CLAUSE 1.—(Substitution of Provisions for Section 7 of the Principal Act.) (Hansard, 17 July 1918)

HC Deb 17 July 1918 vol 108 cc1077-182 1077

§ The following Sections shall be substituted for Section seven of the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, 1914 (hereinafter referred to as "the principal Act"), which relates to the revocation of certificates of naturalisation:—

§ (Revocation of Certificates of Naturalisation.)

§ "7.—(1) Where it appears to the Secretary of State that a certificate of naturalisation granted by him has been obtained, by false representations or fraud, the Secretary of State may by order revoke the certificate, and may, if he thinks fit, before so doing refer the case for such inquiry as is hereinafter specified.

§ (2) Without prejudice to the foregoing provision the Secretary of State may by Order revoke a certificate of naturalisation granted by him in any case in which he is satisfied after such inquiry as is hereinafter specified that the person to whom the certificate was granted either—

(a) has shown himself by overt act or speech to be disloyal to His Majesty; or
(b) has within five years of the date of the grant of the certificate been sentenced by any Court in His Majesty's Dominions to imprisonment for a term of not less than twelve months or to a term of penal servitude; or
(c) was not of good character at the date of the grant of the certificate; or
(d) has since the date of the grant of the certificate been for a period of not less than seven years ordinarily resident out of His Majesty's Dominions otherwise than as a representative of a British subject, firm, or company carrying on business, or an institution established, in His Majesty's Dominions, or in the service of the Crown, and has not maintained substantial connection with His Majesty's Dominions;

and that (in any case) the continuance of the certificate is not conductive to the public good.

§ (3) An inquiry under this Section shall be held by a committee constituted for the purpose by the Secretary of State, presided over by a person (appointed by the Secretary of State with the approval of the Lord Chancellor) who holds or has held high judicial office, and shall be conducted in such manner as the Secretary of State may direct:

§ Provided that any such inquiry may, if the Secretary of State thinks fit, instead of being held as aforesaid be referred to the High Court for consideration and report, and the practice and procedure of any inquiry so referred shall be regulated by rules of court.

§ A committee appointed under this Section shall have all such powers, rights, and privileges as are vested in the High Court or in any judge thereof on the occasion of any action, in respect of the following matters:

(a) the enforcing the attendance of witnesses and examining them on oath, affirmation, or otherwise, and the issue of a commission or a request to examine witnesses abroad; and
(b) the compelling the production of documents; and
(c) the punishing persons guilty of contempt;

and a summons signed by one or more members of the committee may be substituted for and shall be equivalent to any formal process capable of being issued in any action for enforcing the attendance of witnesses and compelling the production of documents.

§ (4) Where a person to whom a certificate of naturalisation has been granted in some other part of His Majesty's Dominions is resident in the United Kingdom, the certificate may be revoked in accordance with this Section by the Secretary of State, with the concurrence of the Government of that part of His Majesty's Dominions in which the certificate was granted.

§ (5) Where the Secretary of State revokes a certificate of naturalisation, the revocation shall have effect from such date as the Secretary of State may direct, and the Secretary of State may Order the certificate to be given up and cancelled, and any person refusing or neglecting to give up his certificate shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds."

§ (Effect of Revocation of Certificates.)

§ "7A.—(1) Where a certificate of naturalisation is revoked the Secretary of State may by Order direct that the wife and minor children (or any of them) of the person whose certificate is revoked shall cease to be British subjects, and any such person shall thereupon become an alien; but except where the Secretary of State directs as aforesaid, the nationality of the wife and minor children of the person whose certifi- 1079 cate is revoked shall not be affected by the revocation, and they shall remain British subjects:

§ Provided that it shall be lawful for the wife of any such person within six months after the date of the Order of revocation to make a declaration of alienage, and thereupon she and any minor children of her husband and herself shall cease to be British subjects and shall become aliens.

§ (2) The provisions of this Section shall, as respects persons affected thereby, have effect in substitution for any other provisions of this Act as to the effect upon the wife and children of any person where the person ceases to be a British subject and such other provisions shall accordingly not apply in any such case."

§ Sir OWEN PHILIPPS
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (1), after the word "fraud" ["false representations or fraud"], to insert the words "or by concealment of material circumstances."
The first Clause provides that where it appears to the Secretary of State that a certificate of naturalisation granted by him has been obtained by false representations or fraud, the Secretary of State may, by order, revoke the said certificate. That meets cases of false representation or fraud, but it does not cover the case of concealment of material circumstances, and, in a case where a certificate of nationality has been granted by the suppression of certain facts which, had they been known to the Secretary of State, would have prevented the grant of the certificate, and I suggest it is only fair and reasonable that the Secretary of State should have the power to revoke such certificate, and that his power of revocation should not be confined solely to cases of fraud or misrepresentation. I regard such power quite as important as that of revocation for direct fraud, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman may see his way to accept this very reasonable Amendment. There is no doubt a very strong feeling that this Bill, as drafted, does not go far enough, and does not cover the cases of men who have got naturalised, but who ought never to have been granted the certificate of naturalisation.

§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir G. Cave)
It is not easy for anyone who knows the practice of naturalisation to conceive cases where the concealment of facts does not also involve fraud, but still it might happen, and therefore I am quite prepared to accept the Amendment.

§ Amendment agreed to.

1080

Major NEWMAN
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (1), after the word "by" ["has been obtained by"], to insert the words "undue influence, suppression of essential facts."
I quite realise that the question of the suppression of essential facts is well covered by the Amendment which has just been agreed to. I attach rather more importance, however, to getting a concession on this point than I do to the adoption of the words "suppression of material circumstances." After the War the obtaining or retaining of naturalisation will be a very valuable asset, as it will afford an opportunity for men who get naturalised to start new businesses in this country or to pick up the derelict ends of old businesses which may have disappeared during the War. It will be an extremely valuable thing then for an alien to become naturalised, and those who want to be naturalised or to retain their naturalisation will undoubtedly exercise considerable pressure in order to secure their ends. May I give the Committee one instance of the kind of undue influence that may be exerted? There may have been an enemy alien business which was wound up during the War by an Order of the Board of Trade. The owner may have lost his naturalisation, and may have been deported from this country. At the end of this War this particular man, who may have a friendship with some friendly neutral, may go to him and ask him to try and get back into this country and to reacquire the old business, or restart it, and hold it as a sort of warming pan for those who originally owned it. It is quite possible that this friendly alien may have an English friend in this country over whom he may have some sort of pull, either commercial or moral, which he will use in order to induce that Englishman to stand sponsor for him and induce the Home Secretary to agree to the naturalisation of the friendly neutral. The Englishman will do that, although he may well know that this friendly neutral is merely to act as the warming pan of the enemy alien who wants to get back his business. He will agree to stand as sponsor simply because he is forced to do so by reason of the pull which this friendly neutral has over him. That, I submit, is a case of undue influence which might easily occur, and I suggest that if facts of that sort are brought to the notice of the Home Secretary or any other 1081 competent authority the naturalisation thus secured ought to be revoked forthwith. I could give other examples of possible exercise of undue influence. Undoubtedly every effort will be made by these friendly neutrals to get back to this country immediately after the War, and to secure naturalisation, in order to pick up businesses which they can hold on behalf of enemy aliens.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I think that we had better confine ourselves to something which we can follow and know. The words suggested would be very difficult to interpret. I do not admit the possibility of undue influence on anybody who would have a hand in granting naturalisation, and, unless I admit that possibility, these words are not required.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ Sir R. COOPER
I beg to move, to leave out the word "may" ["State may by"], and to insert instead thereof the word "shall."
My object is to make it quite certain that where an alien has obtained a certificate of naturalisation under false pretences or through fraud, there shall be no question of permissive powers being given to any Minister, but that in such circumstances the certificate shall be revoked. It is a mistake in a Bill like this to fill it with permissive powers which tend to cause misunderstanding as to the purpose of the Bill. Later on in the Bill the word "may" is used several times, where I recognise that it is quite proper to leave it in, but here I do maintain that it would be very much wiser to make it definite certain that, where certificates are obtained through false pretences or through fraud, those certificates shall be revoked without any question. In a subsequent Amendment, in a new Sub-section, the Home Secretary uses the word "shall"—"shall revoke the certificate." Therefore I am only asking him to accept an Amendment which is entirely consistent with an Amendment that he is about to move personally.

§ Sir G. CAVE
The power of revoking a certificate in the Sub-section only comes into operation when it appears to the Secretary of State that there has been fraud. It is quite plain that he will not inquire into the fraud to satisfy his mind about it unless he means to take action in the event of the result being adverse to the naturalised person. Therefore it 1082 is quite needless to say "shall." It is quite plain that if he finds fraud after inquiry he will take action. I think that the usual form is quite appropriate in this case. I have used the word "shall" in a later Amendment of my own because I want to show that the Secretary of State shall refer all existing certificates granted during the present War to a Committee, and that he shall be bound by their report. But in the present case the word "may" is quite appropriate.

§ Sir E. CARSON
As far as I know as a lawyer, the word "may" in this country may mean "shall," because I cannot imagine that, after the result of the inquiry which has been directed, there is any alternative to the Home Secretary. But I think what the Committee would like to know is not so much which word is used, but whether the Home Secretary, in construing the Section, will feel himself obliged to cancel or revoke the certificate if the word "may" be left there. Lawyers know that "may" very often means "shall."

§ Sir G. CAVE
I think that I have already in my remarks answered that inquiry-yes.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
Now that the Home Secretary has made it absolutely clear that when fraud, misrepresentation, or the concealment of material facts is proved, he intends to revoke the certificate, surely it is better to put into the Act of Parliament the word "shall," in order to carry out the intention which has been expressed. Why should we have discussions that may be in the Law Courts, of which there have been too many already, as to whether "may" means "shall" in a particular context or not? The Home Secretary has clearly stated the intention to revoke. Let it be made clear in the Act of Parliament. In subsequent Sub-sections there is a reason why the Secretary of State should have a discretion, because the facts indicated are such as to give a discretion. In order to draw the distinction between such cases where he is not to have discretion, where he has got to exercise his power absolutely, as soon as the facts are proved, and the cases which come afterwards, surely it is better to put in the word which is understood by laymen rather than to leave the matter vague. My right hon. Friend is Home Secretary, and we have every confidence in him. 1083 There have been Home Secretaries—I need not refer to them by name—in whom we have not had such confidence, and there may be Home Secretaries again in whom we may not have the same confidence. I trust that my right hon. Friend will long retain his present post and will administer this Act, but, in order to guard against the possibility of some less competent Home Secretary in future misunderstanding this Act of Parliament, I beg of my right hon. Friend to bring its language into consonance with the ideas and intentions of the Committee and with his own avowed intention.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Trinity College has informed us that lawyers know that "may" means "shall."

§ Sir E. CARSON
That "may" may mean "shall."

§ Sir F. BANBURY
That is all the more reason for the argument that I am going to put before the Committee. When this Bill becomes an Act it will refer to foreigners, and foreigners do not thoroughly understand the English language, and certainly not the interpretation which is put upon it by lawyers. As my right hon. and learned Friend says that "may" may mean "shall," surely it must be in the interest of laymen, and in the interest of all those whom this Act concerns, not to put in a word which may be interpreted by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen learned in the law in different ways, but to put in a word which everybody shall understand, and which carries out the intention of my right hon. Friend, who says that of course so long as he is Home Secretary, once that he has directed an inquiry and finds that there is fraud, he will take this action. In those circumstances why not put in this word, and say that when certain facts are established, certain consequences shall follow? It is the common sense way of doing it.

Mr. G. LLOYD
I think that, after what the Home Secretary has said, it would give needless ground for anxiety to the public if an Amendment like this were refused. If it really is clear that even if the word "may" is retained action will be taken in the case suggested, then it is rather hard to see why the word "shall" should not be inserted, instead of the word "may." I support the Amendment.

1084

§ Commander BELLAIRS
I rise to support the proposal to substitute "shall" for "may," and for two reasons. First, we have heard from Members learned in the law, continually in this House, in the course of discussion on other Bills, that the word "may" means "shall." Here is an opportunity for the Committee when it means "shall" to insert that word. Another reason is that this House is suspect in regard to aliens, and there is nothing which would create a worse impression than to put the word "may" into a Bill when the public demand the word "shall."

§ Colonel Sir C. SEELY
I hope that the Home Secretary will not give way. I have seen a great many Bills of this character, and I have never seen anything but the word "may," and to put in the word "shall" would be to make a complete change in the custom of this House. I do not know why our ancestors for generations back always put in the word "may" when they meant "shall." My impression is that our ancestors had a great deal of experience of some of those hysterical agitations, such as we are being subjected to at the present time, and I think that it would be extremely foolish of this Committee to give way to such an agitation, and I feel confident that the Committee has sufficient good sense not to give way to it, but will adhere to the good old custom of our ancestors which has not brought in the word "shall" when the word "may" really does everything that is required. The only reason, as I understand the speeches, for altering the word "may" into "shall" is that the Members who have spoken have not confidence in His Majesty's Home Secretary, either this one or someone in the future. This House has perfect confidence in the Home Secretary appointed by His Majesty, and always will have. He is under its control, and I hope that in consequence of the somewhat hysterical agitation we shall not alter the good old customs that have existed for so many years, the alteration of which would be a revolution something like Bolshevism, and that this revolutionary and altogether hopeless proposal will not be accepted by the Home Secretary.

§ General Sir IVOR PHILIPPS
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept the Amendment. We do not want the good old customs about aliens. We have had enough of them. I bring no charge 1085 against my right hon. Friend. I know perfectly well that he will carry it out to the best of his ability, but I think that we ought to put in what we mean. We mean that, if the Secretary of State comes to a certain conclusion, he shall take certain action, I think that the Committee ought to express in this Bill what it means, and to say that it shall be done. I hope that if we go to a Division we shall beat the Government on it. I think that the whole country is determined that we shall do these things.

§ Mr. DAVID MASON
According to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, we ought not to put in the word "shall" instead of "may," and we have it on the authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University that "may" means "shall." I agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite who has just spoken, that we ought to put in the word "shall" as expressing what we mean.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I have submitted my view to the Committee, and while I wish this to be a strongs Bill, I do not think that it ought to be amended by the introduction of a phrase which is rather absurd for an Act of Parliament. If hon. Members will look at the Bill for a moment, I think they will not spend so much time on a point like this. Its object is that the Secretary of State shall have power to revoke a certificate of naturalisation where it is proved that it has been obtained by fraud. The words of the Bill are the exact words used in the existing Statute of 1914, where the word "may" appears. The right hon. Member for Dublin University knows that I am right in objecting to this Amendment. I have put the Clause in the form in which it appears in the Act of 1914. I hope that the Committee will not divide. It is not giving the Bill a fair chance to spend time on points like this. I am prepared to meet Members when I believe that they are right, but I cannot meet them when I believe they are wrong. I want the Committee, as a whole, to support me in my action, which, I am sure, is perfectly reasonable. I am called all sorts of names outside, and my action is referred to as most scandalous and so forth, but I think that I should have support in this House when I am right, and I trust that time will not be occupied 1086 on a matter which might lead to a misunderstanding or wrong impression outside.

§ Mr. WATT
I submit that hon. Members should press this Amendment to substitute the word "shall" for "may." It is clear from the observations of Members in the House that they are practically unanimous that the Amendment should be adopted, and if the matter goes to a Division I trust that Members will vote for the insertion of the word "shall" in place of "may." Where fraud is discovered in the obtaining of a certificate of naturalisation, the Home Secretary should be bound by the introduction of the word "shall" to revoke the certificate. We have been told in this House by the highest authority on legal matters, the right hon. Member for Trinity College, that "may" may mean "shall," and sometimes does mean "shall"; but what we want is that in this Act of Parliament the word shall be "shall," and shall mean "shall." This is a matter of some importance, and, as the rule has been suspended, there is no necessity for hastening foolishly the decision of this Amendment.

§ Colonel GREIG
I associate myself with what the Home Secretary has said, and from the point of view of the law there is no reason for substituting "shall" for "may." I am quite sure that the Home Secretary's construction of this Clause is quite right. Hon. Members who are taking the other view insist on the insertion of the word "shall," and I think what they have in their mind is that some future Home Secretary who was suspect, or in whom there was not confidence, might not revoke the certificate. But even if the word "shall" were inserted you might have a future Home Secretary who would hear all the evidence as to whether or not fraud had been committed in obtaining a certificate, and he might say, after making his investigation, "I have not had it made clear to me that the certificate has been obtained by fraud." So much for the proposed alteration, which would effect nothing more to secure the object in view than does the Bill as it now stands. I support the Secretary of State in resisting the Amendment.

§ Sir R. COOPER
I do not think that the Home Secretary is acting quite fairly when he describes this Amendment as a demonstration and a waste of time.

1087

§ Sir G. CAVE
No.

