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Fourteenth Day.

9 May 1907.

NATURALIZATION.

Sir JOSEPH WARD: The immigration law there would come into conflict with the proposals under this Bill. Under our immigration laws in New Zealand, which I think our country would not relax, we insist upon certain examinations, and will not allow aliens who do not comply with the reasonable conditions that we require to come into our country. I want to be perfectly sure, speaking from a New Zealand standpoint, that in any legis- lation that is put upon the Statute Book in the hope of having law common to all as Mr. Gladstone said, we maintain the right of New Zealand to exercise to the fullest possible extent the control of an alien race that we might consider an undesirable acquisition to our community. I am not saying it offensively in any sense whatever to any other race, but the feeling that we should help our own race permeates the whole country. The school children in our schools are taught to regard New Zealand as a white man's country. We look upon it as a glorious portion of the British possessions, and we want to keep it so. We are advancing in many ways and are well circumstanced with a fine population throughout, and we want to avoid the mixing up and the contamination of the races both now and in the years to come by preserving it for white men to-day and not allowing any law, whether for the purpose of naturalization or for any other purpose to interfere with it. That is the fundamental and essential condition which I wish to see established in the interest of Great Britain just as well as of New Zealand.

With that reservation, as far as we are concerned, 1 should only be too glad to assist in the very laudable object Mr. Gladstone has in view of having uniformity of treatment, but I do hope in giving effect to that uniformity of treatment that in the main overriding law you will make provision that the right of a self-governing Colony cannot be overridden by saying we have assented to some principle which might be found in operation injurious to our people.

Mr. GLADSTONE: It would be our intention to meet the views you have expressed. I am not prepared at the present moment to say in what terms in the Bill it should be done. I think that is a matter for discussion. It will be of great value to me to have the views of the representatives of the different Colonies, so that we can consider subsequently having those views in black and white before us how best they can be met in the provisions in the Bill. The Bill itself, as explained last time, is only put forward as a basis for discussion. It is a draft Bill. There is no idea of at once intro- ducing it into the House of Commons and discussing it there with all these particular matters put forward to-day by General Botha and others unsifted and practically unsettled. There is no idea of that sort. I think I can give an assurance that the views put forward generally to-day will be carefully considered before anything substantive and final is proposed formally. Probably the best plan, if this resolution which has been moved is accepted by the Conference, will be for us to consider, in the light of what has been said, what alteration in the draft Bill could be made in order to meet the views expressed and then to leave the fuller discussion to the subsidiary Conference which, I understand, could be held under the terms of the resolution adopted on the 20th April.

It is a very difficult matter, from the point of view of the law alone, and I should not care to attempt to offer suggestions or solutions of the various points raised straight away.

Dr. SMARTT: It is a very important question to get settled, if you can do so, somewhat on the lines suggested by you, because we have the greatest difficulty. For instance, in South Africa, I take it that an alien naturalized in one Colony, perhaps holding the very highest office, who,

state of affairs.

any

after years and years goes into another Colony, finds that he has no privilege of British citizenship whatsoever. That is a very undesirable With regard to the people naturalized in Great Britain: they have an advantage, I take it, under your Act of 1870. If they go to Colony they have all the rights and privileges of British citizenship. I am glad to understand, if I interpret your remarks aright, that you are prepared to consider what has been said by Sir Joseph Ward in that direction. There. should be no difficulty in arriving at a common term, or common period, of naturalization which would be acceptable to all portions of the British Empire. It is a fact that, in Great Britain, you may naturalize an alien of non-European extraction, and if there would be any possibility of your modifying that clause in your Bill so as not to allow him, ipso facto, to claim the rights of British citizenship in British possessions, it would meet a great many of us to a very large extent. Then there would be a possibility of the Home (overnment intro- ducing a Bill, fixing, say, upon a certain period of five years, and other ternis to be agreed upon, and practically without special legislation in the other Colonies or Dominions, it would only be necessary to pass a resolution or a clause adopting the Home Act, which really would allow anybody naturalized in any portion of the British Empire, who was of European extraction, and bad resided the specified period of time, ipso facto to have all the privileges of British citizenship in any part of the British Empire to which he went.

I might give you a very strong case indeed. We had in the Cape Colony a very notable alien in the person of the late Colonel Schermbrucker. He was naturalized as a British subject, and became a Minister of the Crown. To everybody it must appear as most undesirable that if, during his lifetime, he had gone, say, to the Colony of New Zealand, or to the Colony of Australia, he would have had to be re-naturalized, and could not have claimed the privilege of British citizenship. I believe such is the law as it exists at the present time. I should like to have Mr. Deakin's view upon the question of an alien, naturalized in Cape Colony (no matter how high a post he held in that Colony) if he went to Australia, and, being of alien birth, his British citizen- ship in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope would not give him the privilege of British citizenship in the Commonwealth of Australia.

Mr. DEAKIN: I think that is so.

Mr. GLADSTONE: Yes, 1 think it is so.

Dr. SMARTT: I think it will appeal to everybody that that is a very desirable thing to alter. I know of many cases of the same kind, and it is because we feel that these cases will lead to friction that we do hope the Imperial Government will draft a Bill which will be acceptable practically to all the Dominions, so that it will be only necessary for the Colonies to adopt the principles of the Imperial Bill, thereby giving all the privileges of British citizenship throughout the Empire.

Mr. GLADSTONE: The Bill as now drawn is with the object of meeting that point.

Dr. SMARTT: If you can meet the case of the non-European, it will at once simplify the matter.

Mr. GLADSTONE: That is a matter of very considerable difficulty, for reasons which I need not state. I think it would simplify matters, but that is the point we have to consider, and to get round in some way, in order to meet the views of the different Colonies.

1 40446.

E o

Fourteenth Day.

9 May 1907.

NATURALIZATION.

(Dr. Smartt.)