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Memorandum. The universal idea underlying nationality is based on the principle that no one can cast of his allegiance to the Crow or State to which he owes it without the acquiescence express or implied of such Crown or State. This principle is based on the maxim nemo potest patriam exuere and from it flows the principle which in all nations makes treason a crime. The conditions Lowever on which nationality is based differ under different systems of law. In some it is depen- -dent on the place of birth (as it was in England by Common Law) in others on descent from male ancestors and in others again on a com- -bination of them both. Of these, descent from male ancestors if not carried too far is, it is submitted, the most reasonable and con- -venient. In fact in England it was soon found that adherence to the principle of nationality being dependent on birth was impossible with the result that, by successive enactments or exceptions to the Common Law, Kings' children, Ambassadors' children, Soldiers' children and eventually subjects' children (whether those of natural born or naturalised subjects) wherever born were also recognised as within the ligeance. This brings us at once to that most undesirable but inevitable result dual nationality, a status which is and must be recognised by all who have to deal with this subject. In a Colony such as Hongkong where the great majority of the population are not Merely Chinese by race but are constantly travelling to China, never losing sight of their native villages, causing their births and deaths to be recorded as they occur in their ancestral shrines, and visiting the said shrines and ancestral tombs annually, to say nothing of referring their disputes to their village elders actively engaing in Chinese political and comercial questions and, when they can afford it, ensuring their burial on the hillsides near their native villages, it becomes impossible to believe that, brought up as they are under a system of family law which recognises descent and not accident of birth as the test of nationality - for it must not be supposed that the first two articles of the recently published
are
Chinese nationality laws more then declaratory of the Common Law of
the great majority of the Chinese in the Colony have^
the Chinese
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