§ Sir R. COOPER
I have no other object than to try to do my best, and I am very glad I misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman. I cannot understand, however, why he refuses my Amendment, seeing that in a later Amendment in the right hon. Gentleman's name he uses the words "shall revoke." I do not know

Division No. 67.]	AYES.	[4.38 p.m.
Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte	Harris, Percy A. (Leicester, South)	Parkes, Sir Edward
Anderson, William C.	Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry	Parrott, Sir Edward
Baker, Rt. Hon. H. T. (Accrington)	Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon	Partington, Hon. Oswald
Baldwin, Stanley	Higham, John Sharp	Pearce, Sir William (Limehouse)
Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset)	Hinds, John	Peel, Major Hon. G. (Spalding)
Barnston, Major Harry	Hodge, Rt. Hon. John	Pratt, John W.
Barton, Sir William	Holmes, D. T.	Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)
Bathurst, Col. Hon. A. B. (Glouc., E.)	Holt, Richard Durning	Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Br'df'rd, E.)
Beach, William F. H.	Hope, John Deans (Haddington)	Pringle, William M. R.
Beale, Sir William Phipson	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	Pryce-Jones, Col. Sir E.
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Hudson, Walter	Pulley, C. T.
Benn, Sir Arthur S. (Plymouth)	Hughes, Spencer Leigh	Rea, Walter Russell
Bird, Alfred	Hunter, Maj. Sir Chas. Rodk.	Rendall, Athelstan
Blake, Sir Francis Douglas	Illingworth, Rt. Hon. Albert H.	Richardson, Alexander (Gravesend)
Boyton, Sir James	Ingleby, Holcombe	Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)
Brace, Rt. Hon. William	Jackson, Lt.-Col. Hon. F. S. (York)	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Brunner, John F. L.	Jardine, Ernest, (Somerset, East)	Roberts, Sir Herbert (Denbighs)
Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Burn, Col C. R. (Torquay)	Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, E.)	Robinson, Sidney
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Jones, Wm. S. Glyn-(Stepney)	Rutherford, Col. Sir J. (Darwen)
Carew, Charles R. S. (Tiverton)	Jewett, Frederick William	Samuels, Arthur W. (Dub, U.)
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Kenyon, Barnet	Sanders, Col. Robert Arthur
Cator, John	Kerry, Lieut.-Col. Earl of	Seely, Lt.-Col. Sir Charles (Mansfield)
Cave, Rt. Hon. Sir George	Kiley, James Daniel	Shaw, Hon. Alexander
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Knight, Cant. Eric Ayshford	Sherwell, Arthur James
Clough, William	Lambert, Richard (Cricklade)	Somervell, William Henry
Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth)	Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)	Spear, Sir John Ward
Collins, Sir William (Derby)	Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert	Stanton, Charles Butt
Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.	Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)	Stirling, Lt.-Col. Archibald
Cory, James H. (Cardiff)	Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)	Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, W.)
Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry	Lowe, Sir F. W.	Thomas, Sir G. (Monmouth, S.)
Crooks, Rt. Hon. William	M'Callum, Sir John M.	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Currie, G. W.	Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir Donald	Tickler, Thomas George
Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)	Macmaster, Donald	Tootill, Robert
Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas	McMicking, Major Gilbert	Toulmin, Sir George
Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. H.	Maden, Sir John Henry	Turton, Edmund Russborough
Dougherty, Rt. Hon. Sir James B.	Mallalieu, F. W	Walker, Col. W. H.
Edge, Capt. William	Marriott, John A. R.	Weigall, Lt.-Col. W. E. G. A.
Elverston, Sir Harold	Marshall, Arthur Harold	White, James Dundas (Tradeston)
Falle, Sir Bertram Godfray	Mason, James F. (Windsor)	Whiteley, Sir H. J. (Droitwich)
Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L. (Hallam)	Mason, Robert (Wansbeck)	Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)
Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes (Fulham)	Millar, James Duncan	Williams, Aneurin (Durham)
Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue	Molteno, Percy Alport	Williams, Col. Sir R. (Dorset, W.)
Geddes, Sir A. C. (Hants, North)	Morgan, George Hay	Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)
Gibbs, Col. George Abraham	Morison, Hector (Hackney, South)	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. John	Morrell, Philip	Wilson-Fox, Henry (Tamworth)
Glanville, Harold James	Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert	Wright, Henry Fitzherbert
Greig, Colonel James William	Newman, Sir Robert (Exeter)	Younger, Sir George
Gretton, John	Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)	Yoxall, Sir James Henry
Hambro, Angus Valdemar	Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.
Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)	Palmer, Godfrey Mark	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— Captain Guest and Mr. James Hope.
Harris, Sir Henry P. (Paddington, S.)	Parker, James (Halifax)

NOES.
Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick	Greer, Harry	Rowlands, James
Barran, Sir Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)	Harmood-Banner, Sir J. S.	Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry (N'wood)
Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.	Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry	Smallwood, Edward
Booth, Frederick Handel	King, Joseph	Walton, Sir Joseph
Bowden, Major Georgs R. H.	Martin, Joseph	Watt, Henry A.
Cotton, H. E. A.	Mason, David M. (Coventry)	Wedgwood, Lt.-Commander Josiah C.
Cowan, Sir William Henry	Newman, Major J. R. P. (Enfield)	Yate, Col. Charles Edward
Fell, Sir Arthur	Pennefather, De Fonblanque
Gilbert, James Daniel	Perkins, Walter Frank	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— Sir R. Cooper and Mr. Kennedy Jones
Goulding, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Philipps, Maj.-Gen. Sir Ivor (S'hampton)

1088

§ why he applies his argument to my Amendment and does not apply it to the Sub-section which he himself will propose in a few minutes.

§ Question put, "That the word 'may' stand part of the Clause."

§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 152; Noes, 27.

1089

Major NEWMAN
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (1), to leave out the words and may, if he thinks fit, before so doing refer the ease for such inquiry as is hereinafter specified. I have several Amendments down, and I should like your opinion with regard to them, Sir. The first, which is to leave out the word "the" and insert the word "such," is obviously a drafting Amendment, and is only necessary because I propose to leave out certain words in the same line, "and may, if he thinks fit, before so doing refer the case for such inquiry as is hereinafter specified," and transfer them to the end of Subsection (2). I further propose, in Subsection (2), to leave out the words "after such inquiry as is hereinafter specified." I do not know whether I should address my arguments now to all these matters, or confine myself to the first of them?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I do not know that I quite follow the hon. and gallant Member. I think we had better take the matter in instalments, and have the Amendments as they stand on the Paper.

Major NEWMAN
As far as I can make out, this is rather an involved Clause, and the Home Secretary is going to apply two different treatments in two different cases. Where a certificate of naturalisation has been obtained by fraud the Home Secretary may, if he thinks fit, refer the case for an inquiry.

§ Sir E. CARSON
Which Amendment are we on?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I assume that we are on the Amendment in the first Sub-section—to leave out the word "the" and to insert "such."

§ Sir E. CARSON
I cannot make out from the hon. and gallant Member why he suggests that.

Major NEWMAN
It is really a drafting-Amendment. If the words, "and may if he thinks fit before so doing," etc., were taken from the first Sub-section and inserted at the end of the second Subsection, then, instead of having "the certificate," we should have "such certificate."

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I understand the hon. Member is not moving his drafting Amendment, but the second 1090 Amendment on the Paper, namely, to leave out the words, "and may if he thinks fit before so doing refer the case for such inquiry as is hereinafter specified."

Major NEWMAN
I do not understand what you have put. I withdrew my drafting Amendment, and proceeded to argue my next Amendment, but I had not finished my argument on that point.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I thought the hon. and gallant Member had addressed his remarks to that Amendment, and I think it would be for the convenience both of the Committee and the hon. and gallant Member to hear what the Home Secretary has to say upon it.

§ Sir G. CAVE
Which Amendment, Sir?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
The second one.

§ Sir G. CAVE
The second, of course, has substance in it. What it proposes is that the Secretary of State shall have power to revoke a certificate obtained by fraud, but shall not have power before he revokes the certificate to order an inquiry. It seems to me absurd. As a matter of fact, there is now power to revoke a certificate obtained by fraud, but the great difficulty of applying that power is that there is no machinery for inquiry previously. I have revoked one certificate for fraud, but in that case I found a difficulty because there is no machinery for ascertaining whether it was obtained by fraud or not. These words to which the hon. Member objects give me the power to order an inquiry.

§ Sir E. CARSON
May I ask whether the word "may" means "shall" in this case? If it means "shall," I should have thought it was imposing an unnecessary burden upon this Committee.

§ Sir G. CAVE
The right hon. Gentleman will observe that it says "may if he thinks fit."

Major NEWMAN
As a matter of fact, the Home Secretary entirely misunderstands me. I am not objecting to these words at all. On the contrary, they are necessary, only I want them put in in another place in the Bill, namely, at the end of the second Sub-section. If this Amendment could not be moved, my next Amendment on the Paper would be made 1091 impossible, and it is for that reason that I move that these words should be transposed.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7, after Sub-section (1), to insert, (2) Where a certificate of naturalisation has been granted during the present War to a person who at, or at any time before, the grant of the certificate was the subject of a country which at the date of the grant was at War with His Majesty, the Secretary of State shall refer for such inquiry as is hereinafter specified the question whether it is desirable in the public interest that the certificate should be revoked, and if such question shall be answered in the affirmative shall revoke the certificate, but this provision shall not, unless the Secretary of State otherwise orders, apply to a person who at birth was a British subject. The Sub-section carries out the proposals which I outlined in the House the other day. It refers to certificates of naturalisation granted to enemy aliens during the War. There may be cases where a man has lost his enemy nationality and at the date of the grant of the certificate of naturalisation had no nationality at all. I want to include all those cases—not only the man who at the moment was an enemy but who before that time had been an enemy. He may have been naturalised in another country and come over here and got his certificate, and I want to include that case as well as the man who at the moment of naturalisation was a subject of an enemy State. I have put "shall" in this ease because I promised the House the other day that in every case reference should be made, and I do not want to preserve even the semblance of a discretion in these cases. I am willing to be bound to refer all these cases for inquiry and to be bound to act on the results of such inquiry. There is a substantial difference between my form and that of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Sir J. Butcher), appearing next on the Paper. I refer the question "whether it is desirable in the public interest that the certificate should be revoked," but he says that a certificate shall be revoked unless the Committee reports that "for national reasons it is desirable that the certificate should not be revoked." There is a difference of language, and there may be some difference of substance, but I think my form is right. Certificates have been granted by my predecessors for what appeared to them to be 1092 good reasons, and I think the grant ought to have some weight, and I ask the Committee to say whether it shall or shall not be revoked. I am sure they will take a strict view of their functions and that in every case where they think a certificate should be revoked they will report accordingly.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I ought to state that if this Amendment is carried I shall not be able to accept the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. and learned Member for York, so that any points he wishes to raise he had better do so by way of Amendment to the Home Secretary's proposal.

§ [The Amendment standing in the name of Sir J. Butcher was as follows: (2) Where a certificate of naturalisation has been granted after January, nineteen hundred and fourteen, to a subject of a country which is now our enemy, the Secretary of State shall by Order revoke the certificate unless the committee hereinafter referred to or the High Court, after such inquiry as is hereinafter specified, shall report that for national reasons it is desirable that the certificate should not be revoked."]

§ Sir E. CARSON
I am bound to say that for my own part I think the Amendment moved by the Home Secretary is very disappointing. I think the country expects a good deal more than what is suggested by this Amendment, and I would like to have seen an Amendment which prevented certificates of naturalisation being granted to alien enemies, that is, those who belong to enemy countries at war with this country. This Amendment presupposes that some certificates were granted to enemies while this country was at war with those enemies, and I think that is highly improper.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I have never granted such a certificate, and I am quite sure that no such certificate will be granted.

§ 5.0 P.M.

§ Sir E. CARSON
I have the greatest possible confidence in the Home Secretary, but it is quite plain that there were Home Secretaries who granted certificates to subjects whose countries were actually at war with this country, and that is the kind of thing that has aroused the country. I should like to see all such certificates granted since the War absolutely cancelled. Instead of doing that, the Home Secretary refers the matter to a judicial body, with a judge or ex-judge at the head, to decide whether it is desirable in the 1093 public interest that the certificates should be revoked. He does not take any responsibility upon himself, but merely puts it upon them. I thought the House was going to lay down that it was in the public interest that no one who had been an enemy subject when this war broke out should be allowed to have a certificate. Apparently you are going to say to this Committee, "True, this man was a subject of Germany when the War broke out, but he was given a certificate, and you, the Committee, have a right to say that he is to go on having that certificate, and you, the Committee, have a right to say that he is to go on having that certificate." I think that is disappointing, I think it is about as weak as the Clause could be, and while I do not think that the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) goes far enough, I much prefer it, because, at all events, it makes it absolutely necessary that the certificate should be revoked unless there are some grounds shown for not doing so. I merely make this criticism in the hope that the Home Secretary, before the Report stage, will see his way to strengthen this somewhat, because I can assure him there will be great disappointment when it is known that subjects of an enemy country before the War, who have been naturalised since, are to be allowed to retain their naturalisation.

§ Mr. D. MASON
On a point of Order. I understand your ruling, Sir Donald, is that the proposed Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for York which follows cannot be moved if this Amendment is carried. May I ask if that also applies to my Amendment a little later on, in which I propose that the holder of a naturalisation certificate shall have the right of appeal against the decision of any such inquiry to the High Court?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
So far as I recall the hon. Member's Amendment, it follows on another portion of the Clause which is more or less relevant. I cannot say at the moment whether it affects that or not, but if it does affect it—well, we cannot help it.

§ Mr. MASON
If it does affect it, it is very important for me to know, so that if necessary I can move a proviso to this Amendment of the Home Secretary. I am very anxious to argue the right of appeal.

1094

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I had better have a look at it for a moment.

§ Mr. WHYTE
If I understand the argument of the right hon. and learned Gentle-man the Member for Trinity College, he wants to ensure that the Home Secretary shall act in a summary fashion in every case where these certificates have been granted. It is perfectly obvious the Home Secretary cannot act in a summary fashion, but must have a regularly constituted committee of inquiry to assist him to decide as to what persons, technically enemy subjects, are yet entitled to hold British naturalisation certificates. We know perfectly well that nearly one-half the subjects, for instance, of Austro-Hungarian nationality in this country, in the strict letter of the law, are to be regarded as enemy subjects, but who, in respect of their feelings and opinions, are in no sense subjects of enemy countries. It is perfectly obvious that if the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Trinity College and his friends had their way, the Government would have to reverse what I believe to be its just and necessary policy in relation to many of the subject peoples, both of the German Empire and of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, if they were to try to satisfy their critics on this subject. I am quite sure, from the attitude the Home Secretary has taken in all his recent declarations on this subject, that he will do nothing of the kind. I am very glad to recognise that the Home Secretary represents in his attitude the attitude of the great bulk of the nation, who, I believe, thoroughly disapprove of the manner in which this agitation has been carried on, and who, while they recognise that no doubt drastic measures have to be taken in time of war against enemy subjects, nevertheless, as I say, entirely and rightly disapprove of the manner in which pure prejudice has been exploited against persons who ought not to be the objects of attack. I only rise on this occasion to make quite certain that the Government will renew its explicit declarations of the past, and that in any Amendment it introduces into this Bill to satisfy its critics, it will not in any way endanger those subjects of enemy Powers who, while being technically enemy aliens, are in fact allies of the Allied cause.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
I agree with the hon. Member who has just spoken that there must be a judicial inquiry before 1095 the Home Secretary acts in this matter of cancelling certificates. I have always appreciated the force of the argument that there are some people who are only technically enemy aliens, and that when they have got their naturalisation there is no ground for taking it away. So far. I agree with him, but I entirely disagree with the statements about hysterical agitation. There is such a thing as overdoing popular agitation, I entirely agree, but there is also such a thing as putting your head in a sack and ignoring it, and I think the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, and another hon. Member who has addressed the Committee, are rather apt in this matter not only to underrate the intensity of public opinion, but also the strength of the case. The Home Secretary has very properly said that he has never naturalised a German alien during this War, and that he never will. I rather think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland (Mr. H. Samuel) acted in the same way. Why do we find ninety German aliens naturalised in the first five months of the War and 146 naturalised, I think it was, in the first year or so after the War began? Were all those proper? Is there any reason in the public interest why all those certificates should be preserved? I should say that, having regard to the fact that the right hon. Gentleman says he is not going to naturalise any more, it is primâ facie a reason why none of those gentlemen should be naturalised unless a judicial body; which the right hon. Gentleman very properly sets up, finds that their certificates were properly granted.
Therefore, I very much prefer my own Amendment to that of the right hon. Gentleman, which I do not think goes far enough. I prefer it for two reasons. In the first place, my Amendment proposes an inquiry into all cases of such naturalisation since 1st January, 1914, instead of fixing the date at the beginning of the War. On the 1st January, 1914, a new German law came into existence, under which persons were permitted by the German Government to retain their German nationality, notwithstanding that they had got naturalised in another country. That, to my mind, constitutes a strong primâ facie, reason for revoking their British certificates of naturalisation. How can a man serve two masters? How can he owe allegiance to the Kaiser and to the King of England? 1096 Yet these persons who were naturalised since 1st January, 1914, are supposed to be loyal subjects and to give loyal allegiance to the King of England, when, by the German law, they are loyal subjects, and owe allegiance to the Kaiser. The thing is impossible. Therefore, I would beg the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider that question as to the date, and to fix the date, instead of at the beginning of the War, as from the 1st January, 1914.
There is another point, and perhaps even a more important one, in which my Amendment differs from that of my right hon. Friend. He says that the judicial inquiry shall be whether it is desirable in the public interest that the certificate shall be revoked. I put it the other way. I say, is it desirable, in the public interest, that the certificate should be retained? I think that is the proper way to put it. If this judicial committee says it is desirable that the certificate should be retained, well and good; it will be retained. But I think the judicial body should not have to decide positively and definitely that it is desirable in the public interest that the certificate should be revoked before any action should be taken. In the course of the Debate on Thursday last, when my right hon. Friend was explaining the intention of the Government, he said: The effect will be that all certificates of naturalisation granted to enemy aliens during the War will be reviewed by the Committee, and if they so advise, they will be revoked. Sir J. Butcher: Would the right hon. Gentleman say that certificates of naturalisation granted since the War will be cancelled unless there are national reasons for retaining them? Sir G. Cave: I think it comes very much to that. I propose that those certificates shall be submitted to the judicial committee for review, and, if there are any grounds for revoking them, they will be revoked. I should not think that they are likely to advise their retention unless there are good reasons for doing so."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th July, 1918, col. 530. That is exactly what I want—that these certificates should not be retained unless the Committee say there are good reasons for retaining them. I think that is sound. I do not want to tie the right hon. Gentleman down to any words he uttered in the course of Debate, because I know whatever he said he will carry out. But may I carry it one step further, and say that my proposal is a reasonable one? We know now what these Germans are both in peace and War. We have had 1097 a good many instances as to the mode in which, and the purpose for which, they obtained certificates of naturalisation during the War. There was the case of Lazlo, the painter, which has been referred to very often in this House. He used powerful influences, and his certificate of naturalisation, for which he applied four days before the War, was granted after the War. Why? He never suggested for one moment, and he could not suggest, that he wanted to be, and intended to be, a loyal subject of the King. He gave some paltry reasons. He wanted to continue his painting business, or something of that sort, but, in the result, that man is interned under Regulation 14B of the Defence of the Realm Act, although a naturalised subject. That is the type of man who got his certificate of naturalisation, and, therefore, I say we should be carrying out what would be a reasonable policy if we said that these certificates which were granted, very often for some totally inadequate purpose, should be revoked unless the Home Secretary says that the judicial body finds good reason for retaining them. It would be very difficult to put it to the judicial committee which is being set up: "Do you find good reasons for revoking it after reasonable inquiries," and I suggest it should be: "Do you suggest good reason for maintaining it?" I therefore propose, in the Amendment of my hon. Friend, to strike out the word "revoke," and to insert the word "retain," and the consequential effect would be at the latter part of the Amendment to strike out the word "affirmative" and put in the word "negative," so that it would read: The Secretary of State shall refer for such inquiry as is hereinafter specified, the question whether it is desirable in the public interest that the certificate shall be retained, and if such question should be answered in the negative shall revoke the certificate.

