PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
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ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
Miscellaneous
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CONFIDENTIAL.
Memorandum on the Status of Aliens
in the British Colonies.
THERE have arisen, simultaneously, in different quarters, several questions connected with the status of Aliens in the British colo- nies. Those questions are so intimately con- nected with each other that it is impossible to state them clearly, except by combining them together. The following abstract comprises:
1. A brief explanation of the Statute Law of Great Britain respecting the naturalization of Aliens, so far as that law extends to the colonies.
2. A statement of the questions which have arisen on this subject in Canada, in Nova Scotia, in Mauritius, in Van Diemen's Land, in New South Wales, in South and Western Australia, in Hong Kong, in British Guiana, and Gibraltar.
1st, then, with reference to the British Statute Law.
Towards the close of the reign of William III, in the year 1700, was passed the Act settling the crown on the heirs of the Princess Sophia. One of the clauses of that Act provided that no alien, even though naturalized, should
sit in the Privy Council or in Parliament, or hold any office, civil or military, or have any grants of land from the Crown.
Fourteen years later, the same jealousy of the Hanoverian family led to the enactment, in the first year of George I, of a statute which forbade the reception into either house of Par- liament, of any Bill of Naturalization, unless it should contain a disqualifying clause to the effect already mentioned.
In the following reign it was thought wise to [148]
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