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to enjoy the immunities procured in the treaty
(conscription, etc.). Parliament (somewhat
reluctantly) accepted this.
(iii) There was also one strong suggestion (from the Leader
of the Opposition, Lord Rosebery) for the removal and
resettlement elsewhere in the Empire, and at public
expense, of those Heligolanders who so wished, but it
was rejected by the Government.
(iv) Few applications for retention of British nationality
were received for some time after the cession, but nonthelc
the FO very shortly after the cession (6 Aug) found it necessary or desirable (the reason is not clear) to enquire of the German govt what measures they were taking to give
effect to the islanders' right of option. An evasive reply
was received and the FO did not pursue the matter -mistaker
as was to appear.
Before the period for the option ended (1 Jan. 1892),
and after it, complaints began to be received from Heligo- landers of "persecution" by the Germans in the island of
those who had opted for British nationality. They complanie
of being treated as aliens in their own land and notably ca
having to pay an additional poll tax as aliens under German
law, higher rates for trading licences as aliens, and of· being denied, as aliens, the right of acting as ferrymen (a common trade amongst them). A few had emigrated either to
Britain or the US to avoid this treatment.
Enquiries were made of the Ambassador in Berlin during 1892 about this and the answer, was that these German measur were only the liabilities of all aliens in German law and
not directed against them as Britishers. However, on other
evidence both Foreign & Colonial Offices concluded that pressure was being put upon those who had opted for British nationality to become German citizens and that this was in fact the characteristic Germanizing' policy of Prussia whi
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