follow? I venture to think not; and I know of no precedent for such proceeding.
I agree that the phrase that an Ambassador's hotel is extra-territorial is so metaphysical as to be misleading. It is, in fact, inaccurate. The more careful writers do not use it. The true proposition is not that the residence is extraterritorial in the sense in which a ship is often said to be so, but the Minister himself is deemed to be so; and as a consequence he and the members of his family and suite are said to enjoy a complete immunity from all civil process. It is not a question of what may or may not be done in the residence, but what may or may not be done to individuals. That being so, the process I have mentioned appears to involve a breach of the comity of nations.
To adduce cases where the police have under a warrant entered an Embassy to arrest persons who have committed an offence elsewhere to found the proposition that "the local police may take action to put an end to an illegal imprisonment," begun and continued within the Embassy, does not land us on safe ground. There is no common feature in the two cases.
October 27th.
