§ Mr. TOUCHEasked whether the Government accept the claim of the Russian Government that naturalisation of a Russian subject in Great Britain without the permission of the Russian authorities is ineffective, in the sense that the British Government in such circumstances will not claim for the person so naturalised or for his child the same rights and protection in Russia as they would claim for a British subject in Russia about whose nationality there was no dispute?
Mr. McKINNON WOODThe governing principle is that no State is entitled to afford diplomatic protection to one of its 1530 subjects in another State if that person is also a subject of such other State. His Majesty's Government would not be entitled to afford a person naturalised in this country, under the Act of 1844, or his child, protection when within the limits of the Russian Empire. A similar principle is laid down in Section 7, Paragraph 3, of the Naturalisation Act of 1870, which provides that an alien naturalised in this country shall not, when within the limits of the foreign State of which he was a subject previously to obtaining his certificate of naturalisation, be deemed to be a British subject, unless he has ceased to be a subject of that State in pursuance of the laws thereof, or in pursuance of a treaty to that effect. There is no such treaty between this country and Russia.
§ Mr. MORRELLIs there any difference in the case of a person born or naturalised before 1870?