever shall solicit, encourage, persuade, or endeavour to persuade, or shall propose to any person to murder any other person, whether he be a subject of her Majesty or not, and whether .he be within the Queen's dominions or not," is liable to exactly the same penalties as persons who •have con- spired together to commit the same offence. It is true that
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had Duchesne been a British subject, and written his letter to the Archbishop of Paris in London, he might not have subjected himself to the penalties of the statute. It is not certain, that is, that a proposal to commit a murder abroad made from England to a foreigner resident abroad would fall under the statute. But the better opinion seems to be that it would, and at any rate, here is in English law a perfect precedent for the proposed Belgian legislation. A man who in England proposes to another man in England, both being either British subjects or owing for the time allegiance to the British Crown, the murder of another person' whether living in England or living abroad, and whether a British subject or a foreigner, makes himself liable to very severe punishment,—and this, if not quite all, is almost all that the Belgian Government is proposing. If precedents for what Belgium is about to do were looked for in Ireland, we have no doubt that many could be found.
That the threat to murder should have been so generally made punishable by Governments, and the proposal of a murder to another person so generally left free from penal consequences, is intelligible enough. The former may be the less heinous of the two; it, at any rate, comes nearer to being a bare expression of intention ; it is, indeed, only an expression of intention made under circumstances of aggravation. But proposals to murder are, it may be hoped, of infrequent occur- rence; and whether they be so or not, they very seldom come to light, unless when they have been followed by some overt act, or at least by a conspiracy to commit one. A man only makes this sort of proposal to a person he is pretty sure of. Duchesne's proposal of a murder to the Archbishop of Paris was probably, as has been stated, the act of a drunkard, and if not, it was like the act of a madman. Moreover, proposals to murder affect in- dividuals much more than the public, it being almost impossible that, unless when aimed at some person of great eminence, they should create that feeling of general alarm which is the most usual antecedent of repressive legislation. The use of threats to murder, conveyed in threatening letters, on the other hand, is little known, except in association with some political or social danger, and in that sort of connection has been not uncommon. The letters necessarily come to the hands of the person affected by them • they are alarming, and are greatly talked of, and alarm leads to an effort to get rid of them. Nor, however, that the countries of Europe are so close together, and there are persons in each—natives or foreigners—who cherish bitter hatred against eminent persons, possibly in some other country, on political or religious grounds, it is not at all surprising that proposals to murder should be heard of, and that the law should be called upon to treat them as it has long treated the threat to murder. Eminent persons who are in danger of being murdered by politi- cal enemies are quick in guessing at their danger, and quick at noticing any circumstance which is in favour of their assailants. The provision of our Statute law which has been quoted we owe to Orsini's attempt upon the late Emperor of the French ; for what our Government failed to do by the Conspiracy Bill was some years after quietly done by a clause in a consolidation statute. Rightly, too, for a defect in our law had been found out, and though it was an Emperor only who had been known to suffer by it, even Emperors are entitled to protection against murderous attempts. The Chan- cellor of the German Empire is also entitled to expect that persons in neighbouring countries should not be able with im- punity to contrive plots against his life. Only, when making even a reasonable request, he should try to do it as far as pos- sible inoffensively and considerately, especially when his request is addressed to a State which cannot pretend to cope with the resources which are at his disposal.
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