§ Mr. HEMMERDE
I join with the hon. Member for Perth in urging the Government to stand firm to these words. It seems to me that the hon. and learned Member (Sir J. Butcher) very much underrates the importance of the word of this country when it is given. It seems to him to make no difference that three or four years ago we naturalised a person and solemnly gave him the right of citizenship. I think it makes a great difference, and that before we take away that right a judicial body ought to find that there are reasons for doing so, not 1098 that we automatically take it away unless it is in the national interests it should be retained. As I pointed out the other day, great hardship would be done by such a, proposal as is now suggested by the hon. and learned Member for York to some people whose existence could hardly, in the ordinary sense, be considered of national importance—people of quite humble position. There are one or two such persons in that list against whom nothing could be said. I discussed the matter with a former Home Secretary, and he told me that the principle he went upon was this, "If you bring me someone who has been in the country a number of years, far over five years, and suddenly he evinces a desire for naturalisation after the War began, I will not listen to it, but if you bring me somebody who can assure me that he has always desired to apply for citizenship immediately the five years expired: and I am convinced that it is the case, then I do not see why the outbreak of war should interfere with that person's position—provided I am convinced there are good grounds for supposing what he says to be true."
I know of cases in that list, one or two cases at least, of quite humble people who were naturalised after the War broke out, and who would not come within my hon. and learned Friend's definition. They are of those races many of whom are friendly to us, and there are people even of the South German races whom we know are extremely friendly to us, and many of whom, when they had the opportunity, have even fought the Prussians, and their children have come over here to live among us. I know the case of one family all of whom left Germany at the wish of their parents. One of them who came over here was a girl slightly over twenty years of age, who had been naturalised after the War broke out. We were able to show that there were absolutely no grounds of suspicion against her, and I was able to tell the Home Secretary at the time that for years I had known it to be her one desire to become naturalised as soon as the five years expired, which was just before the War. She came up in the ordinary course, speaking English as well as anyone in this House, and her one desire was to be naturalised. On what conceivable grounds of, I will not say justice, but the dignity of this country, are you going to say to someone like her who is little more than a child, "Unless you can show good 1099 national reasons for retaining naturalisation we are going to take it away." I do not think that even the hon. and learned Member for York would desire to take away naturalisation in such a case. But I go further and say that in such a case the national honour is involved, and I think it is indecent for this country to be in such a state either of pitiable terror or of an ignominious feeling of revenge that we should turn on the harmless subjects of a race we are fighting and say we shall make it unpleasant for them.
I do not yield even to the right hon. Member for Trinity College, Dublin, in my detestation of Germany and the methods the Germans have used in this War, but because I have some respect for the honour of this country, I say that when this country has given its word, it is not right to break it in the case of persons, however humble, unless that arrangement has been gone back upon by those people. There are some of these people who have used all the ability and talent they possess for the benefit of this country in the War, and are you going to say to them that, although we naturalised them four years ago, and although they have gone on in the pride of British citizenship, their naturalisation is to be taken away because they do not happen to be persons of national importance? It is a national outrage that this attack which has been made in regard to the aliens question should be so misused as to deal with a case like I have mentioned in a way which is out of harmony with the whole of our British traditions. Like the hon. Member for Perth, I also recognise that the Home Secretary has done well in keeping this matter upon judicial lines. We have heard again and again throughout this Debate that this Committee, presided over by Mr. Justice Sankey and Mr. Justice Younger, two of the ablest judges of the land, have the complete confidence of this House and the country, and I for one cannot see any reason why we should not leave it to those judges and the other Committees who support them to decide whether it is in the public interest that the certificates should be revoked, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman, not only now, but in the future stages of this Bill, will set his face rigorously against any such interference with the rights of people, even though there are very few of them against whom nothing can be said. I 1100 agree with what the hon. Member for Hornsey said the other day when he expressed a hope that when the War is over we shall feel we have done no injustice and feel no sense of wrong in regard to our treatment of any man or woman in this country.

§ Sir RICHARD COOPER
I support this Amendment, but I would like to say, in answer to what the hon. and learned Gentleman has just said, that there is no aspect of this matter which, in my opinion, gives a stronger case for those of us who are condemned for asking that in time of war there should be very strict regulations in dealing with people-about whom we are not perfectly certain. I do think that the Committee must bear in mind that while it is the fact that we feel more than ordinary confidence in the present Home Secretary, there have been over 200 imprisonments of enemy aliens in this country while he has been Home Secretary. Those are only convictions, and there are numbers who were not convicted while there are also people who have not been found out. I know that it would be out of order on this Amendment to develop this point, but I say that it is a justification for those who feel that we have no right to gamble with the fate of the nation, and that we are right in pressing for what we regard as full and necessary measures of protection. This Amendment of the Home-Secretary, which I support, will remove the necessity of proposing an Amendment later on, and of which I have given notice, to insert in Sub-section (2) "who holds allegiance to a foreign State." Not being legally trained, I am not perfectly certain how far the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman meets that case, but as the hon. and learned Member for York pointed out, this point goes a little further than the Home Secretary's Amendment actually does, and it was specially advocated, as my right hon. Friend will remember, in the Report which was sent to-the Prime Minister.
There are a number of certificates of naturalisation which have been granted since the 1st of January, 1914, to people who now, according to our laws, are British citizens, but who absolutely hold allegiance by agreement with the German Government to the German Emperor under the Delbrück law after the War is over, and they can just go back to Germany and be full-blown German citizens as if 1101 they had never been in this country. I know that to deal with this is to go a little bit further than the Home Secretary's Amendment, but after what he has said about the administration of this Bill I feel confident that he will take care and require his officials, upon whom after all the administration of the Act in its regular daily course depends, to interpreting the working of the Act, if this Bill becomes an Act, in the spirit he has suggested, so that it will cover the cases we have put forward. I should have preferred, as the hon. and learned Member has suggested, to have seen the onus of proof placed upon the supposed enemy alien rather than upon the Government, and that the word "revoked" should be changed to the word "retained." That would change the onus of proof and it would be an advantage, but this Amendment does go a long way to meet the point suggested by myself and those associated with me in considering this matter. It really is of great importance, and after the assurances which the right hon. Gentleman has given I feel sure that this will be adequately and properly administered.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I venture to hope that this particular Amendment will not be pressed. I would like to say a word about the Delbrück law, because I feel it is misunderstood. The hon. and learned Member for York seems to think that it was under the Delbrück law that a German naturalised here retained hit nationality. That is a mistake—he always retained his nationality and that law did not make the rule. On the contrary, it brought in an exception to that rule, for the Delbrück law said, for the first time, that if a person was naturalised in a foreign country without the consent of the German Government he lost his nationality. That was the change, and it really reduced the cases in which German nationality was so retained.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
May I ask my right hon. and learned Friend a question on this point? My recollection, so far as it goes, is that in German law, in certain cases, a man loses his nationality if he goes out of Germany and stays away for a certain time.

§ Sir G. CAVE
My point was that naturalisation abroad did not in any case take away German nationality.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
I feel very strongly that if the matter stands as it is in the 1102 Amendment of my right hon. and learned Friend, that we shall get very few of these Germans who may have been naturalised since the War deprived of their certificates.

§ Sir J. WALTON
May I ask the Home Secretary whether it is the intention with those who have been naturalised since 1914, when the question is considered as to whether or not their naturalisation should be revoked, that at any rate one condition of the retention of their certificate shall be that they absolutely renounce their German or alien enemy nationality—renounce it as part of what they have to do if they wish to retain British nationality?

§ Sir R. COOPER
Change their allegiance?

§ Sir J. WALTON
Yes, whatever it is.

§ Sir W. BEALE
Is not the point that the question to be decided is whether it is desirable in the public interest that the certificate should be revoked if there is still in any case such a retention of allegiance or obligation to the German Government, and so on—that would be the question? The whole matter, it seems to me, is a question which will be covered by the inquiry proposed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I do not think the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend can be accepted. He suggests that in every case the question should be whether it is desirable in the public interest that the certificates should or should not be retained, but consider the case of some poor Armenian or some Pole, people of that kind who have been naturalised since the War! Is it, or is it not, in the public interest to retain them here? I am not, however, unwilling to leave out the words "in the public interest." If that meets the point of my hon. and learned Friend, I shall be quite willing to make that alteration; otherwise I must resist his Amendment.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
I am not convinced that my Amendment is wrong, but as I do not think the Home Secretary is likely to be convinced that it is right, I ask leave to withdraw it if he will be good enough to strike out the words "in the public interest." This Clause will be very much better for the alteration.

§ Amendment to proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

1103

§ Sir G. CAVE
I beg to move, as an. Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "in the public interest."

§ Mr. HEMMERDE
I think I agree with the Home Secretary that there is no objection to leaving out these words. It seems to me, however, that they leave the Clause just the same.

§ Amendment to proposed Amendment agreed to.

§ Mr. C. ROBERTS
I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "unless the Secretary of State otherwise orders."
Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain what he means by this last sentence, "apply to a person who at birth was a British subject"? Who are these persons who are British subjects? What I cannot help thinking is that this raises the point which we shall meet in later Amendments—the case of the women. I cannot think of any others, British subjects, who would be dealt with in this way. What I understand is that you are dealing with the case of the woman, originally a British-born subject, who marries an alien; then the alien gets a certificate of naturalisation, and thereupon the wife recovers her British nationality. You wish to withdraw this certificate of nationality, and you say that this revocation shall not apply to the wife because she was originally a British-born subject. So far so good. But then, surely, you should leave out the words "unless the Secretary of State otherwise orders," because that gives a power to the Secretary of State once more to expatriate the woman who was originally British-born and who has only become an alien automatically and compulsorily by the accident of marriage! You turn her into the condition, into which apparently she belongs, of no nationality whatever! I do not think that is a power which ought to be exercised by the Home Secretary in this way. If there is some reason against the person, deal with the matter under the other Sub-sections of your Clause. If there is any suspicion of any contact with the enemy, if there is any reason to suppose that she is not right and proper to be a British citizen, deal with her on that ground, and not merely on this automatic ground, making her exposed to the loss of her nationality merely because a certificate of naturalisation has been granted at a particular place. That seems 1104 to me to be thoroughly unjust. I hope the Home Secretary will see his way to omit these words.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I do not attach importance to these words. I meant to deal with the case of the British-born widow alien who might herself be under suspicion.

§ Amendment to proposed Amendment agreed to.

§ Proposed words, as amended, there inserted.

§ Further Amendment made: In Substituted Clause 7 (2), leave out the word "provision" ["the foregoing provision"], and insert instead thereof the word "provisions."—[Sir G. Cave.]

§ Mr. PENNEFATHER
beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (2), after the word "satisfied" ["in any case in which he is satisfied after such inquiry"], to insert the words "either before or."
I do not think that the Home Secretary will be able to claim that this Amendment of mine shows any lack of confidence in him or his successors. As a matter of fact, the effect of it will be not in anyway to limit the powers of the Home Secretary, but somewhat to increase them. I cannot help thinking that the Clause as it stands at present does limit the powers of the Home Secretary in a manner which is unnecessary. As it read, the Secretary of State may by Order revoke a certificate of naturalisation granted by him in any case in which he is satisfied after such inquiry as is hereinafter specified. Then it goes on to give the grounds upon which the revocation may take place. But surely it is not necessary to refer to the Committee proposed to be set up, consisting of high judicial authorities, questions of fact, such as that referred to in paragraph (b) of the Sub-section, where for example, a man who (b) has within five years of the date of the grant of the certificate been sentenced by any Court in His Majesty's Dominions to imprisonment….or penal servitude. Surely that is a fact that can be ascertained by the Home Office without referring to this semi-judicial Committee? There may be, too, cases where the person has shown himself by overt act or speech to be disloyal, and these are questions of fact. I submit that the Home Secretary ought to be able, in certain cases, on his own responsibility to revoke the certificates without waiting for or troubling the 1105 proposed Committee. My Amendment would leave a discretion with the Home Secretary in cases so clear and so plain that there was really no mystery about them.

§ Mr. STEWART
May I ask the Home Secretary whether the Court of Inquiry that is proposed to be held will be private or will it be an open Court?

§ Sir G. CAVE
That arises on another Sub-section. I do not like the form of this Amendment because it contemplates an inquiry of some kind. I prefer the words of the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Enfield (Major Newman) to insert the words "but the Secretary of State may, if he thinks fit before making such order, refer the case for such inquiry as is hereinafter specified." That seems to me to be a reasonable Amendment, and these words which I am accepting refer to Subsection (2) on the Paper.

§ Mr. PENNEFATHER
I agree that the Home Secretary has found out a weak point in the wording of this Amendment, and as he desires to adopt the Amendment of my hon. and gallant Friend, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Major NEWMAN
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (2), to leave out the words "after such inquiry as is hereinafter specified."

§ Sir G. CAVE
I accept this Amendment.

§ Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS
I understand that the Bill originally did give these people, whose certificates of naturalisation are going to be revoked, the benefit of an inquiry, but now that is lost to them. If the Secretary of State can make up his mind without an inquiry, then the certificate will be withdrawn. That puts these people in a worse position because under the Bill as drafted there was at least the safeguard that there might be an open inquiry, but now the matter is to be settled by the fiat of the Home Secretary. I am not quite clear that that is so safe as the original safeguard. Of course it all depends on the administration. If the Home Secretary has any doubt he can hand the matter over for an inquiry, but, on the other hand, he could act at his own will and caprice and perhaps at the driving of forces outside. I am not clear whether the Home Secretary by accepting this proposal has not 1106 in that way removed some of the safeguards which he originally provided in the Bill, and he has deprived the people who are going to be subject to this drastic procedure of safeguards which he originally proposed.

§ Mr. HEMMERDE
Although one has every confidence in the present Home Secretary it is not a confidence that one always has in the Home Secretary. Besides this, you are giving the right hon. Gentleman a rather difficult task. It is true there are cases so clear that the Home Secretary might not think it worth while to refer them to a Committee, but the proper course in that case is to say that if the Home Secretary acts on his own initiative the person concerned should have a right of appeal to the Committee. This is exactly analogous to the procedure adopted under the Non-Ferrous Metal Bill. If the Home Secretary does act on his own initiative, I think there should be a right of appeal before the Committee. Again, to accept this Amendment is putting a very unpleasant duty on the Home Secretary, and it is also whittling down certain safeguards in the Bill. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the whole bearings of the question, and I am sure if he accepts this proposal it will cause the Home Office a great deal of trouble.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I understand the effect of this Amendment will be to alter the Bill very considerably, and it will take away the duty of having an inquiry, and will give to the Home Secretary the power of revoking naturalisation certificates without any inquiry at all. That may be a very difficult position for the Home Secretary. I voted in favour of "shall" being substituted for "may," because I desired to strengthen the Bill, but I think we must be very careful in this matter. I understand from what the right hon. Gentleman has said there is to be a further Amendment, but we do not know what it is. I have looked at the words on the Paper, and, as far as I can make out, they are as follows: "But the Secretary of State may, if he thinks fit, before making such order, refer the case for such inquiry as is hereinafter specified." What will the effect of those words be? We were told that "may" might mean "shall," and when the question was raised again the Home Secretary said, "No, it does not mean 'shall' where 'if he thinks fit' follows after 'may.'" Therefore, in this 1107 Amendment it is perfectly clear that the word "may" leaves it to the Home Secretary, and therefore the Amendment is really useless. It does not provide for there being an inquiry, as was originally provided for in the Bill. I should like some explanation on this point.

§ Mr. D. MASON
I should like the Home Secretary to agree to the suggestion which has been made in regard to there being a right of appeal, a suggestion which has been supported by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury). There might be many cases where there should be a right of appeal where there has been some miscarriage of justice and where the person has not been fairly dealt with. If the right hon. Gentleman sees his way to accept this Amendment, I hope he will also have regard to the other side and allow a right of appeal.

