CO885(1-2) — Page 429

8

nies. It remains to disabuse the Governor of the error into which the local regulations have led him.

From the preceding statements it will be gathered that there is a general law, co-exten- sive with the British Empire, which refuses to any naturalized alien certain privileges. The Statute 7th and 8th Victoria has very mate- rially changed the law in this respect. If so much of that statute as relates to this subject extends to the colonies, then the restrictive clauses of the Acts of William III and George 1 will hereafter, and prospectively, have no opera- tion there. But, even so, it will remain a ques- tion whether those Acts do not operate to impose these restrictions on all antecedent colonial naturalizations.

The Acts of George II and George III for 'naturalizing Protestants in the trans-Atlantic colonies seem to have superseded or disregarded these restrictions. But these Acts of George II and George III have virtually been a dead letter, and may pretty much be laid out of

account.

The Acts of Upper Canada, of Lower Canada, and of United Canada must, apparently, be understood, according to the opinion of the law officers in the South Australian case, as being tacitly restrained by the Act of William 111, and as giving, in reality, and in legal effect, much less than they seemed to give in words. Yet, assuredly, this is a doctrine which would hardly be acknowledged in the colony.

The promise to render Canadian naturaliza- tions as effective for all purposes as naturaliza- · tions by Act of Parliament, will require some technical care in the fulfilment of it. But it will be impossible to make this concession to Canada, and to refuse it to any other colony. The consequent change in the Navigation Act will be of no little importance.

The confirmation of the Mauritius laws (which contain the restrictive clauses) may perhaps proceed without any prejudice to the

9

general question how far colonial naturaliza-

tions must be so restricted. But that is a point the decision of which is necessary, with a view

to instruct the Governors of Van Diemen's Land, New South Wales, Hong Kong, South Australia, and Western Australia, as to the limits of their legislative power.

The general result seems to be, that there ought to be an Act of Parliament ascer- taining what is the extent of the rights con- ferred on an alien when naturalized by the legislature of a British colony or in pursuance

of any such Act;-the extent both locally and otherwise, that is, whether the privilege is to be confined to the colony in which it is granted. or is to be enjoyed throughout the empire; and whether the naturalized person is to enjoy every privilege of British birth, or is to be curtailed of some of those privileges. To which, should apparently be added a declaration ascer- taining whether the Act of Victoria extends to the colonies, or to any of them.

Such an Act ought, as it should seem, to give to colonial naturalization within the

par. ticular colony, but nowhere else, all the advan- tages which naturalization in this country imparts throughout the empire; and it might declare that neither the Act of William III, nor the Act of George I, nor the Act of Victoria, extends to or is in force in any colony.

April 5, 1847.

D

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

PLEC.O. 885

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC. COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO