HC Deb 06 June 1890 vol 345 cc157-8
MR. P. STANHOPE (Wednesbury)

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government have now more fully considered the hardships entailed upon British subjects resident in France by the French Military Law of 1889, which imposes military service upon children of the first generation born in France of British parentage; and whether Her Majesty's Government will, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, make representations to the French Government, pointing out that, in consideration of the fact that citizens of the French Republic resident in England under similar conditions are not liable to any military service, it would be proper to extend reciprocal advantages by the exercise of a dispensing power to British subjects resident in France?

SIR J. FERGUSSON

The new French Naturalisation Law enacts that children born in Prance of a father also born in France are French citizens, and the Military Law imposes military service upon such persons as French citizens. Although, according to British Law, grandchildren of a natural born British subject are British subjects oven though born abroad, Her Majesty's Government have been advised that there is no proper ground of protest against the new French Law.