§ Mr. PETO
I hope the Home Secretary will adhere to the position which he has taken up. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London considers that this Amendment will alter the form of the Bill. Certainly it will. I understand that we are here to alter it, and many of us are here to strengthen this Bill. Every hon. Member who has spoken has omitted to address himself to the subject raised in paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (d) of Sub-section (2). What are the cases really involved? Paragraph (b) relates to a person who has within five years of the date of the grant of the certificate been sentenced by any Court in His Majesty's Dominions to imprisonment for a term of not less than twelve months or to a term of penal servitude. Surely it is not necessary to have an inquiry to find out if that is so or not. In any case where there is any doubt as to whether an inquiry is needed, the Home Secretary will grant an inquiry. If we are to leave any power in the hands of the Home Office, surely it is precisely in such cases as those raised under this Sub-section where you should leave him some discretion. Why should there be discretion when you are weakening the Bill, and never when it is a case of strengthening it? The Amendment is not only an improvement, but it gives the Home Secretary the power he ought to have to exercise discretion which he ought to use, and to deal summarily with some cases in regard to these naturalisation certificates. 1108 I hope the Home Secretary will not be influenced by what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London.

Mr. DENNISS
I would like to ask the Home Secretary what words he intends to insert? Are they the same words as have already been inserted at the end of Sub-section (1)?

§ Sir G. CAVE
Yes.

Mr. DENNISS
Then that makes the Bill symmetrical, and there can be no objection to it.

§ Mr. HEMMERDE
Would it not be possible to meet the case by inserting the words "the Secretary of State may if he thinks fit and shall if required to by the holder of the certificate before making such an order refer the case for such inquiry as is hereinafter specified."

Mr. DENNISS
I think that can be moved when we reach that Clause.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I quite agree that in most cases under paragraph (a) or (c) the Home Secretary would rather have an inquiry, but there might be cases under paragraph (b) where it is quite clear that the person has been sentenced, and in such cases the Home Secretary ought to have power to act at once. I am quite sure that power will be rarely exercised, and, after all, you are only asking the Committee to do here what you have already-done in Sub-section (1).

§ 6.0 P.M.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I do not agree that this is weakening the Bill, for I think it is strengthening it. There will be no difficulty whatever in cases where a person has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than twelve months or to a term of penal servitude, but when you come to such questions as to whether the person has shown himself by overt act or speech to be disloyal to His Majesty, I do not see how you are going to find that out without an inquiry. It might be possible that an accusation might be brought against a man for having done certain things. I am not satisfied that he is a person who ought to have his certificate revoked. On the other hand, if there were an inquiry facts might come out not known to the Home Secretary or to the person bringing the accusation. You will not be wrong in granting an inquiry, but you may be by refusing to have an inquiry.

1109

Major NEWMAN
Would it not be better if my original suggestion were carried out, and if the words "if he thinks fit" were left out here and put in later.

§ Sir G. CAVE
The words later apply only to Sub-section (2).

§ Mr. C. ROBERTS
The suggestion that has been made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Norfolk (Mr. Hemmerde) would seem to me to meet the case. If the Home Secretary wishes to take these words out here in order to have the subsequent Amendment, I hope he will be willing to consider an Amendment there which would give a right of appeal in certain cases. It would be much more satisfactory, for instance, in the case of a person charged with uttering something disloyal in his speech to have an inquiry. I entirely agree with the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) that you might quite easily have a case where the Home Secretary said, "I am not bound to give an inquiry at all; I will settle it myself." It might, however, be far more desirable in the public interest that an inquiry should be held. Under the circumstances, I think the matter can hardly be left in the present position, and that later an Amendment will have to be moved in order to give a right of appeal in some circumstances.

§ Amendment agreed to.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
I beg to move in substituted Clause 7(2), after the word "either" to insert (a) has without lawful authority held any communication with any enemy state or subject of an enemy state, or has been guilty of any other act or conduct which was or is calculated to be dangerous or injurious to the public welfare. I have in mind cases in which breaches of the Defence of the Realm Act have been committed, such, for instance, as communicating with the enemy. Regulation 18 makes it, and very properly makes it, a very grave offence to communicate naval or military information as to the movement of ships or of forces or of war materials, or as to war operations, and so on. I am sorry to say that breaches of that regulation have occurred during the War, and they may occur in future. At present there is nothing in the world to enable the Home Secretary, if a man who has become naturalised during the War commits a grave breach of that sort, to denaturalise 1110 him. Possibly such a ease might come under the words "done some disloyal act," but I do not want to leave any doubt. I want to put it as a most definite and clear reason for revoking a certificate; if a man has communicated with an enemy State in the manner suggested. The rest of the words are consequential, but they are important. If the Committee to whom the matter is referred finds that he has been guilty of an act calculated to-be injurious or dangerous to the welfare of the State surely his naturalisation certificate ought to be revoked. I, therefore, ask the Home Secretary to put in these words in order to make it quite clear that a person guilty of these acts should no longer be entitled to be naturalised.

§ Sir G. CAVE
The words of the Amendment are rather vague and wide. If a man has been guilty of an unlawful act such as that which my hon. and learned Friend describes he ought to be denaturalised, and no doubt he would be under paragraphs (a) or (b), but I am a little afraid of taking power to denaturalise everyone who performs an act which is calculated to be injurious or dangerous to the public welfare. You may have many different views as to what is injurious to the public welfare, and, on the whole, I think it would not be wise to have a Minister acting on his own view as to what may be injurious. A better way of dealing with the point will arise upon the next Amendment dealing with trading with the enemy, which is a well-known form of misconduct. I do not think that we ought to accept these very wide words, "calculated to be injurious and dangerous to the public welfare."

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, if he objects to the latter part of the Amendment as being too wide, he will take the opening words, which are very clear and definite and which are really justified and founded upon the Defence of the Realm Regulations? "Has, without lawful authority, held any communication with any enemy State or subject of an enemy State." That is a totally distinct matter from trading with the enemy. It is an offence far more grave and dangerous than trading with the enemy.

Mr. DENNISS
It seems to me quite clear that the mischief which my hon. and learned Friend wants to cure would not be met by the Amendment of the 1111 hon. Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities (Sir H. Craik), because that Amendment says "has traded with the enemy or in any other way aided and abetted the enemy." That would be in the way of trading, because those words are ejusdem generis, and I do not think that they would include such an offence as my hon. and learned Friend suggests. If this Amendment is not accepted, I must ask the Home Secretary later on to reduce the period of twelve months in paragraph (b). That is a very serious sentence, and it does not say whether it is with or without hard labour. Any sentence which carries with it hard labour ought to be sufficient to call for the revocation of a man's naturalisation certificate. I hope the Home Secretary when he comes to that paragraph will see the necessity of making the term of imprisonment shorter, so as to make it apply to all cases in which hard labour has been ordered.

§ Sir R. COOPER
The circumstances under which the Home Secretary can revoke a certificate of naturalisation are very limited under this Clause, and I feel that something is wanted in the nature of the Amendment moved by my hon. and learned Friend. If the Home Secretary does not feel that the latter part of the Amendment could with wisdom be put into the Bill, I certainly think that the first part ought to be inserted even if the later Amendment is accepted relating to trading with the enemy. After all, it does not bind him to act because even then he has a certain amount of discretion, but it does widen a little the scope of the dangerous acts for which persons may have their certificates revoked. For my part, I would like to have something that was properly worded after the nature of the latter part of this Amendment. There is a case that I have in mind with which I am very dissatisfied. I know that the Home Secretary is not, because he is responsible. It is the case of Princess Lowenstein, who was naturalised only last month. Personally I think that in a case like that where a person has been guilty of an offence the Home Secretary ought to have the power to revoke the certificate, if in his discretion he thinks it right to do so. Under this Clause the circumstances under which he can revoke certificates of naturalisation are very limited, and I do hope that he will con- 1112 sider whether the first part of the Amendment might with wisdom be embodied in the Bill.

§ Mr. PETO
I wish to press the Home Secretary to accept the first part of this Amendment in perhaps a somewhat different form. The Home Secretary did not hold that no words were necessary. He merely objected to the words of my hon. and learned Friend as being rather too wide. Surely it is necessary to have something more than paragraphs (a) and (b)! You have in this Amendment a perfectly definite class of act, and I suggest that the Home Secretary should accept the earlier part of it in this form: "has without lawful authority held any communication with any enemy State or subject of an enemy State." You would then have something perfectly definite in the Bill covering an offence against the State which I think it is the universal opinion should certainly not be committed by any naturalised person without instantly involving the revocation of the certificate of naturalisation. I think the Government would be very much misunderstood if they refused to accept the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend in this limited form in view of the fact that the Secretary of State has made it quite clear that he does not think it inappropriate, and that his only objection is that the latter part of the Amendment is somewhat too wide. I therefore hope that the Home Secretary will accept the Amendment in the form that I suggest.

§ Mr. HEMMERDE
It seems to me—I do not know whether the Home Secretary-can tell the House whether it is so or not—that the words of paragraph (a), "has shown himself by overt act or speech to be disloyal to His Majesty," would clearly cover the suggestions that have been made in a very much better form. I think those words are quite sufficient in law. I also want to ask the Home Secretary not to be led away by the plausible suggestion of making the period of imprisonment less. In all Statutes dealing with the taking away of rights or privileges there has always been some sort of period of imprisonment put in. If you do not put it in, you will find most awful cases arising where, perhaps, people have been sentenced to imprisonment for taking part in a riot at a public meeting, and that sort of thing, which will raise very difficult problems for the Home Secretary. A period of 1113 twelve months' imprisonment nearly always means some dishonesty, and everyone will agree that in a case like that it is fitting a person should lose his rights. But to make it two or three months is a very different thing. If you insert that period, you would find that the tribunals would impose sentences less then they otherwise would do in order to avoid taking away a person's rights.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman would accept the limited form of words?

§ Sir G. CAVE
I would rather not take the Amendment here, but I shall be glad to consider it at the end of paragraph (a). I am trying to arrive at words which will include trading with the enemy. At that point I will consider the matter.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
With regard to the next Amendment, dealing with trading with the enemy, I understand that the right hon. Gentleman desires that it should be moved a little later on?

§ Sir G. CAVE
Yes; at the end of paragraph (a).

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
It is not very material where these words come in. However, the hon. Member can postpone the Amendment.

§ Mr. PETO
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (2), after paragraph (a), to add, (b) was at the commencement of the War engaged in a business carried on wholly or mainly in association with subjects of a country which is now our enemy or for the benefit of or under the control of subjects of such country. This is somewhat different in substance and effect from the Amendment with which we have already dealt, because if a person who has been granted a certificate of naturalisation has been found at the commencement of the War to have been engaged in business wholly or mainly in association with subjects of a country which is now our enemy or for the benefit of or under the control of subjects of such country, it would certainly be evidence that the certificate of naturalisation had been taken out for the benefit of the trade of a foreign country which has become our enemy, and therefore the person who had got the naturalisation papers was not, in the commerce he was carrying on, considering in any way the interests or advantage of the country 1114 which had sheltered him and given him naturalisation, but of the country of which he was really a citizen. The Amendment would remove from the roll of naturalised citizens of this country a certain number of persons who had merely made a convenience of naturalisation and had made naturalisation as British citizens a cloak for more successfully carrying on business entirely for the benefit of the country of their origin. Therefore, I hope the Home Secretary will accept these words and show by their incorporation in the Bill that naturalisation is intended to be a real act, proving that the person who is naturalised is going to throw in his lot not only with this country as a whole, but with the trade and commerce of this country, which, if it is carried on by British citizens, redounds in its aggregate to the benefit of the people of this country as a nation. Undoubtedly, if we consider the character of much of the trade that was carried on in this country in the past and in various parts of His Majesty's Dominions overseas, we find this penetration by foreign powers who are now our enemies in every part of the world, and we do not want to assist that penetration Of our business and commerce in every part of the British Empire by giving freely to these persons of alien origin the cloak of naturalisation, which, particularly when coupled with a change of name, enables them to disguise themselves as British citizens entirely for the benefit of the country of which they are really citizens, namely, the country of their origin. Of all the reasons for revoking a certificate of naturalisation there is no reason which has more right to be incorporated in this Bill than the one referred to in this Amendment, which shows conclusively that it is a case in which the naturalisation papers should never have been granted, that naturalisation has been used merely as a convenience and as a method of defeating genuine British trade and industry, and of carrying on an alien trade and industry under the guise of being British.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I could not accept this Amendment. The effect of it would be that if a man before the War was in partnership with a German or an Austrian or an Armenian, or even with an Alsatian, he would be liable to the revocation of his naturalisation. These acts of partnership may be illegal after the War has begun as acts of war, but they were not illegal before the War. It would be very 1115 wrong to make those acts which were legal at the time the subject of the penalty of loss of naturalisation after the War. Therefore, I do not think this Amendment can be accepted.

§ Mr. PETO
Before the right hon. Gentleman finally refuses to accept the Amendment, may I put these considerations to him? In the case of a Turk or an Armenian firm, could not the person be satisfied to remain a Turk or Armenian? There is nothing illegal in carrying on business as a Turk or Armenian or having an agency here. I fail to see why a Turk, having taken an English name, should be protected by naturalisation papers, and consequently be able to masquerade as a British citizen and induce people to think that when they are trading with that firm they are trading with a British firm instead of a Turkish or Armenian firm. If it is a genuine business, why should the man be ashamed of the nationality of his origin?

§ Sir O. PHILIPPS
The Amendment is worth a little more consideration than the Home Secretary has given it. It is aimed at peaceful penetration by the enemy. If the right hon. Gentleman is not able to accept it this evening, I hope he will see his way to accept it or something very similar when we reach the Report stage. It is an attempt to meet a real want.

§ Mr. BIGLAND
There is a class of German and Austrian in this country who has no capital interest whatever in the business he is conducting. I know that it is difficult to frame an Amendment to meet these cases. These men simply live and travel in this country. Many of them are naturalised in order to push the goods of the foreign manufacturer. They have no real interest in this country at all. It seems to me that such firms should engage British people as agents, or the person who travels should be known to be a German. He should not be allowed to take the position of a British citizen. I admit it is very dfficult to draft words, but what my hon. Friend really intends by the Amendment is that where men who have no capital whatever invested in this country but are simply acting for a foreigner who is our enemy, the certificate of naturalisation should be revoked. In such case the revocation of the naturalisation papers is quite justifiable.

1116

§ Mr. STEWART
If the right hon. Gentleman further considers the Amendment before the next stage I hope he will see that the real point is that a good many people take out naturalisation papers for the sake of changing their names. I understand that if they remain the subjects of an enemy State we have more control over them, but if a man once becomes a British citizen he is at liberty to change his name as and when he pleases. Of that I am not quite sure. It is the case that a good deal of business has been carried on by so-called naturalised Englishmen who have really become naturalised for the very purpose of changing their names, hiding their antecedents, and deceiving the people with whom they trade.

§ Sir J. WALTON
Could not my right hon. Friend give the British trader some protection by requiring that naturalised British subjects, when registering at hotels and in documents, should not be allowed to describe themselves as British subjects, but rather as naturalised British subjects, so that we might know to some extent where we are. There are those who have changed their names as a cloak, and who carry on business in this country in a rather deceptive fashion. They ought to be compelled, if they use British names, to insert, in brackets, after their British names also the name they had previously to adopting the British name. We ought to be safeguarded in this country from peaceful penetration by having fuller information as to who exactly are the people, and of what nationality they are with whom we are brought into contact in trade and business.

§ Sir G. CAVE
It is quite true that there are provisions in the Business Names Act and in the Aliens Order on this point. I do not think, however, that everyone ought to be brought in, as this Amendment would bring them in. Undoubtedly there are many in the position outlined just now whom I would rather not see on the register of British subjects, but I do not think that everyone who before the War acted for a foreign firm, ought, ipso facto, to be denaturalised. That is why I cannot accept the Amendment.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ Sir O. PHILIPPS
May I at this stage propose the Amendment standing in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Sir J. Butcher)—After 1117 paragraph (a), to insert the words "(b) has without lawful authority traded or communicated with the enemy or with the subject of an enemy State."

§ Mr. PENNEFATHER
On a point of Order. May I ask whether, if we now deal with the Amendments at the end of paragraph (a), we shall be ruled out from moving Amendments standing on the first line of paragraph (a)?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I do not think it is very material in what order we take the Amendments.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I think it would be more convenient, as a matter of drafting, if we take the Amendments to the first line of the paragraph first.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
Very well.

