A story has been circulated accusing the Home Secretary of
betraying Austrian Socialists residing in England to their own; Government, who have arrested persons in Vienna on English information, Sir William Harcourt was questioned about. this on Thursday night by Mr. Cowen, and made a most dignified and wise reply. The arrests in Vienna were not based on information from London. He and his colleagues, however, held that assassination was neither a venial crime nor a political offence, but an ordinary murder ; and if the police became acqnaluted with circumstances threatening the life of any Sovereign or private person abroad, their duty would be to give information calculated to avert that crime. We should expect that aid, if our own Sovereign was threatened, and ought, therefore, to render it to others. We cannot con- ceive of an answer to that proposition, and certainly there. is none in the argument that the foreign police may mis- use the information. Let their own Parliament or people compel their dismissal. Government might as well refuse the extradition of ordivary murderers because foreign executioners. may be clumsy.
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