to the State. The Committee recommended that as regards children born before naturalisation of the father, their names might be included in the father's certificate, on his declaring his intention that they should reside with him somewhere in the King's dominions; but on coming of age the child should have the option of making a 'declaration of alienage' so as to put off his or her British nationality. And as regards children born after naturalisation of the father, the child should be deemed to be British wherever born. In the case of a British woman losing her nationality by marrying an alien and being left a widow with young children, the Secretary of State should have discretion to naturalise the children without requiring fulfilment of the ordinary conditions. By this concession the sons, for example, might be enabled to enter the British army before they were too old. In the case of a British father making a declaration of alienage, the children under age should thereby become aliens too.

But our main concern is with the great anomaly. In 1899-1901 it was less flagrant than it has since become, the volume of foreign settlement in the Dominions being then comparatively small. But already it was sufficiently real for the Committee to give it their best attention. The position was, and is, that persons naturalised under the local law of any Dominion or colony, or possibly even in Britain too, remain aliens everywhere else, even in other parts of the Empire. It is true that the Foreign Office often recognises the claim of such a person to its good offices; but, say the Committee, this is a matter not of law but of discretion.' They point out that, while such a state of affairs continues, little progress can be made with the policy of negotiating treaties for eliminating 'double nationality.' Foreign Governments could not be expected to agree to cancel the allegiance of their emigrant subjects unless the British Government could offer to those settlers a nationality as ubiquitous in intention as that which they would have lost.*

Conventions were made with the United States in 1871 and 1872 for the purpose of preventing double nationality. But their effect seems to be doubtful, owing to the language of the English and Colonial laws, which suggests that with us naturalisation is a local status only.

The remedial proposal of the Committee became the starting point of the negotiations with the Dominions which at length have culminated in the present Bill. Looking back over the long discussion, it is easy to perceive and distinguish two alternative methods by which the desired reform might be constitutionally effected. Imperial legislation is necessary in any case, but it might take either of two forms. One plan would be for the Imperial Government to retain in its own hands the exclusive power of making full British subjects, employing for this purpose oversea the Governor or GovernorGeneral as its own servant. But it would not be surprising if the Dominions were shy of that plan. Their own parliaments follow Westminster in being sensitive to anything which may appear at all to threaten the powers which they have acquired, and which to them are the safeguards of public liberty. Having already acquired a certain power in regard to naturalisation, they might easily be jealous of the reappearance of the Imperial Government side by side with their own officers in that field, even if the distinction between 'local' and 'Imperial' (or world-wide) naturalisation would clearly delimit the respective spheres of authority. The other plan would be for the Imperial Parliament to pass an enabling measure, enabling Dominion parliaments to give extra-territorial validity to a certain class of law, viz. laws of naturalisation. Or, to put it in a possibly more accurate way, the Imperial Act would recognise the extra-territorial validity of the specified class of colonial statute. Far from threatening Dominion autonomy, such an Act would strengthen it in a most important manner, by emphasising a principle which marks a long step towards giving the Dominions the status of Nation-States constitutionally equal with Britain.*

But it is not quite clear which of those two methods was followed in the proposal of the Committee in 1901. Broadly, their suggestion was that the Governor should be empowered, by Order-in-Council from Downing Street, to grant certificates of full naturalisation to persons

*The Extradition Act of 1870 and the Copyright Act of 1886 are cited by Mulvey as examples of Imperial Statutes enabling the Dominions to legislate with extra-territorial effect.

who had fulfilled conditions 'substantially the same' as those required for naturalisation in the United Kingdom, leaving intact the existing power of the local Governments to grant local naturalisation on such conditions as the local legislatures might ordain. Described in that way, the proposal seems to illustrate the first of the two methods. In up-to-date Canadian parlance it would be described as the 'centralist' policy. A priori it is what one would have expected to issue from a British official committee at that time, because they would instinctively assume, like Mr Keith, that'naturalisation is essentially an Imperial concern.' Subsequently, however, we find the secretary of the Committee explaining, in reply to some criticisms from Ottawa, that their proposals were 'that the Government of the United Kingdom shall have no greater powers than those which we recommend to be conferred on the Governments of other parts of His Majesty's dominions.' That seems to be a negative way of saying that the powers of Dominion Governments were to be raised to an equality with those of the British Government. It would accord with the other of the two methods-in Canadian parlance the 'autonomist' policy. But students may be excused if they find a difficulty in understanding the precise intention of a proposal which seems to have been found equally perplexing by the practical statesmen who in various parts of the Empire were called upon to deal with it. A characteristic feature of the whole discussion, which has lasted from 1901 to 1913, is that the matter which seemed so simple at first sight became more and more complicated the further it was examined.