§ Mr. PENNEFATHER
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (2, a), after the word "or" ["disloyal to His Majesty or"], to insert the words, unfriendly to British interests or has been associated with any firm or person placed upon the statutory black list or. I am quite aware that in adding these words I am placing in the hands of the Home Secretary and the Committee which is to be set up larger powers than are given in the Bill, but I am extremely anxious to extend the powers in the Bill as far as they can fairly and reasonably be extended. When the War is over and the Germans attempt to repenetrate this country they will require tools with which to penetrate, and the most natural tools which will come to their hands will be their own kith and kin—Germans who have been naturalised but who are not really friendly to this country, and who during the War perhaps will have given us opportunities which we can lay hold of by which we can prove that they have been unfriendly. Therefore, I think we ought to extend the Bill so as to make it possible for the Home Secretary and the Committee to revoke the naturalisation papers of such enemy aliens as really deserve to have them revoked. It is thoroughly understood that if we give a certificate of naturalisation to an alien it imposes upon him the moral obligation that he should be friendly to the country of his adoption, and if it can be proved that he has been unfriendly during this crisis of our national history, there ought to be power to cancel his certificate. The second part of the Amendment is a most important point. 1118 All these naturalised Britishers of enemy origin are not in this country at present. Many of them are in neutral countries. I know cases of Germans naturalised in this country who, as soon as war broke out, took up their residence in neutral countries. I do not suppose they did that for the good of England, and the question arises, What are they doing in those countries? In each of those neutral countries we have established a statutory Black List, a list of neutral firms who, by reason of friendliness to the enemy, trading with the enemy, or some other reason injurious to this country, have been placed on the list. I believe many naturalised Germans who are living in neutral countries are in close contact with these firms whom we have placed upon the Black List, and if it can be shown that a naturalised British subject has left this country during the War and has been in close association with such a firm, he has proved himself to be unfriendly to this country and acting against our interests, and his naturalisation certificate ought undoubtedly to be cancelled.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I am afraid the objection I raised to the last Amendment also applies to this. The whole scheme of the Bill is that if a man has been guilty of an offence against the law he shall be liable to lose his British citizenship, but to put it in the power of anyone to say "This man is unfriendly to British interests" is to give too wide a power. I am very much in sympathy with the desire to protect British trade and to prevent this kind of thing during and after the War, but to say that whenever a man can be proved to have done something unfriendly to us or to have had associations, perhaps unknowingly, with a person who afterwards came on the statutory Black List would be putting oneself in the position of doing possible injustice. Some of us know that people go on the statutory Black List and come off again. There have been a good many firms which have got on the list and afterwards proved their good faith and been taken off. This would cover association even with those firms before they got on to the list, and possibly before the War. The thing is too wide. We are not passing a Statute to prevent these things. We are passing a Statute imposing very heavy penalties and loss upon persons, and we have to be very careful not to 1119 impose it until we have clear and definite proof against the persons concerned. I am disposed to accept the next Amendment—"trading with the enemy or communicating." That would really cover bad cases of the kind which my hon. Friend has in mind.

§ Mr. BIGLAND
I support the Amendment because it is only right, in my view, that if a man who holds naturalisation papers leaves this country and does in neutral countries things which, if he had remained in this country, would have brought him under some of the categories named here, that should certainly be an offence under this Act, and I would suggest to my hon. Friend that he should alter the Amendment by putting in words to cover those men who hold naturalisation papers, but who during the War have not lived in this country, and in whose case evidence was brought as to what they had been doing. I am sure what my hon. Friend says is perfectly true. Naturalised British subjects who left this country immediately war was declared have been engaged in most nefarious and unfriendly acts during this period, and I hope in some way they will be brought into the category which the Home Secretary is drafting in order to do what is right and just under this Act.

§ Mr. NEVILLE
It seems to me that what fell from the Home Secretary just now proves conclusively the necessity of dealing with the question in time of war from a different point of view from that in the normal condition of things. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say he saw no objection to this proposal if it merely continued during the War. When you get to a state of war you have to look at things from an entirely different standpoint. You have to protect your people. That is what you are here for, and not to make it nice and sweet and pleasant for people who have enjoyed your hospitality and very often abused it for years, or if not, took advantage of the War to abuse it as soon as it arose. You ought to deal with every alien and say, "You have to justify your position and your right to your naturalisation papers." It is very important indeed to extend the ground upon which these matters can be treated. The Bill proposes that there must have been some overt act or speech. We all know how difficult it is to prove an overt act. These things are not done on 1120 the housetops. They are generally done in the secrecy of the closet, and it is not the sort of thing which you would expect to-find in overt acts or speeches. An enormous amount of prejudice to this country is done secretly and in in an underhand manner, and it is very important that we should extend the grounds upon which we can denaturalise aliens in such a way as to offer protection to our own people and not to make it as difficult as possible to denaturalise them. If you did that people would attach a great deal more value to naturalisation than has ever attached to-it in the past. People have been enabled to be naturalised just like shelling peas. They simply have to sign their names. If they knew that when war came on the whole thing was going to be looked at from an entirely different point of view and that they were likely to have their privileges taken away, they would consider twice before they did anything, openly or secretly, of an unfriendly nature which might rob them of the protection afforded by naturalisation.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
I think my hon. Friend has hit the right note. The main object of the Bill is to protect ourselves in time of war, and that is why we are discussing it to-day. If it were not an, urgent matter in which it is necessary to act promptly in order to protect ourselves and ensure our safety, we should not be discussing it to-day, but we should wait till the general Bill comes up after the War.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I hope we are not going to have a Second Reading Debate.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
I was not proposing to do that. We are in this difficulty to-day. We have a lot of dangerous scoundrels in this country of enemy origin, and some of these dangerous ruffians protect themselves under the cloak of British naturalisation. It is impossible for us to put them under lock and key unless we denaturalise them, or can bring them within the scope of 14B of the Defence of the Realm Regulations; 14B is a very admirable Regulation, but it is a difficult and troublesome job to get a man under that and lock him up. We should protect ourselves by denaturalising people in proper cases and then locking them up. That is necessary for our safety. I support this Amendment on this ground, that I think it is most desirable that we should specify, as clearly as we can, the sort of 1121 cases to which it is intended to apply. We do not want to have everything vague and in the air. The hon. Member for Norfolk was good enough to say a little while ago that a number of these acts, trading with the enemy and communicating with him, might possibly be brought in under a Clause of the Bill. I do not want legal discussions as to whether or not they would come under different Clauses, but I wish to make it quite plain on the face of the Bill for what reason you can revoke a certificate. If there are definite things for which the House thinks there are reasons for making a certificate revocable, they should be put into the Bill. I hope the Home Secretary, if he cannot accept the exact words of the Amendment, will consider it before the Report stage. I confess my attitude as to further Amendments would be largely influenced by knowing what the Home Secretary was going to do on the Amendment which comes later on—I do not know if I should be in order in asking what his attitude might be on the point. That Amendment proposes that the Home Secretary shall have power to revoke a certificate in any case where a continuance of the certificate is not conducive to the public good. I desire that that Amendment should be accepted, because I trust the Home, Secretary, I trust his discretion, and I know he will not abuse such a power. It is most essential that he should have such a power to act in cases which could not otherwise be dealt with. If the right hon. Gentleman will accept that proposal it will give him the power to revoke a certificate in cases for which we have not clearly provided. Perhaps he will let me know when he comes to the Amendment. If he is not going to have that general and wide power—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
That shows that I ought not to have allowed the Debate to proceed on the broad lines upon which it has been running for the last ten minutes. We really must keep to the Amendment. Over and over again Second-Reading speeches are delivered which are really not relevant to the Amendment under discussion. The point of this Amendment is the statutory Black List; that is what differentiates it from the other Amendments.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
The whole point of my argument up to now has been that we must revise these definite cases, and that we cannot leave the matter in the air. I do 1122 ask the right hon. Gentleman to promise, if he can, that before the Report stage he will bring in words to provide that these very definite cases, which, I think, constitute a distinct danger, will be dealt with.

Mr. DENNISS
May I make a suggestion to the Home Secretary which might meet the case. I understand that he is going to accept an Amendment presently which stands in the name of the hon. Member for the St. Augustine's Division (Mr. McNeill), to add the words "has traded with the enemy," and that he will insert the words "or communicated with the enemy." Might he not accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for York, with these words inserted after it: "or has been associated with any person who has been engaged in trading with or in communication with the enemy." I think it would include all the cases of the Black List. Then the Amendment of the hon. Member for St. Augustine's—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
This is beyond the scope of the Amendment.

§ Mr. D. MASON
The hon. Member for York says the proposals in the Bill are vague, and that he wants something definite. We are promised something definite.

§ Colonel GRETTON
Those who have seen the practical working of the Black List system know that those persons who get on to the statutory Black List are very seldom removed. There is what is called A Black List which is subject to changes in character, but the statutory Black List has a much more fixed and definite status. There are a large number of businesses in this country of enemy association since the War which it is desirable to wind up. This Amendment, denaturalising persons who have such businesses, will have a very useful purpose indeed. I very much regret that the right hon. Gentleman has somewhat summarily dismissed the Amendment without giving it the consideration which, in the opinion of many hon. Members, it really deserves in its underlying purpose, though the words may not meet with his approval. I would appeal to him to reconsider it in view of its underlying policy.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I will certainly do that. I will carefully consider it, but I am afraid the words as they stand would not work. 1123 We might have more definite words, but they cannot come in here; they must come in on a later Amendment.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ Sir O. PHILIPPS
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (2), at the end of paragraph (a, to insert, (b) has unlawfully traded or communicated with the enemy or with the subject of an enemy State; or. Any naturalised person can only justify the fact of his naturalisation, and ought only to be allowed to continue if he has a clean record. Any naturalised person who at any time unlawfully trades with the enemy, or unlawfully communicates with him, undoubtedly forfeits any right he has to be a British subject. I therefore have much pleasure in proposing this Amendment, which, in my view, will very considerably strengthen the Bill.

Mr. DENNISS
I now suggest, as an Amendment, that it should read as follows: has traded or communicated with the enemy, or been associated with any person who has been engeged in trading or communicating with the enemy. That would be wide enough to cover business communications, business trading, and business association of any kind. It would be wider than having them merely on the black list. It need not deal with a person who is on the black list, but it might deal with just as dangerous a person who was not on the list. It is a wider definition altogether, and would include anybody who has been associated with any person who has been engaged in business with the enemy, in trading with them or in communicating with them in any way. Of course, in business, communicating might be sufficient, because you must communicate with an enemy if you have business with him, but, as this Amendment makes a distinction between communication and trading, these words are inserted as the result of suggestions I have been making to the right hon. Gentleman, who, I am sure, is doing his best to find some words which will meet the spirit of the Amendment moved just now.

§ Mr. D. MASON
I think the last Amendment contains rather wide and vague words. Of the two, I think the original Amendment is much the better one.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I am quite willing to accept the proposal of my hon. Friend 1124 (Sir O. Philipps), and I will try to find words which will carry out the intention of the House. Would these do?— Has, during the present War, unlawfully traded or communicated with the enemy or with the subject of an enemy State, or been engaged in or associated with any business carried on in such manner as to assist the enemy in the War; or. That would meet the point, and it would cover personal communication of certain kind. It would cover the Black List and other things.

§ Major BOWDEN
Would that raise a legal point? The words are "to assist" the enemy. What about assisting or attempting to assist?

§ Sir G. CAVE
"In such manner as to assist."

§ Mr. HOLT
I would like the Home Secretary to consider a little more carefully the word he is going to put in. The word "associated" is very dangerous indeed. Let me give a case which occurred during the War. Everyone will agree that a man who has money in a business is associated with it. Two persons were sent to gaol for trading with the enemy. The Leader of the House was associated with the business, but he knew nothing whatever about it. Everybody knows what happened: the Leader of the House had some money in the firm and had been a partner in the firm for a long time. The point is that a precisely similar incident might happen to somebody else. There might be a man who was naturalised here and had the same sort of association with a firm, and had for years past washed his hands of all connection with the firm and had nothing to do with the business, but who had left a little money in it. His late partners, without his knowledge, might do what was wrong; they might be convicted on that, and he would there and then be liable to have his certificate of naturalisation taken away. The Home Secretary ought not to agree to any proposal to make a man liable to a penalty unless it could be shown that the man himself had been a party to doing something wrong.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
Perhaps the hon. Member will withdraw his Amendment, and move it in the new form.

§ Mr. SHERWELL
I would suggest that we might have a little further guidance on the point which has been raised.

1125

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member will have an opportunity of speaking after I have put the question.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Sir O. PHILIPPS
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7(2), after paragraph (a), to insert, (b) has, during the present War, unlawfully traded or communicated with the enemy, or the subject of an enemy State, or been engaged in or associated with any business carried on in such a manner as to assist the enemy in the War, or.

§ 7.0 P.M.

§ Mr. SHERWELL
I rise only for the purpose of suggesting that, in view of the very great possibility which has occurred to Members of this House, and which has been so well put by the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Holt), we ought to have some assurance from the Home Secretary that he is satisfied that this Amendment will not open the way to possibilities of the kind indicated by my hon. Friend. Undoubtedly there are many persons who might be caught within the scope of this Clause, and who essentially, and so far as intention and knowledge are concerned, would be perfectly innocent. Yet they might be made the victims of a phrase of this nature. I do not think the Committee should accept this Amendment too lightly. We ought to have an explicit assurance on the point. We ought not to be called upon to come to a decision on the matter until the point has been cleared up.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I do not think any injustice could be done under the Bill with this Amendment in it. In the first place, it is provided that the Home Secretary "may" revoke the certificate. He is not bound to do it. There must be a finding of some tribunal that the man has been associated with enemy aliens and that his removal would be conducive to the public good. In the third place, you have the safeguard that the Home Secretary, in such a case as this, would not be likely to act on his own initiative. He would certainly ask that the matter be referred to the Advisory Committee.

§ Mr. HOLT
I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "or associated with."
I want to raise a clear issue on this point. I do not think the Home Secretary's explanation is at all satisfactory. It is not right that a man who has done 1126 nothing wrong should hold his position as a British citizen on sufferance. It is not the same thing to be a British citizen by right, and to be a British citizen at the discretion of the Home Secretary. It is subjecting a man to a very serious penalty to take away his right and leave him subject to somebody's discretion. There is no justification for imposing such a penalty on any man unless it can be shown that he himself is or has been a party to something wrong. It is not sufficient to suggest in a vague sort of way that he is associated with the person who has done the wrong thing.

§ Sir G. CAVE
It is not a question of associating with a person. The words are "associated with any business."

Mr. H. SAMUEL
I have some doubt whether the Amendment does not require further consideration. Of course if a man is knowingly associated with any enterprise favouring the enemy he ought properly to be denaturalised. On the other hand you may find persons entirely innocently, without knowing in the least what is being done by some company in which they happen to have shares, who will have their naturalisation imperilled through no act of their own. That is to place them in a very invidious position. Would it not be desirable, therefore, to introduce the word "knowingly" before "associated"? A man ought not to be placed in the position of having his naturalisation threatened because of something done of which he had no knowledge whatever. The other point to which I would like to refer arises in connection with the use of the words "during the present War." The Amendment on the Paper refers to the enemy. Of course we here are very conscious every hour and every minute of the day that we are engaged in war, and therefore when we use the words "the enemy," we mean the enemy in the present War. But this will be a permanent statute. Thanks to the excellent proposal in the last Clause, the very words of this Bill will be inserted in the Statute of 1914. The original words of the Act of 1014 will be taken out, and the new words will be substituted permanently in the Statute. If you use the term "in the present War" what war will then be meant? We mean now the War in which we are engaged, but when this Statute comes to be read ten or twenty years hence, what then will be the meaning attached to these words, which will 1127 appear in a Statute dated not 1918, but 1914? Will this provision be limited to the present War? If unhappily at some future date this country should be again engaged in war and if this Statute should have become permanent, it ought properly to apply to that war. Suppose twenty years from now this country is engaged in war and similar difficulties arise. Suppose there are again naturalised persons of enemy nationality trading in our midst. Why should not this provision apply to them? I suggest in these circumstances my right hon. Friend would do well to consider both these points between now and the Report stage. Perhaps he would prefer to hold the matter over until Report or will he allow the words to be inserted now and revise them, if necessary, later on?

§ Sir G. CAVE
I am quite willing to consider both points. Perhaps it would be better to put in the words now.

§ Mr. HOLT
If the right hon. Gentleman agrees to insert the word "knowingly," I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment to the proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Mr. PETO
May I suggest that the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland (Mr. Samuel) might be met by putting in the words "in any war in which His Majesty is engaged"? The Amendment would then be fairly complete.

§ Sir G. CAVE
Yes; I will take that now.

§ Mr. PETO
Then I will move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "during the present War," and to insert instead thereof the words "in any war in which His Majesty is engaged."

§ Sir G. CAVE
I accept that.

§ Amendment to proposed Amendment agreed to.

§ Further Amendment to proposed Amendment made: After the word "or" ["or associated"], insert the word "knowingly."—[Mr. Holt.]

§ Mr. NEVILLE
Has that Amendment been accepted?

§ Sir G. CAVE
Yes.

§ Mr. NEVILLE
I would like to point out that this puts the onus on the Home Secretary to prove the disloyalty of the 1128 person concerned, whereas I suggest the onus should be on the alien to prove his loyalty.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I will consider that, but at present my view is that the Amendment as suggested will suffice.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
The Amendment requires a slight alteration at the end, I think.

§ Further Amendment to proposed Amendment made: Leave out the word "the" ["the enemy in the war"], and insert instead thereof the word "such."

§ Proposed words, as amended, there inserted.

§ Sir HENRY CRAIK
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (2, b), to leave out the words "has within five years of the date of the grant of the certificate."
The object of this Clause, I take it, is to protect us against the influx, of the criminal class by naturalisation, and I cannot for the life of me see why that provision should be limited by any chronological consideration. Why should a man be liable to disqualification only if he has brought himself within the lash of the law within the preceding five years? If, unfortunately, a man with a criminal character has been accepted under a misapprehension, I do not think he ought to be allowed to retain his rights of citizenship here after he has proved his real character, by undergoing conviction in the Courts at any time. Surely a man might escape by some defect of the law the full exposure of his criminal tendencies for five years, and if, after five years, during which perhaps the Criminal Investigation Department has not been able to lay hands on him, he is convicted, is the Home Secretary to be deprived of the power of revising his naturalisation? Let the Committee remember that power is given to a judge, in sentencing a criminal, to deport him, and I do not think that that is limited by any condition as to the number of years of his naturalisation. A man convicted five years and a month after his naturalisation might be condemned by a Criminal Court to be deported immediately as a most undesirable alien, and a person detrimental to this country, but the Home Secretary would not be able to put him out of the country. Surely there can be no real ground for an exemption of this sort. I trust that my right hon. Friend will see his way to 1129 accept the Amendment, and broadly to lay down the rule that, if a man has proved himself at any period of his career to be a really criminal character and undesirable as a citizen, my right hon. Friend should be able to reconsider his case and cancel his naturalisation.

