THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, JANUARY 22, 1915.
19
The German Government have agreed to facilitate the departure from Germany of British women and children under 17 years of age who are desirous of leaving the country and also of male British subjects under 17 and over 55 years of age, and the United States representatives in Germany will take all possible steps to arrange for the return of such persons, while they will continue to give such protection and assistance as may be possible to those British subjects who are unable to return to this country.
No arrangement has yet been concluded for the exchange of male British subjects between the ages of 17 and 55 and German subjects detained in this country, except as regards ministers of religion and doctors of medicine.
It is particularly requested that the Foreign Office may be informed as soon as possi- ble upon the return of individual British subjects from Germany.
Foreign Office,
November 1914.
No. 16.
CIRCULAR.
DOWNING STREET,
27th November, 1914.
SIR, --I have the honour to transmit to you, for your information, the accompanying copy of the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, 1914 (4 & 5 Geo. V., Ch. 17).
2. This Act has been passed in order to give effect to a Resolution approved by the Imperial Conference of 1911 in the following terms, viz. :-
That the Conference approves the scheme of Imperial citizenship, based on the following five propositions:
(1.) Imperial nationality should be world-wide and uniform, each Dominion being left free to grant local nationality on such terms as its Legislature thinks fit.
(2.)*The Mother Country finds it necessary to maintain five years as the qualify- ing period. This is a safeguard to Dominions as well as to her, but five years anywhere in the Empire should be as good as five years in the United Kingdom.
(3.) The grant of Imperial nationality is in every case discretionary and this discretion should be exercised by those responsible in the area in which the applicant has spent the last twelve months.
(4.) The Imperial Act should be so framed as to enable each self-governing
Dominion to adopt it.
(5.) Nothing now proposed would affect the validity and effectiveness of local laws regulating immigration and the like or differentiating between classes of British subjects.
3. You will observe that Section 8 of the Act confers upon the Government of any British Possession the same power, subject to the terms of the proviso to subsection 1 of that section, to grant a certificate of Imperial naturalization as the Secretary of State has in the United Kingdom under the Act. The "person acting under his authority" men- tioned in the proviso should necessarily be a high official such as the Colonial Secretary or Acting Colonial Secretary. Under Section 3 (1) of the Act a person to whom a certi- ficate of naturalization is granted becomes entitled to all political and other rights, powers, and privileges, and becomes subject to all obligations, duties, and liabilities, to which a natural-born British subject is entitled or subject, and, as from the date of naturalization, receives, to all intents and purposes, the status of a natural-born British subject.
4. The existing powers of the Legislature of a British Possession to provide for local naturalization, having effect only within the limits of that Possession, are prescribed by Section 26.
5. The Act does not confer upon the Government of a Protectorate any power to grant certificates of naturalization.
6. It will be observed that Part I of the Act amends and consolidates the English Statute and common law with regard to British nationality.
I have, &c.,
L. HARCOURT.
The Officer Administering the Government of
HONGKONG.