Horace Rublee to Mr. Fish.
Sir: The request of the French government that the fugitive members of the defeated party in Paris who may succeed in escaping into other countries shall not be regarded as political refugees, but be held and delivered up as culprits guilty of murder, arson, and robbery, coupled with the announcement that Belgium and Spain have resolved to accord no protection to this class of persons, but will promptly surrender them to the vengeance of their pursuers, has aroused much popular solicitude throughout Switzerland respecting the course which the government here would adopt. At Geneva, on Monday last, a call appeared addressed to all citizens who were in favor of maintaining intact the right of asylum to convene on the evening of that day and unite in an address to the Federal Council on the subject. This call was signed by the officers of the association, or society of the Grutli, a semi-political organization, and by those of the Association politique ouvrière nationale. The meeting was quite largely attended, those present and actively participating belonging, for the most part, to the laboring classes. Persons at the entrance of the hall in which the gathering took place distributed to all comers printed sheets containing a short address rather violent in its tone and strongly sympathizing with the communists. The proceedings, however, were orderly, and the address to the Federal Council which was adopted was respectful but earnest in its tenor. It denounced the action of “the monarchial governments of Belgium and Spain as trampling under foot the laws of neutrality heretofore observed [Page 877] under similar circumstances, and called upon the Federal Council to receive the refugees coming from France, in consequence of recent events, as the victims of political misfortune, having the rights of asylum, to be sheltered from all attack and all possibility of extradition.” In the meantime, however, the Federal Council had taken its decision. Its members, after due deliberation, determined that it was not consistent with the established policy of Switzerland to accede to the demand of the French authorities in the form under which it was presented. At the same time the government was prepared faithfully to execute the existing treaty with France for the extradition of fugitives from justice. It would not refuse the rights of asylum to persons charged with or guilty of merely political offenses, but would act on individual cases as they arose, holding in custody for a reasonable time persons whose extradition might be demanded by France, until it could be determined whether they could properly be classed in the category of ordinary criminals, or in that of merely political offenders. This decision appears to be well received by all classes of the Swiss people. The public journals of the country, as far as I have seen, without distinction of party, give it a cordial approval. At the same time many of them refer in no flattering terms to the course of Belgium and Spain. The Bund, probably the most widely circulated and influential of the Swiss journals, and, more nearly than any other, the organ of the present administration, speaks of them as having given “a promise of unconditional and unlimited aid to the government of Versailles in hunting down the fugitive communists of Paris,” and declares that the action of the Federal Conucil affords “a gratifying contrast with the decision of the ultra-montane Belgium government, that stands ready, without further proof, to deliver up the communists in a lump to their executioners.” In concluding an article on the policy adopted by Switzerland it uses this language:
In the street and barricade contests of Paris both parties have participated in the horrible devastation of the city. The combatant who defends himself with all the appliances at his command is not a mere ordinary criminal, no matter on which side he is engaged. On the other hand, those who, with diabolical premeditation, collected the means for a systematic devastation, and carried it into effect, are execrable criminals, and should be punished as such, since they acted not in mere self-defense, but in a desperate delight in murder and arson. The murderers of the unfortunate hostages, the people who saturated buildings with petroleum, and committed other similar acts, are criminals. Switzerland will not pollute her right of asylum by extending it to such as these; but to expel all other fugitive partisans of the commune on account of these assassins and incendiaries would be almost as equally disgraceful. The Federal Council, according to our view, will only act in harmony with the sentiments of the great majority of the people of Switzerland if, in deciding these extradition cases, it rigorously excludes all political considerations. The people of Switzerland do not wish to see the highest tribunal of their country either in the camp of the communists snd internationals, or in that of the reactionaries of Versailles.
A report was received yesterday that two prominent members of the party of the commune, Felix Pyat and Paschal Grousset, had succeeded in reaching Geneva. The French minister, the Marquis de Chateaurenard, immediately made a demand for their extradition, and the Federal Council issued an order for their arrest. Up to the present time no official news of their arrest has been received.
I am, &c.,