Mr. H. SAMUEL
It is a question whether a man could be deported who was denaturalised after sentence had been passed. I am rather inclined to think that he could not. The power to deport a person is limited to an alien, and an alien can be recommended for deportation by the Court which sentences him. In this case it is not an alien who would be sentenced, but a British subject. He would not come under the Aliens Act. Consequently, the Court could not recommend him for deportation, and the fact that he was subsequently denaturalised in consequence of the sentence of the sentence of the Court would not enable the Homo Secretary to deport him. So my hon. and learned Friend's argument, to some extent, falls to the ground.

§ Sir H. CRAIK
Would not the fact that we cannot deport him unless he is denaturalised be a ground for denaturalising him?

Mr. SAMUEL
He could not then be deported.

§ Sir G. CAVE
He could not deported for an offence committed before he was denaturalised.

§ Sir H. CRAIK
Could not be deported after he was denaturalised?

§ Sir G. CAVE
Not if he committed the offence before he was denaturalised. Is it well to use this power for the purpose of getting rid of all our undesirables? [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] If we do this other countries will do the same, and you will have every country sending back all its undesirables. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] That has not been the view that has been held. You naturalise a man for good or evil and make him a British subject, who is subject to your laws. You have not hitherto taken the power, when he commits an offence, of imposing upon him the additional penalty of losing his British nationality. The theory of this Clause, rightly or wrongly, is that if he commits an offence within a short period after naturalisation, then obviously he is not a person of good character to whom 1130 a certificate should have been given, and therefore that certificate may be reviewed. But if he commits an offence, say, twenty years later, then you would not be able to deprive him of his citizenship. That is the theory of the Bill, and I know that it is held by most people who have studied this matter.

§ Sir O. PHILIPPS
This is only a permissive power. There is a great deal to be said in favour of taking advantage of this Bill to get rid of a number of undesirable people who have been naturalised. If this Amendment gives a prospect of reducing the number of undesirable aliens who have been naturalised, then it is an Amendment which requires favourable consideration. Nearly everyone agrees that in the past a great many undesirable aliens have been naturalised very easily in this country, and if they have committed these offences, I think that we may fairly go back and examine the records for more than five years.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
I would appeal to the Home Secretary to strike out these words. I would put this case. A man gets naturalised and commits a crime, say, within one year of naturalisation. He is a very clever scoundrel, and avoids detection for some time. After five years have elapsed he is brought to justice and sentenced to, say, twelve months' imprisonment. According to the proposal of the Bill he escapes altogether, because he has not been found out within five years of the date of naturalisation. Surely that cannot be right. My right hon. Friend admits that in a case where the man commits crimes such as those indicated and is discovered and sentenced within five years after naturalisation his certificate should very properly be cancelled. But I cannot for the life of me see why a man who, owing to his possible cleverness or exceptional scoundrelism, has not been discovered and sentenced until after five years, should go scot free.

§ Mr. D. MASON
He does not go scot free. He would be punished under the law.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
When I say scot free, I mean scot free under this Bill, and the penalty of having his certificate revoked is not imposed on him. Take another case. A man gets naturalised. He remains a decent law-abiding person for, say, five and a half years, and then he commits some very abominable crime, 1131 for which he may be sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years. This man again is subject to none of the penalties of this Bill. The man who commits a much smaller offence six months previously, and is convicted, is liable to have the certificate revoked. Surely that cannot be right. I would suggest to my right hon. Friend that it is desirable to strike out these limiting words which lead, in some cases, at any rate, to great absurdities, and trust to the common sense and discretion of the Home Secretary not to revoke a man's certificate unless the crime is of a certain character committed in a reasonable time after naturalisation.

§ Mr. HOLT
I would like to ask the Home Secretary what the words to be inserted mean. Surely if the conviction is acted upon it should be acted upon with reasonable rapidity after the conviction. It would be very unfair to have this proviso acted upon perhaps ten or twenty years after the conviction had taken place, and to have this hanging over a man's head all that time. Ought not there to be a limit of time in which to enforce this provision?

§ Mr. PETO
I may put one further argument in favour of the elimination of these words. From this Sub-section it appears that the alien who becomes naturalised must, in order to have his certificate revoked, have been sentenced in a Court within His Majesty's Dominions. We have been talking of means of getting rid of specially undesirable aliens. But that is not so at all. Suppose that a very undesirable person comes to this country, a person who has been frequently convicted of various crimes in his own country which were not known here, why should we wish to add to our home-grown criminal classes these aliens if they commit crimes, at any rate, after five years from the date of their naturalisation? It seems to me most desirable, even from the point of view of hon. Members who believe that this country should be a sort of sanctuary for aliens of all kinds, that it should be well known that if they do commit a crime against the law of the land of which they wish to become naturalised citizens, it will inevitably mean if there is a penalty of twelve months' imprisonment or penal servitude that they will be denaturalised and cease to be British citizens. It is a most wholesome thing, considering the character of 1132 many of the persons who come to this country and become naturalised British citizens, that we should make it perfectly clear under this Bill when it is an Act that every such person shall know that he can only remain a naturalised British citizen as long as he conforms to the laws of the country in which he has become naturalised, and I do not see the slightest reason, in spite of what the Home Secretary has said, for putting in these limiting words. I agree with hon. Members who have said that it will be extremely difficult to continue such an anomalous position and that we ought to go in plainly for the principle, that if we naturalise an alien person that alien person must, as long as he wishes to keep his naturalisation, abide by the laws of the country; and if he breaks them, then he ceases to be a naturalised British citizen, because we have had, and probably shall have, quite enough difficulty with those of British origin, real British citizens who do not abide by the laws of this country. The number of such persons is diminishing. The statistics of crime in this country are diminishing, and we certainly do not want to increase them by naturalised aliens who will be perfectly immune, so far as this Bill is concerned, in committing any crime provided that they wait for five years after naturalisation before they commit it.

§ Colonel Sir C. SEELY
I think that there is some point in what was urged by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York as to a man who may escape being caught for two or three years, and I might suggest that that can be met by leaving out these words and inserting at the end, after "penal servitude," the words "for an offence committed within five years of the date of granting his certificate." That, I think, would meet the case put by the hon. and learned Member for York, and it would also meet the obvious feeling of the Home Secretary that it is undesirable to have no limit in the Bill for reasons that, I think, are perfectly plain.

Mr. DENNISS
Perhaps I may be able to exercise a little influence with the Home Secretary in asking him to agree to this. May I refer him to the report of a case where a German father committed a terrible crime on his daughter, and a German husband, also in this country, behaved brutally to his wife, the daughter? All that occurred some years ago, and she has been recently complaining in the 1133 Courts of this country. If this Clause were different, might it not be possible to denaturalise these two men?

§ Mr. WATT
I wish to add my voice to those who have urged the Home Secretary to withdraw this limitation. The right hon. Gentleman advanced the view that if these words were excluded from the Subsection it would make the provision much more drastic and also might provoke retaliation in foreign countries with whom we are at war at the present time.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I did not say with whom we are at war.

§ Mr. WATT
At any rate, that there would be retaliation in foreign countries in regard to British people who had become naturalised abroad and had been in gaol for a length of time. But are we not to alter our law because of the fact of these people being in foreign countries?

Mr. SAMUEL
The point we have to consider is the consequence which will follow if we take the course proposed by the Amendment. In the first place, a naturalised alien in this country commits an offence, and even if he is denaturalised you do not get rid of him, and he cannot be deported, as I pointed out previously. He was not an alien at the time the offence was committed, and therefore the Home Secretary has not the power to deport him. That could be amended in another Statute, but it is very doubtful if you could make a provision of that sort retrospective. Consequently, he will remain here under our present law, and revert to the status of an alien; in other words, there is added to the sentence of imprisonment, the sentence, common in continental countries, but not known under our law—the sentence of deprivation of civil rights. That is what you really do. But not only that, when you deprive him of civil rights you also relieve him of civil obligations, which is a fact that is not, perhaps, in the minds of those who suggest denaturalisation too lightly. Let us assume that after the War it is necessary to maintain, unhappily, compulsory military service, which is an obligation on every citizen of the country. If you denaturalise an alien, he is no longer liable to military service, nor are his children, when they come of military age; consequently, many of these people would be only too glad to be denaturalised, because they and their children would no longer be liable to military service. That 1134 is one of the considerations which ought to be borne in mind. Another consideration is what would be the influence on a Court of law of a provision of the kind suggested. The Court of law, if it was a consequence of the sentence to be passed upon a person naturalised in this country, that he would be denaturalised, and that the result of denaturalisation would, perhaps, ruin him in his business, might take that circumstance in consideration, and perhaps might reduce the term of imprisonment six or nine months, in order that the man might not be deprived of his certificate of naturalisation. Frequently it occurs in the Courts that a lower sentence is given when it is found that a man might be deprived of his pension, for example, as a direct consequence of the sentence that otherwise would have been passed upon him, but for the fact of the ulterior consequence. A man may have been here fifteen or twenty years, and become thoroughly Anglicised, he has perhaps married an English wife and has young children, and the Court may take all that into account in imposing a sentence which is not such as they would have otherwise inflicted but for the fact of ulterior consequences. The period of five years is inserted because it has been a provision of the law that a man is not to be naturalised unless he is shown to have been of good conduct. The police make inquiries as to the man's reputation, and if he has a bad reputation he is not naturalised. In dealing with this question we have to look at all the ulterior consequences. Suppose what is now proposed were the law of the United States, and an Englishman who had gone over there in his youth, and become naturalised as an American citizen, a voter in America, and perhaps had married an American wife and become thoroughly Americanised, and suppose he committed some offence that brought him within the grip of such an American law, at the time he is a man of fifty or sixty years of age he would then be deprived of his American citizenship and would revert to his British citizenship. But that has never been the practice hitherto, and, in view of these considerations, I think the Committee will be well advised to pause before putting any provision of this kind into the Bill or pressing it upon the Home Secretary.

§ Mr. SHERWELL
There is one further point, namely, that unequal justice might be done in cases where a commercial 1135 crime had been committed. Suppose a naturalised subject joins a board of British directors of a commercial company, and suppose the directors are found guilty of fraud, which brings them within the scope of the law, the punishment in such a case is uniform, because the offence is of equal criminality; but whereas you sentence the three or four British directors who are natural-born subjects to a term of imprisonment, you would subject under this proposed Amendment the man who is a naturalised British subject to something over and above the punishment which attaches to the offence committed. After all, the primary idea behind all this is to pick out those who have violated their loyalty to this country, and this proposal in the ordinary cases of commercial crime goes further than the primary intention of the Movers of the Bill.

§ Mr. STEWART
I am thoroughly in accord with the spirit which has led to the submission of this Amendment. Why should we not take every precaution to prevent our population being recruited from criminal classes abroad? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland said that a person deprived of his naturalisation could not be deported, and that he would revert to his position of an alien. But would not the fact that deportation was hanging over an offender, act as a wholesome deterrent against his committing any other crime? At any rate, this Bill is really brought in against the Germans, and we know that a German, though he may be naturalised in another country, never loses his German citizenship, and, if a naturalised German commits a crime here, it would be a very wholesome thing to let him revert to his German nationality. I hope that if the Home Secretary does not feel inclined to accept the Amendment at the moment he will turn it over in his mind.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I cannot accept the Amendment.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ Mr. STEWART
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (2, b), to leave out the word "twelve" ["not less than twelve months"], and to insert instead thereof the word "six."
The adoption of that proposal would at any rate reduce by half the number of undesirables, because if a man who has 1136 been committed for six months' imprisonment loses his nationality it seems to me we would still further be increasing our power to get rid of undesirables, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to accepting the Amendment. The more criminals we get rid of, the better the country will be pleased. If British people naturalised in foreign countries fall away from grace we will have to put up with retaliation in respect to them, but I do not see why we should risk our property in this country by allowing to come here aliens who, in many cases, abuse the liberal treatment they receive.

Mr. DENNISS
May I ask the Home Secretary whether Sub-clause (2) is permissive or obligatory? It seems to me that it is the latter. The most serious crimes are punished by hard labour, and the more venial crimes by imprisonment in the second division. There is a very great distinction as a rule between the crimes which are punished in the one way and in the other, and it is far more of a disgrace to a man if he has been sentenced to three months' hard labour than if he has been sentenced to twelve months in the second division. For libel a man may very well have twelve months in the second division, but the disgrace attached to it is not so great as that attaching to a highway robber sentenced to six months' hard labour. I remember a case at Manchester Assizes where a ruffian was found guilty of highway robbery—he was a sandbagging man—and he was only-sentenced to one month's imprisonment with hard labour, but he got fifty lashes with the cat. Under this Section a man who commits a serious crime like that and is punished with fifty lashes could not have his certificate of naturalisation cancelled. I think the Home Secretary should make a distinction between sentences punishable by hard labour and by flogging and those punishable by simple imprisonment in the second division.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
May I ask the Home Secretary in considering this Amendment to bear in mind this point? To my mind one of the most serious offences which any man can commit at this moment is a breach of the Defence of the Realm Regulations, because in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred such a breach is more or less the act of a traitor. I agree that there are some more trivial cases, but when a man comes before a Police Court 1137 under the Defence of the Realm Act and gets six months you may depend upon it he richly deserves it. According to the Bill as it stands, a man brought before a Police Court and given six months' imprisonment does not come within this Clause at all. He can come as often as he likes before the Court for a breach of the Defence of the Realm Regulations, and yet he is not subject to the penalty of possibly losing his certificate. Surely that cannot be right. I hope the Home Secretary will reduce this period of twelve months to six months.

§ Mr. NEVILLE
I should like to endorse what has been said by the last speaker. We must look at this matter from a common-sense point of view, and it is clear that if you allow an alien, who applies for naturalisation, to be told that if he commits any offence which is going to land him in a sentence of six months he may lose his certificate, it puts a very wholesome fear of consequences in him. He says, "I must be on my good behaviour." I cannot conceive of any provision which would be more likely to put an alien on his good behaviour than this. When you think that a large number of the people who flock into the East-End, and give us more Jews than we get in Jerusalem, and many of them of a very poor character, it seems to me that you ought, as business men desirous of protecting your own people from the contamination of these persons, to let it be clearly known that if they enjoy the hospitality of this country they do it on the terms that if they violate that hospitality and get themselves into trouble for six months they will be liable to have their naturalisation taken away. The argument that perhaps if we were to do this we should be doing something that has not been done before is entirely beside the mark. This is the very opportunity to make a precedent, and to deal with this matter from a good, sound, businesslike point of view. It seems to me to be the best thing to do to preserve the purity of this country, and to preserve also the natural safeguards upon which a State really depends, and I, therefore, hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept the Amendment.

§ Mr. D. MASON
I think that twelve months is a very reasonable time to put in a Bill, and I do not see why we should take away a certificate of naturalisation simply because a man is imprisoned for 1138 six months. The same argument as has been used for the Amendment could well be applied to three months, and I should like to hear what the Home Secretary has to say in respect of the period of twelve months, which I think is perfectly reasonable.

§ Sir G. CAVE
Of course, these matters have been very carefully considered by the Committee, which sat for some time, and looked into the whole of this question, and they took the view that de-naturalisation should only take place when there had been a serious offence showing that the man when he applied for naturalisation was probably a man of bad character. It is difficult, I agree, 10 fix precise period, but on the whole the recommendation made to me, which I have adopted, was that cases of penal servitude and of twelve months' imprisonment might be taken as a cause for denaturalisation. You could have a good argument for nine months, or six months, or for three months, or even one month, but one must follow one's own judgment, and I think twelve months is the right period. I know something of crime, because I have often sentenced for crime, and I know that a twelve months' sentence means a really serious offence, and that is why I have put it in this Bill. I hope the Committee will keep it in the Bill.

§ Mr. NEVILLE
Will the Home Secretary deal with the point about hard labour?

§ Sir G. CAVE
I am quite willing to insert it, but I should have thought that twelve months even without hard labour would have been sufficient.

§ Commander BELLAIRS
The Committee took the view that there should only be denaturalisation when the offence was serious, but is it not the case that the majority of the offences under the Defence of the Realm Regulations are serious offences, but are punished with sentences less than twelve months? If the Home Secretary were to grant a return of these cases I think he would find that the great majority of them were sentences of less than twelve months, and I think that in these cases the persons ought to be denaturalised.

§ Mr. PETO
I do not think the Home Secretary understood the suggestion with regard to hard labour. It was not meant to make the Clause less stringent.

1139

§ Sir G. CAVE
I am afraid I cannot put that in.

§ Sir R. COOPER
Is it correct that in a Police Court no penalty greater than six months can be inflicted? If that is so, does not that justify the Amendment, especially in view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has such a very wide discretionary power?

§ Colonel YATE
I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if the five years are to be retained in this Clause, and, if so, should not the twelve months be reduced to six? If the five years are not to be retained, then we might allow the twelve months to stand.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I will look into the matter.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
An immense number of very serious cases in which the Defence of the Realm Regulations have been broken come before the Police Court, where the maximum penalty is six months.

