TNAG-0901-FCO40-1111-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1979 — Page 31

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BRITISH NATIONALITY ACTS--GENERAL PART II British parents, commends the principles of the proposals con- ued therein to the favourable consideration of the Governments of the Dominions and India.'

The proposals in question were to the effect that every child born abroad of a British father should be a British subject if two main conditions were satisfied. These conditions were calculated to show continued connexion and sympathy with the British Empire. Where they were fulfilled British nationality could be transmitted by descent from one generation to another indefinitely. The conditions were: (1) that the birth was registered at a British Consulate within one year of its occurrence, and (2) the child on attaining twenty-one must assert his British nationality by a formal act. An Act was passed on these lines in 1922.1

Quring the course of all the legislation on the subject of British nationality which was passed after 1914, attempts were made to obtain special provisions for the national status of married women The common-law rule had been that marriage has no effect on a woman's national status. This was altered in 1844 and 1870, and modified in 1914. But the general principle of the 1914 Act was preserved in all laver legislation-that a woman by marriage to an alien loses her British nationality. It was not foreseen that, in many cases, a woman by marrying an alien did not acquire his nationality. In that event, by the operation of Section 10 of the 1914 Act, she lost her British nationality, and became stateless. It was desirable to remedy this situation, and The Hague Conference of 1930 on the Codification of International La agreed on a Convention on the subject. The British Government introduced a Bill in 1933, which became law and carried into effect the 1930 Convention.2

The national status of married women became a thorny subject as the movement for the equality of women with men gathered strength. On the one hand there were protagonists of the principle that the husband is the head of the family, and that nationality legislation must have regard to the family as a unit, and not to the individual Therefore, it being desirable that the unity of husband and wi in the family be preserved, the wife's status should in principle follow that of her husband. Subject to the very far- reaching qualifications introduced in 1933 coupled with those of

1 Hansard. Commons, Fifth Series, vol. 156, col. 521.

2 Tbid., vol. 281, cols. 353, 822. 825. See, as to the provisions of the Convention, above, p. 22.