The question of constitutional principle was one of three main difficulties which delayed the progress of reform; although, being entangled in a mass of other detail, it did not emerge clearly until later. The second great difficulty lay in the differences subsisting between the conditions prescribed for local naturalisation in Britain and in the various Dominions, representing to some extent differences of social policy. After the Imperial Act of 1844, and again after the Act of 1870, the self-governing and other colonies in most cases proceeded to pass local naturalisation laws, modelled generally on the British Act. Thus they followed the British exemplar

in permitting aliens to hold property excepting ships. This provision was adopted in Canada as elsewhere, and it disposes of the notion that American settlers in Canada apply to be naturalised only in order to obtain title to their land. Again, the colonial laws followed the British model in reserving full discretion to the minister to refuse a certificate without having to explain why. As showing the instinct of Britannic solidarity, it is worth noting that in several instances (though Canada came into line only at a later date) it was provided that persons who had already obtained certificates in another part of the Empire, or at least in the United Kingdom, should be granted local naturalisation forthwith.

In respect of detail, however, the colonial laws often differed not only from each other but from their English prototype. In the case of the self-governing colonies the most important differences may be classified as follows: (1) The condition of five years' preliminary residence was generally felt to be too exacting; the policy oversea being to turn settlers into citizens as quickly as possible, and naturalisation being the primary condition of political rights. Thus in Canada the term was reduced to three years; while in New Zealand no term was stipulated at all, reliance being placed on the test of character and education. (2) As to other conditions, there was a tendency to stiffen rather than relax the English standard. Whereas in the British Act nothing was said about criminals or other classes of social undesirables, some of the colonial Acts contained safeguards against such classes. One has to remember that in Britain there was an old tradition of affording 'asylum' to political refugees (a class which can contain undesirables); while in the young countries oversea the instinct of selection was more alive than in the old country, where the permanent population was already too large to feel nervous, as yet, about the social effects of unrestricted immigration or naturalisation. (3) The introduction of a racial test in some of the colonial laws signified a radical departure from the spirit of the English law. By an Act passed in Queensland in 1867 no Asiatic or African alien could be naturalised unless married, and with his wife also living in the colony; and even when naturalised he could not become a member of the

Executive or Legislature. In Natal, while still a Crown Colony, the policy of restricting naturalisation to persons ' of European parentage or descent' was adopted by law in 1874. In New Zealand a special fee of 17. was imposed on the naturalisation of a Chinese by an Act of 1892. Later, in 1896, Chinese were explicitly debarred from naturalisation. In Australia naturalisation was one of the matters in regard to which the Federal Council, the precursor of federal union, was empowered to legislate at the request of two or more colonies. The Council in 1897 promulgated a law applying to Victoria and Queensland for facilitating the naturalisation of persons of European descent.' Having regard to such discriminations, it is not surprising to find that these laws of Queensland, Natal, and the Federal Council did not contain the provision that British certificates might be recognised; though at a later date it came to be recognised that the risk was not really sufficiently important to justify withholding the Britannic amenity.

The remedial proposal of the Committee in 1901 was circulated to the Dominions by Mr Chamberlain, and came before the Colonial Conference over which he presided in 1902. Correspondence was continued under the Liberal Government which succeeded to office at the end of 1905. The matter was carried another stage at the Colonial Conference of 1907, by which time the first draft of the proposed Imperial Bill had been prepared, embodying largely the views of the Committee. The discussion revealed not only the instinctive dislike of some of the Dominion statesmen for the proposed procedure by Imperial legislation, but also their feeling that the English law of naturalisation, which was to set the standard for the Empire, was deficient in safeguards against criminals and undesirables. Nor were they wholly convinced on this point by the arguments of the Home Secretary (Mr, afterwards Viscount, Gladstone) that the Aliens Act, 1905, was now restraining the influx of low-class foreigners, and that the actual administration of the naturalisation law was much more stringent than might be supposed from its terms. A resolution was

* He explained that every applicant was required to give four references as to character, and one as to residence, and pay a fee of 51.