§ Sir G. CAVE
No.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
If I am wrong there the point does not arise, but I was under the impression that in the Courts of First Instance—

§ Sir G. CAVE
I meant that the maximum penalty under the Defence of the Realm Regulations is not six months.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
Do I understand that when a man is brought before a Court of First Instance for an alleged offence under the Defence of the Realm Regulations he may get more than six months?

§ Sir G. CAVE
No; I did not say in a Court of Summary Jurisdiction.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
My whole point was, that the vast majority of the Defence of the Realm Regulation cases come before the Police Courts, and that they are very serious offences, but the utmost sentence there is six months, and will my right hon. Friend say why a man who has been sentenced to six months in a Court of Summary Jurisdiction should be allowed to retain his nationality in all oases, although in some other cases, not nearly so serious from the point of view of loyalty to the country, a man may get a heavier sentence and then be deprived of his nationality?

§ Sir G. CAVE
The question of loyalty comes under another Clause. My point is that the sentence of six months generally does not indicate a very serious case.

1140

§ Mr. STEWART
How do we stand as regards the five years? I should like to know, because if the right hon. Gentleman says he will remove that five years period we might not divide on this question; but if that is to be retained I think we must go to a Division on this question of the twelve months.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I said I will consider the term of five years before the Report stage. If the twelve months is struck out and six months is inserted in its place, I must adhere to the five years, but I have promised to consider that question of the five years period before the Report stage.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ 8.0 P.M.

Major NEWMAN
I beg to move in substituted Clause 7 (2), to leave out paragraph (c), and to insert instead thereof (c) by reason of character, action, or mode of living has not shown himself to be a good citizen. I confess I do not altogether agree with the hon. Member who said the other night that this Bill was directed against the Germans. I do not look at this Bill as being-directed primarily against the Germans. I look upon it as the beginning of a series of measures that are going to make British citizenship something worth having, and that to get it one must have shown himself worthy of it, and having got it, shows himself worthy of keeping it. It is with that idea in my mind, and not with any idea of aiming against our German-enemies particularly, that I have put down one or two Amendments. Taking this particular Amendment, it is not really very apparent to me what this paragraph (c) in the Bill exactly means, because, after all, at the date of the granting of the certificate there was one man, and one man only, who had something to say in the matter, and that was the Home Secretary himself, because if we turn up the principal Act and look at Section 2, Subsection (3) we read— The grant of a certificate of naturalisation to any such alien shall be in the absolute discretion of the Secretary of State, and he may, with or without assigning any reason, give or withhold the certificate as he thinks most conducive to the public good, and no appeal shall lie from his decision. If this man was of bad character when he came before the Home Secretary to get his certificate, why was the certificate given to him? At that particular time this alien, when refused a certificate by the 1141 Home Secretary, could not appeal to any Court, committee or tribunal, and bamboozle them and get round them in some clever way. He simply had to make his application to the Home Secretary, and if the Home Secretary refused, nothing more was to be said. Therefore, I do suggest that, first of all, the Home Secretary is rather condemning himself by putting in this paragraph (c). Of course, it may be that this particular paragraph is aimed against women of a certain class, and men of a certain class who live on them. Of course, if that is the case, no doubt the Home Secretary will tell us so. If it is the case, what we want is to get these people not only denaturalised but deported. Also, I suggest that if we look at the last two lines of Sub-section (2) there are ample powers there to deal with such people without this particular paragraph (c), for there it is said and that (in any case) the continuance of the certificate is not conducive to the public good. That is, of course, a very general provision, and gives the Home Secretary very wide powers; but, at any rate, I do suggest that paragraph (c) as it stands is really not worth keeping in the Bill. If we are going to do something to make it more difficult for a man of bad character to retain his status of British citizen, when once naturalised we ought to put in something much more definite, and it is fox that reason I move my Amendment.
It is perfectly certain that these four years of war have been a time of fiery trial for the alien—I do not care whether the alien is a friendly alien, a neutral alien, or an enemy alien. Some of these aliens have come through that period well; others have not. I do not suppose any one of us will pass a word of reproach on the great Italian colony or the French colony in our midst. We have an opportunity in this Bill, however, to deal with the undesirables. This, I hope, is the first of a series of Acts under which we are not going, as before, to allow any man or woman to come to this country on the very flimsiest excuse without examination of their character, antecedents, and mode of living. I suppose for more than one hundred years we have had this great humanitarian cry that England will afford a right of asylum to persecuted nationalities. That sort of thing has gone far enough. We are not in future going to extend this right of asylum indiscriminately to people who 1142 come to our shores telling us this and that, and settling down, and then lowering the mode of living of great masses of our own citizens by their mode of living and their character. That is one of the most important things we can do under this Bill, and, therefore do let ns now make every effort to do it by putting in appropriate words. After all, we are largely now reaping where we sowed. We let these people in, and now we find them most undesirable. Do let us then take this opportunity of denaturalising where necessary, and deporting where necessary, and not wait for a further measure to be introduced to do this. If we in this Committee do not do it the British citizen outside means to insist that his standard of living shall be kept up and that he shall not be brought down to the mode of living and character of these foreigners who have been dumped on him in these large quantities during the past fifty or sixty years. It is not really a case of whether a man was of bad character, but it is much more a case as to whether a man now is of bad character, or, rather, is he not of good character, and will he be in the future of good character, and likely to make a good citizen in this small and overcrowded island of ours? Therefore, I do suggest that the words put in the Bill by the Home Secretary are of very little use, if of any use at all, and if we are going to have anything in at all, it is much better to put in something definite such as I have moved.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Gordon Hewart)
This Amendment, I fear, is one which cannot be accepted. I am sure the hon. and gallant Member will perceive that it is very vague in its terms. According to this Amendment, the burden of proof is thrown upon the person referred to to show by some act that he is a person who may be called a good citizen. I should think that no such vague and general words are necessary, and that the words at present in paragraph (c), not taken alone, but taken in conjunction with the other provisions of the Clause, are sufficient to deal with that part of the matter.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ Mr. PENNEFATHER
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (2, d), after the word "certificate" ["grant of the certificate"], to insert the word "not."
1143 The four Amendments I have down are all connected one with the other. I therefore propose to save the time of the Committee by treating them as being practically one Amendment. If I do that, the effect upon the Bill as it stands will be that paragraph (d) will read, has since the date of the grant of the certificate not been ordinarily resident in His Majesty's Dominions. Of course, that removes a very big umbrella which this paragraph erects, and it also removes, if I may say so, a great deal of red-tape, with which the Home Secretary and the Committee which he is about to set up are bound under this Clause. And I would ask, What is the virtue of a period of seven years? Of course, we all know that a man might have his certificate revoked under some of the other Clauses, but under this particular Clause a man, whose certificate it might be desirable to cancel on the ground that he has been absent from this country for a considerable time, is immune if he has been absent for a shorter period than seven years. I suggest there is no virtue in that whatever, and the whole point is whether this man, who has obtained a certificate of British naturalisation, has ordinarily resided in His Majesty's Dominions or not. If not, then I think there ought to be no cover given to him under this Clause. Then there is the suggestion also that a further special consideration should be given to the representative of a British subject, firm, company, or institution. I submit that that really has nothing whatever to do with the case. If the man is an undesirable alien, who has done something which renders it desirable that his certificate should be cancelled, what difference does it make whether he is or is not the representative of a firm, company, or institution? And even supposing he is in the service of the Crown, if he is what is called a wrong un, why should he be granted this immunity because he is in the service of the Crown? Some people have a suspicion that in the service of the Crown abroad there are a certain number of naturalised men whose services might very well be dispensed with, and whose certificates might very well be revoked. In any case I think that the Clause, subject to my Amendment, would be very much easier to apply, and, what is a more important matter, would be much better understood by the people of this country, who I believe will sympathise very much 1144 with any alteration which would make this an extremely simple and straight-forward measure, and about which there can be no doubt.

§ Sir G. HEWART
The Amendment which has just been proposed is an Amendment of a far-reaching character, and I am not sure, after listening attentively to the speech in which it has been submitted to the Committee, that my hon. Friend who is responsible for it has entirely appreciated its comprehensiveness. In order to bring that fact out clearly, if I can, may I say a word upon this part of the Bill as it now stands? This part of the Bill will deal with a series of specific and alternative grounds upon which the Secretary of State may revoke the certificate. One of the criteria of possible disqualification is ordinary residence outside His Majesty's Dominions. In the Bill as it stands that possible ground for disqualification is limited in two different ways. In the first place, the person whose certificate is to be revoked upon that mere ground is to be a person who has not been ordinarily resident within His Majesty's Dominions for a certain period, and the period which is chosen is seven years. Secondly, he must be a person who has not been ordinarily resident in His Majesty's Dominions otherwise than as a representative of a British subject, firm, or company carrying on business, or an institution established, in His Majesty's Dominions, or in the service of the Crown, or has not maintained substantial connection with His Majesty's Dominions. In other words, so far as this specific ground of possible disqualification is concerned there is a limit of time on the one hand, and a limit of capacity on the other hand. The Amendment of my right hon. Friend, if I follow it, proposes, taken in conjunction with the other three Amendments which are connected with it, to sweep away at a stroke both these limitations. There is to be no limit of seven years or of any period, and there is to be no possible ground of excuse on the part of the person referred to by reference to the character of his business or the occupation which took him away. In order that one may see the drastic effect this Amendment would have, if accepted, upon the Clause, may I read the particular limb of the Clause as it would stand if the Committee were to be induced to accept this bunch of four Amendments? It would read in this way: 1145 has since the date of the grant of the certificate not been ordinarily resident in His Majesty's Dominions. Let me point out—for any period and for any reason. Is it not obvious that that provision goes much too far? To take one instance out of many which occur to one: the effect would be, among other things, that a naturalised British subject would be prevented from being in the employ or in the service of the Crown and from conducting the commercial business of this country outside His Majesty's Dominions. That, I feel sure, is not really desired by the hon. Member, but if in deed and in fact he desires to introduce an alteration of that far-reaching character, I cannot think it will commend itself to this House, and it certainly is one which, on behalf of the Government, I cannot accept.

§ Mr. BIGLAND
I should like to say a few words with regard to this Amendment. I think what is in my Friend's mind is that in the drafting of this Clause there has been too much emphasis, and especially, to my mind, in the last part of the Clause, where it says "has not maintained substantial connection with His Majesty's Dominions." Every man who has gone abroad would say that he has done this, and on this Clause, therefore, you could not take away the certificates even on the ground that we would all wish to see them removed. What we wish to do is to give power to the Home Secretary to cut off a number of these aliens whom we consider undesirable as British citizens. Surely, if a man, after taking his citizenship, wilfully lives abroad, and can give no good excuse, the Home Secretary should have power to wipe his name off the list of citizens of this country! If a good solid reason, such as that His Majesty employed him abroad, were given, the Home Secretary would continue the certificate. My Friend does not for a moment think that no power should be given to the Home Secretary to exercise his discretion.

§ Mr. PENNEFATHER
He has the power.

§ Mr. BIGLAND
I claim that unless we tighten up this Bill as now submitted to us we, and also our countrymen outside this House, will be most grievously disappointed, and it will be said that we have been weak and vacillating and attempting to safeguard these men in every possible way. If my hon. Friend, 1146 in his Amendment, would put in five years I would certainly support him, and I believe a great number of Members of this House would go to a Division to see that, if these men, after they have taken out naturalisation papers, leave the country without good reason, their names should be removed from the list.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
I hope the Solicitor-General will give us some assurance that this matter will be considered before Report. The Bill as it now stands opens, a very wide door for a man to cloak himself under British nationality and then go abroad and remain a British citizen. He comes here and says, "I want a certificate," and he becomes naturalised. He says, "My business requires me to go to South America for seven years." He goes, not in the service of the Crown, not for any public interest, but for purely personal and selfish interests. He has no interest in this country's business or otherwise, and just before the seven years is up, when his certificate would be liable to be taken away, he comes back, say, for six months, or even less, and in that way saves his British nationality. Then he can go away for another seven years. There is nothing in the world to prevent him from going for six years eleven months, come home for one month, and then go away for another six years eleven months, and all the time be a British citizen. I think the Clause is too favourable to the alien who carries on his operations in that way, and perhaps the Solicitor-General will consider it with a view to seeing whether he cannot tighten it up before Report.

§ Mr. PENNEFATHER
The right hon. Gentleman, I think, cannot have done justice to the case I put forward, because he appeared to assume that the Secretary for State and the Judicial Committee about to be set up would not have the power suggested. As a matter of fact the Clause giving these powers, both to the Secretary of State and to the Judicial Committee, is simply permissive. I have more confidence in the Secretary of State and this Committee than to suppose that they will take such action as will lead to the results which the right hon. Gentleman pictured of no naturalised British subject ever being able to travel in any capacity in any part of the world. What would, what might, happen would be that the Secretary of State or the Committee would have sound reasons for 1147 saying, "This man's certificate ought to be cancelled, but it is possibly not so easy to cancel it under A, B or C; it is difficult to get proof, but we have enough knowledge and evidence before us to know that it is desirable to cancel the certificate, and we can cancel it on the ground that this man has not been ordinarily resident in His Majesty's Dominions." It is a convenient ground for cancelling, for good and sufficient reasons, the certificate of naturalisation. May I just say a word about this "substantial connection"? I entirely agree with my hon. and learned Friend that there is no naturalised subject, practically none, who goes abroad for a period of years who does not have some substantial connection with this country. Apart from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and possibly one or two other legal authorities, I do not suppose there is a man in this House at the moment who can say he knows what "substantial connection" means. Frankly, I do not. But what we desire to mean is that any man must prove that during the long period of his absence abroad, during which he has been of no use to this country, and perhaps no good friend to it, that he has had some substantial connection. I am not going to press the Solicitor-General to accept the Amendment to-night, but I am going to ask him whether he cannot see his way to agree that this Clause should be reconsidered between now and the Report stage, with a view either to eliminating the period of years altogether or substituting a shorter period, such as, say, three years, or even five years, as my hon. and learned Friend suggested; with the view also of striking out some of these other provisions which make it so extremely difficult for the Home Secretary or the Committee to act in regard to these men in some cases as they might desire.

§ Colonel YATE
May I add to the observations of my hon. Friend that I hope the Solicitor-General will agree to the reconsideration of this, especially the term of years, between now and the Report stage, and reconsider it on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend who has just spoken?

§ Sir G. HEWART
Nothing is easier than to give a promise on behalf of the Home Secretary that this Clause shall be 1148 fully reconsidered between now and the Report stage. It is very easy to give such a promise. My own view, however, is—and I hold it very strongly—that one should give a promise of that kind, not merely for the purpose of conciliating those concerned, but that behind it there should be the intention of a serious endeavour in the interval to remodel the Clause upon the lines proposed. I say frankly that at present I see very great difficulty in so doing. I do not want to repeat what I have said, but we are at a part of the Clause that deals with the specific potential disqualification of non-residence. I agree that the matter is subject to the discretion of the Secretary of State. So is every one of these other grounds. If the matter ended there, it might be enough to say that the Secretary of State might revoke a certificate—

§ Mr. PENNEFATHER
May I say that that is not the case in this instance, because it is specifically laid down in the Clause that the Secretary of State may revoke the certificate or may refer the matter to the Committee?

§ Sir G. HEWART
I agree; but the scheme of the Bill, so far as specific possible grounds of disqualification are concerned, is to enumerate certain grounds. What my hon. Friend proposes to do is to make mere non-residence—apart from the reason why, and apart from the time when—a specified possible ground upon which—

§ Mr. PENNEFATHER
I suggested a change of time—three or five years.

§ Sir G. HEWART
In my submission that goes much too far. As for the point that it is not easy to understand what "substantial connection" means, I should have thought it meant that the connection must be a real substantial connection; and, again, that the Secretary of State had to determine whether the alleged connection is a substantial connection within the meaning of this Clause. Subject to that caveat, I am quite willing to agree that the matter shall be reconsidered in the sense that it shall not be overlooked. In saying that, I must not in the least be understood to convey that I think it is probable we shall accept the Amendment. I am not really in favour at the present time of the 1149 Amendment. I think it is not wanted, but certainly the matter may be reconsidered.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ Mr. C. HARMSWORTH
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (2), at the end of paragraph (d), to insert, (e) was the subject of a State at war against His Majesty that does not regard naturalisation within the British Empire as extinguishing his original national status. This is an Amendment which I hope will be accepted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, or between now and the Report stage will be earnestly considered by him with a view to its adoption. Only within the last few years has it come home to the great bulk of Members of this House though they may have been reminded in recent years of it, and may have forgotten it—that it is possible for a naturalised British subject to retain his national status in the country of his birth. I am touching upon a subject which goes to the whole root, the whole question of naturalisation. It is not a question of fraud or misrepresentation, because up to now our own law has known of this. I do think, however, we ought to take advantage of this opportunity to introduce what I should regard as an absolutely necessary alteration in our system in regard to naturalisation. It is a question of the bona fides of the whole system. What were the presumptions in the case of a man who applied for naturalisation? The State assumed, or at all events the public assumed, that the man desired to come into a partnership with us in our national life and to enjoy the measure of liberty that we possess. He wants to throw himself heart and soul into the life of our community and to become, so far as it is possible to become by legal act, a citizen of the British Empire, and so we have accepted naturalisation as a system, and it is from that point of view that the system of naturalising possibly dangerous aliens has been recommended to the good sense of the people of this country. Now we find, and some of us have known it for a considerable time, that it is quite possible for an alien, or was possible before the War, because the system is practically in suspense at the present time, to go through a series of transactions on paper, to swear an oath of allegiance to the King, and then to tome into the full inheritance of a natural British subject. In that way civilised States have been willing to grant naturalisation on the ground that they were deal- 1150 ing with a bonâ fide applicant. Some States permit their citizens to take out letters of naturalisation from another country while at the same time they retain the nationality of the country of their birth, and in that case naturalisation is reduced to nonsense.
Reference has been made to the law passed in Germany in the early part of 1914, but that law, as I read it, makes the situation worse than it was. It appears, as I understand the law, and if I am wrong I am sure the Solicitor-General will correct me, to be possible for a German citizen, or it was possible before the War, to go to the competent authority in his own country and say, "I am going to apply for naturalisation in England, but I do not want my naturalisation in Germany to lapse." They say to him in Germany, "Go ahead, it does not make the least difference." I have a much greater respect for the German who allows his German nationality to lapse and take out our letters of naturalisation than for the man who assumes this double role. I think this is a matter of great substance, and I do not anticipate that my right hon. Friend the Solicitor-General or the Under-Secretary of State will waive this Amendment aside in the somewhat light and airy way in which a large number of Amendments have been set aside to-day.
This is a very important Bill, and I am not sure, and I say it with all respect to hon. Members, that this Committee is quite conscious how keenly this measure is being regarded outside. I have sat through the whole of this Debate, and I have seen little to convince me that the Committee is conscious of the anxiety with which this measure is regarded outside this House, and I think we are entitled to receive from the Government in regard to this matter a very full examination and a very satisfactory reply. They may say that this is a question that must come up when the whole system of naturalisation is being considered by the Committee which is about to be appointed. No doubt it must be, but I do impress upon my right hon. Friend the importance of giving effect to a principle which, as I say, cannot be questioned, for if you allow a dual nationality then the whole system of naturalisation becomes a farce. It is, therefore, with great confidence that I submit this Amendment to my right hon. Friend, and I hope it will be accepted.

