Page image
Page image

536

A.—s

" (6.) The Imperial Act must provide that the proclamation aforementioned shall name the authority to whom application shall be made for certificates of naturalization, and by whom they shall be issued, and that the powers and duties conferred under the Act on the Secretary of State shall be exercised by the said authority. It should also provide that a certificate of naturalization issued by such authority shall have effect, to all intents and purposes, as if it were a certificate granted by the Secretary of State, under the Imperial Act. "(7.) The following provisions in the draft Bill should, however, he amended before it can be accepted by some of the self-governing Colonies :— " (a.) The Bill, as drafted, applies to aliens of non-European descent equally with those of European birth or descent. In some of the self-governing Colonies (Natal for example) local naturalization is granted only to Europeans, and it is unlikely, therefore that any such Colony will agree to recognise as a British subject any coloured person coming to reside therein, who has been naturalized in some other portion of His Majesty's Dominions where no colour distinction is made. On the other hand, the Imperial Parliament may strongly object to making any such distinction in any naturalization law submitted to it, especially seeing that no such distinction is made in the present Imperial Act of 1870, under which it may be urged that a person naturalized within the United Kingdom is a British subject in whatever part of His Majesty's Dominions he may take up his residence. This difficulty may be overcome by providing that a certificate of naturalization granted in any Colony in which the Imperial Act has been nut ?n force in manner prescribed in the last preceding subsection shall have effect beyond the borders of such Colony only when granted to a person of European birth or descent. By such a provision one Colony would not be bound to admit as British subjects persons of non-European descent naturalized in some other Colony under the provisions of the Imperial Act put in force in such other Colony as prescribed in the last preceding subsection. Notwithstanding such a provision, a coloured person naturalized in the United Kingdom could be a British subject in whatever part of His Majesty's Dominions he may take up his residence. It is difficult to see how this can he avoided in view of the fact that such is the position under the present Imperial Act, which has been operative since 1870. In section 9of the Draft Bill, the words ' except as otherwise provided by law' shall be inserted after the word ' shall ' in the first line of that clause 30, so as to make it quite clear that a coloured person, naturalized in England, although a British subject everywhere, would, on taking up his residence in any Colony, be subject to the same political and other disabilities as are imposed by the law of that colony on coloured persons, even though they may be British subjects. " (b.) Section 7 of the Draft Bill provides as a condition precedent to the issue of certificates of naturalization that the applicant for them should have, within a certain limited time, resided in His Majesty's Dominions for a period of not less than five years. It would be better to insist that for one of those years, namely, for the twelve months immediately preceding his application, he should have resided within that portion of His Majesty's Dominions in which his application is made. This would give the authority in whom is vested the discretion of issuing certificates of naturalization, a better opportunity of exercising

Fourteenth Day. 9 May 1907.

Naturalization. (General Botha.)

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert