*
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
61
Reference :-
TILL C.O. 885
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
15 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
4
at p. 440) appears to regard them as retaining their nationality as if they had remained in their own country. They appear to us not to be aliens within the definition in Calvin's case (ubi supra), and to fall under one of the special cases referred to by Lord Coke (ibid., p. 18 a), in which persons may be born within the allegiance of the King though not within his dominions.
We therefore think the true conclusion is that these persons are British subjects at common law.
2, 3, 4, and 5. It is, however, impossible to say that the point is clear. There is a strong body of opinion the other way, and we think it desirable that the question should be settled by a clause in a general Act somewhat in the form suggested by Mr. Hurst, with modifications as proposed by Sir E. O'Malley.
We should deprecate the introduction of a Bill dealing specially with this subject. It would call public attention to the point in a way which might be attended with disastrous results if the Bill failed to pass.
In the meantime, registration should be continued in accordance with the practice that prevailed until this question was unfortunately started by the dispatch of the Consuls to the Foreign Office without communication with the Embassy.
Royal Courts of Justice,
August 18, 1904.
}
R. B. FINLAY. EDWARD CARSON.
34559
No. 234.
(GENERAL)
COMMISSIONERS OF CUSTOMS to LAW OFFICERS.
[Prohibition of Sugar-sweetened Products containing Bounty-Fed Sugar.]
THE International Convention relative to bounties on sugar, signed at Brussels on the 5th March, 1902, of which a print is herewith, provides in Article VII. for the establishment of a Permanent Commission charged with supervising the execu tion of the provisions of the Convention, and contains an Article of which the first paragraph, as translated into English, is as follows:-
ARTICLE I.
The High Contracting Parties engage to suppress, from the date of the coming into force of the present Convention, the direct and indirect bounties by which the production or exportation of sugar may profit, and not to establish bounties of such a kind during the whole continuance of the said Convention. For the application of this provision, sugar-sweetened products, such as preserves, chocolates, biscuits, con- densed milk, and all other analogous products containing, in a notable proportion, artificially incorporated sugar, are assimilated to sugar.
By "The Sugar Convention Act, 1903" (3 Edw. VII., cap. 21), passed to give effect to this Convention, it is provided in Section 1 as follows:-
1. Where it is reported by the Permanent Commission that any direct or indirect bounty is granted in any foreign country on the production or export of sugars, His Majesty may, by Order in Council, make a prohibition Order, that is to say, an Order prohibiting sugar from that foreign country to be imported or brought into the United Kingdom, subject to any provision which may be made by Parliament, in lieu of such prohibition, to impose a special duty on such sugar in accordance with the Convention.
2. While a prohibition Order is in force, the laws relating to Customs shall apply as if the sugar in respect of which the Order is made was specified in the Table of prohibitions and restrictions inwards, contained in Section 42 of "The Customs Con- solidation Act, 1876."
By an Order in Council made under this section, and dated the 11th August, 1903, after reciting that it appears from the finding of the Permanent Commission that the said Permanent Commission had reported that a bounty on the exportation of sugars is granted in Denmark, Russia, and the Argentine Republic, it was ordered that from and after the 1st September, 1903, and subject to any such provision by Parliament as therein before treated, all sugar from Denmark, Russia, and the Argentine Republic (not including molasses and sugar-sweetened products) shall, except in transit, be prohibited to be imported or brought into the United Kingdom, and, in relation to this Order, certain regulations were prescribed. The prohibition has been extended by an Order in Council dated the 23rd June, 1904, to sugar from the Dominican Republic.
The effect of the Act and Orders is that sugar from these four countries is liable to forfeiture under the Customs Laws on importation into the United Kingdom.
It will be observed that Article I. of the Convention deals only with the suppres sion of bounties, and that for this purpose alone does the Convention specifically provide that sugar-sweetened products are to be assimilated to sugar. Article III. contains an engagement to limit the surtax-that is to say, the difference between the rate of duty or taxation to which foreign sugar is liable and the rate of duty or taxa- tion to which home-produced sugar is subject; but the Permanent Commission have decided that the rates of surtax fixed in this Article for raw and refined sugars respec- tively are not applicable to sugar-sweetened products.
There is no definition of sugar in the Act, and goods which, to a more or less extent, contain or are prepared with sugar are imported to a slight extent from Russia and the other three countries affected by the Order in Council, and to a considerable
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