24.
Mere presence alone on a specified day, however, would probably not be enough to qualify for citizenship. The length and nature of residence would have to be laid down, establishing that the link was a real one. British Citizen- ship might, for instance, be conferred only on those citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies from overseas who had been resident in the United Kingdom for a specified time and were free of any conditions on their stay at the end of that time. Any qualification of this kind would, however, have to be simple and easily proved, since otherwise the persons concerned might find it difficult, or his descendants might, to prove that he had become a British Citizen under the transitional arrangements. For those citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who could not fully meet the requirements on the specified day it might be right to make some special arrangement by which they could later acquire British Citizenship.
25. A further group might also be made Citizens. These are women citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who would not qualify for British Citizenship in their own right, but whose husbands would become British Citizens. This would cover, for instance, a woman, who is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by virtue of her birth in Hong Kong, who is married to a man who is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by virtue of his birth in the United Kingdom. The numbers concerned would not be large.
Other Groups of persons eligible to hold British Passports
who might become British Citizens
26. Two other groups of British passport holders might also qualify for British Citizenship if they have ties with the United Kingdom through their residence here.
These are
British Protected Persons and British Subjects without Citizenship.
The residential ties would be defined for them
in the same way as for the citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies from overseas (see paragraph 24 above).