1151

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
I agree that this is a most vital Amendment. This question goes to the very root of the whole principle on which naturalisation is founded. A man who owes allegiance to the Kaiser cannot divest himself of that allegiance by signing papers of naturalisation in this country. What is certain about this dual nationality is that a man who owes a dual allegiance cannot be true to both his masters. He may be a traitor to one or the other or to both, but he cannot be true to both, and therefore, whether he is a single or a double traitor we do not want him as a citizen of this country. If he has by inadvertence or by some defect in our law allowed himself to be put, or has deliberately put himself, in the position in which he must be a traitor to one country or the other, I think we should relieve him of that position, and put him back in his orignial position as early as possible.
Think what happens! A German, knowing that he could not by law divest himself of his German nationality, comes to this country and says, "I want to be your citizen. I want to be loyal to you and take your oath of allegiance," knowing all the time that he cannot honestly do it. He is allowed to do it. He signs a paper, which to him is the usual scrap of paper, the oath of allegiance but it means nothing to him. Perhaps he wants some benefit in his business, or perhaps he has some sinister object. He gets his naturalisation and he puts himself in a position in which he cannot be an honest man, and what this Amendment asks him to do is to relieve himself of that position, and allow him to go back to the rule of that Sovereign to whom he professed allegiance, and relieve him from that position in which he is a dishonest man attempting to owe allegiance to two different Sovereigns. This is an absolutely-vital Amendment, and I hope that the Solicitor-General will feel that the time has come to get rid of this grave anomaly in our naturalisation law.

§ Sir G. HEWART
I do not wish to treat this Amendment or any Amendment to this Bill in a light-hearted manner. My hon. Friend who moved the Amendment, and my hon. and learned Friend who supported it, have given weighty reasons why it should be carefully considered, and it certainly deserves careful consideration. It is to be observed that the Amendment in the form in which it has been moved is of much more limited scope than the 1152 Amendment as it was put upon the Paper. As it was put upon the Paper, it was proposed to be made one of the specific grounds of possible disqualification that the person in question was the subject of any enemy State that does not regard naturalisation within the British Empire as extinguishing the original citizenship. If I follow it, the words "foreign State" are now to be exchanged for the words "State at war with His Majesty." A slight difficulty arises in the consideration of these words. Do they mean "if he was at any time a subject of a State which was ever at war with His Majesty," or "which was at war with His Majesty at the time when the question comes up for consideration." I rather think, if I rightly interpret the sense of my hon. Friend's speech, and I am fortified by what my hon. and learned Friend opposite (Sir J. Butcher) said, that he is speaking of a person who at the crucial date, namely, the date when the matter comes up for consideration, remains the subject of a foreign State then at war with His Majesty, which does not regard naturalisation within the British Empire as extinguishing the original citizenship.

§ Mr. HARMSWORTH
Yes, that is so.

§ Sir G. HEWART
If the Amendment had stood in its original form, great difficulties would have arisen into which I need not now enter. But if my hon. Friend will take from me the word "remains" instead of the word "was" I am disposed to accept the Amendment in its altered form. Let me observe, however, that it must not be thought that the Amendment goes so far as upon a hasty view might be suspected. I speak with diffidence on any topic of law, and especially on any topic of German law, but, as I understand the law in Germany, it used to be that it mattered not to the citizenship of a German that he became naturalised elsewhere. Since the passing of the Delbrück law the position, as I understand it, is that any German naturalised elsewhere is deprived of his citizenship in Germany, but in a particular case he may satisfy the authorities in Germany that, notwithstanding naturalisation elsewhere, he ought to remain a German citizen. Interpreting the Amendment in that way, as dealing with the case of persons who remain subjects of a State at war with His Majesty where the law is such that naturalisation within the British Empire does not extinguish the original citizenship 1153 it seems to me that it is an Amendment which may properly and usefully be accepted.

§ Mr. HARMSWORTH
I am extremely grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend, and I very gladly accept his Amendment. I may explain that I was in great doubt whether I ought to put "was a subject" or "is a subject" or how I ought to describe him, as obviously he is a subject of both States. The word which my right hon. and learned Friend suggests seems to me to meet the case as well as it can be met, and I accept it with gratitude and thank him for accepting the Amendment as a whole.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir F. Banbury)
Do I understand the right hon. and learned Gentleman desires to move an Amendment to the Amendment?

§ Sir G. HEWART
It is a mere matter of form. As I understood it, my hon. Friend behind me accepted from me the suggestion that in his Amendment the word "was" should be exchanged for the word "remains."

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
Someone must move that Amendment. An Amendment must either be moved or the Amendment now before the House must be withdrawn and another Amendment substituted. I think the simplest way would be to move an Amendment to the Amendment.

§ Mr. HARMSWORTH
I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the word "was," and to insert instead thereof the word "remains."

§ Question, "That the word 'was' stand part of the proposed Amendment," put, and negatived.

§ Question proposed, "That the word 'remains' be there inserted."

§ Sir R. COOPER
I am extremely glad that the Solicitor-General has accepted this Amendment, to which many people attach enormous importance. It is a very important step which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has taken this evening, because, for the first time, we are establishing in this country that, at any rate with regard to enemy subjects, we are not going to allow a dual nationality. We are even to-day naturalising people who may possibly—

1154

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
The only question before the Committee is that the word "remains" should be inserted.

§ Question proposed, "That the proposed words, as amended, be there inserted."

§ Sir R. COOPER
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind the effect of this Amendment and consider whether, before any more naturalisation certificates are granted to people of enemy origin, it is not desirable that the oath of allegiance should be altered accordingly?

§ Mr. BIGLAND
I should like to express gratification that the Solicitor-General has been able to accept this Amendment. There was in my own Constituency intense feeling when it became known that it was possible that a man when he took the oath of allegiance to our King did not relinquish his allegiance to his own sovereign. Our fellow countrymen abroad are greatly exercised in their minds whether it is right for them to take part in the political life of the country in which they have gone to live when they find that by so doing they must relinquish their British citizenship, and it was a real revelation that any country had passed a law whereby its subjects could accept the citizenship of Great Britain and still retain their own citizenship. There is an old law, which I understand is sound, that when a fraud is proved the contract ceases to exist. It seems to me that the fact that these men have retained their German citizenship proves absolute fraud, and that, therefore, the agreement to accept such persons as citizens of the British Empire can be annulled. I do not know whether that would have stood, but now that the Amendment has been accepted the whole country will be exceedingly pleased to know that this matter, which has created so much feeling, has been set at rest.

Mr. H. SAMUEL
I think the acceptance of this Amendment is quite wise in the application to which it is intended to refer. Apparently, many hon. Members of the Committee have not in mind the fact that there are some countries which in no circumstances relieve their nationals of their citizenship. I think I am right in saying that Russia, for instance, in no circumstances regards any Russian subject who goes to another country as ceasing to be a Russian subject, no matter what he does. It is not the fault of the man 1155 himself who may become naturalised here that he continues to be a Russian subject at the same time. The law of Russia does not permit him to give up his Russian nationality. The law there is that once a Russian subject, always a Russian subject. The effect of the Amendment will be that if, unhappily, at some future time we should be at war with any country in the world whose law is of that character, every ex-national of that country who may be living in this country who has been naturalised could have his naturalisation cancelled at once, provided that the continuance of the certificate was not conducive to the public good. Those words are a, sufficient safeguard against injustice. I make this suggestion to the Government—at any rate, I wish to place it on record for future reference; my words have no application to the present state of things—that it is quite wrong that any country in the world should have such a law as I have described—namely, that their subjects can never divest themselves of the nationality of that country, even if they go to live permanently in another country and become naturalised citizens in the country of their adoption. I think that when normal conditions return, negotiations should be set on foot with any country which still retains that law, with a view to the abrogation of that law and to securing, by the ordinary principles of international comity, that where one country acepts as a citizen one who comes to live within its borders, the country from which he came should, ipso facto, relieve him from allegiance. If that were done, the conceivable evils which might arise—I agree, in the distant future—from this Amendment might be avoided. I wish to place that on record.

§ Colonel YATE
I spoke on this subject on the Second Reading of the Bill, and only wish to say how pleased I am that the Solicitor-General has accepted this Amendment, and has thus put an end to an anomaly which has existed hitherto.

§ 9.0 P.M.

§ Mr. D. MASON
I should like to ask the Solicitor-General a question with regard to the interesting point raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland (Mr. Samuel). I entirely agree with this Amendment, for I consider that dual nationality is absurd. Do these words enable a man who comes from, say, Russia, Italy, or some other country to be 1156 still held by the Government of that country to be a citizen of that country, because the words are— remains a subject of a States— it is the State that does it— at War with His Majesty that does not regard naturalisation within the British Empire as extinguishing his original national status. If you throw the onus upon the foreign State, then the individual alien belonging to some State who might desire to be a British citizen and to take the oath of allegiance, and has every wish to do so, still comes under this ban. I only ask this question to enable us to avoid the position pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland. Will this prevent a man from becoming a British subject merely because his original country still regards him as its subject? That is worthy of the Solicitor-General's attention. It should be made perfectly clear that in accepting this Amendment we are not preventing or accepting many loyal citizens who might desire to become British subjects and to relinquish their former nationality.

§ Mr. C. ROBERTS
There is one point I should like to clear up. This is a good Amendment, but it is the fact that where this law does exist in a foreign State it is not possible to get rid of the man's allegiance. Under this Amendment he will not be able to refuse to remain a subject of that State. So that if the foreign State with which we are at war maintains the permanent allegiance of any of its subjects, then it is not in the least at the option of any individual citizen of that State to remain its citizen. He must remain a subject of that State, and has no option in the matter at all. As there is some misapprehension on this subject, I would ask the Solicitor-General to clear up the matter. We are dealing with an old state of the law, under which, before various naturalisation laws were passed, a great number of different States maintained the doctrine of the permanent allegiance to their subjects. I think I am right in saying that we did ourselves, until a recent date, and that it was impossible for an Englishman to renounce his allegiance to the State. The State kept its hold upon him. This doctrine of dual nationality is not an old trick invented to get the better of us by States with which we were at war. It is a relic 1157 of ancient doctrine, which we held in common with all civilised countries. That doctrine has been relinquished by different States at different stages. I understand that if a man is a subject of a State where that doctrine obtains, he cannot get away from its chains, and is bound by the doctrine of permanent allegiance. Is not that correct?

§ Sir G. HEWART
If I rightly apprehend the matter, the answer to my right hon. Friend's question is reasonably clear. Wherever a citizen occupies the dual position that he is at one and the same time a citizen of this and of a foreign country, if the event arises that that foreign country comes to be at war with this country, then the mere fact of his dual citizenship, plus the further fact that the continuance of his certificate is not conducive to the public good, will give sufficient ground for the revocation of his certificate. It applies wherever the case occurs, that the person is at once a British citizen and a citizen of a State which has come to be at war with us. That represents the true dimensions of the Amendment.

§ Sir J. BUTCHER
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (2), to leave out the words "and that (in any case)" and to insert instead thereof the words "or he is a person in whose case."
Under the Bill as it stands the Home Secretary, before he revokes a certificate of nationalisation, has to be satisfied, in the first instance, that one of the specific grounds mentioned in the earlier paragraphs exists, and, secondly, that the revocation of the certificate will be conducive to the public good. My proposal is that he should be able to revoke the certificate whenever he is satisfied that that revocation is conducive to the public good. In other words, it would give him a wide discretion, and that is what he ought to have. We have attempted to introduce certain additional specific reasons into the Bill, so as to enable him to say in this, that, and the other case the certificate ought to be revoked. But I am afraid our efforts have not been sufficiently successful to enumerate anything like all the cases in which we ought to have power to revoke a certificate, and therefore it appears to me it is very essential that there should be some general Clause giving him a discretion in all cases where it would be to the public good to revoke a certificate.

1158

§ Sir G. CAVE
My hon. and learned Friend proposes to make this one of the events in which the certificate may be revoked, and at the same time to remove what is a very important part of the Clause, namely, that in every case where a certificate is revoked it shall be found that the person to be denaturalised is a person whose continued naturalisation is not conducive to the public good. That is a vital change in the Clause, and I do not think it is a right one. I think in all these cases the Secretary of State ought to be satisfied that it is conducive to the public good. It is not only that he ought to say a man has double nationality or comes otherwise within this paragraph. He ought also to find that it is desirable that the certificate should be revoked. I think this ought to be a cumulative condition in every case. Apart from that, I do not think it would be right to give a general roving power, whenever the Secretary of State is satisfied that the continuance of the certificate is not conducive to the public good, to revoke it without any fault on the part of the naturalised person and without any indication of danger to the public interest, but merely owing to some arbitrary decision of the Secretary of State. That puts far too wide a power in the hands of a Minister of the Crown to revoke grants deliberately made. It would go far beyond the scope of the Bill, and I hope on consideration my hon. and learned Friend will not press his Amendment.

§ Sir R. COOPER
May I ask if one is to understand that in none of these cases of double naturalisation will the certificate of naturalisation be revoked unless it can be practically proved that the person concerned has done something or his character is such that the continuance of his certificate is not conducive to the public good?

§ Sir G. CAVE
That is not so at all. The power given to the Secretary of State is to grant or withhold a certificate according as he considers or does not consider that the grant is conducive to the public good. Those are words which are in the original Act in regard to granting certificates, and you ought to have regard to the same considerations in revoking them. I do not at all say the person must have a bad character or something of that kind, but the Home Secretary 1159 must satisfy his own mind, having regard to the facts proved, that it is a good thing to revoke the certificate.

§ Amendment negatived.

Major NEWMAN
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7, at the end of Subsection (2), to insert the words, but the Secretary of State may, if he thinks fit, before making such order refer the case for such inquiry as is hereinafter specified. I understand the Home Secretary accepts this Amendment. The words are consequential on the acceptance of an earlier Amendment.

§ Mr. C. ROBERTS
I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, at the end, to add the words, and if the Secretary of State does not so refer the case the person to whom the certificate was granted, unless he is a person to whom the provision of Sub-section (2), paragraph (b), of this Section applies, shall have the-right to have his case referred for such an inquiry. As the Bill was presented to the Committee there was an inquiry in each particular case. That was compulsory upon the Secretary of State. The Home Secretary in the course of previous discussions has made the inquiry merely optional, and he may act without any inquiry if he thinks fit. I wish by this Amendment to leave him his power of deciding without an inquiry, but if he does not refer the case for an inquiry then, that the person affected should have the right of appeal, except in one case, where Subsection (2, b) applies—that is to say, where a man has been sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than twelve months or to a term of penal servitude. I do not think in that particular case, when you are taking action under that particular Sub-section, that it is reasonable to insist that a man should have a right of appeal. But, in the other instance, it is only fair and just that in a case of this kind there should be an inquiry at the option of the person affected. Earlier in the afternoon's proceedings the Home Secretary described this Bill as a penal Statute of a drastic character entailing the heavy penalty of the loss of British citizenship. I do not think it is just to leave in the mere discretion of the Home Secretary the right of applying this penal Statute of a drastic character and to give him the right of imposing the heavy penalty of the loss of British citizenship without giving the person affected the right of appeal. That 1160 was in the Bill as originally drafted, and as passed by this House on Second Beading. There has been this alteration of plan in it; I do not object to that, but I think you ought to leave to the person affected his chance of making this appeal, and I hope very sincerely that the Home Secretary will be willing to accept this. I agree, and we all agree, that we have to protect the State; that is not in dispute. But in the process of this revocation of certificates, in the midst of natural strong feelings which may arise, it is quite easy for injustice to be done which I am sure, in cool, dispassionate moments, the Committee will be very loth to see inflicted. I think there ought to be some chance of men who are exposed to heavy penalties having their case, if they think they have got a good case, heard where it might be they would establish their innocence. Some of these words are very vague. It may be right that they should be wide, and I do not object to this width of language which the Committee has accepted. But I think it is only fair and just that there should be this chance of public inquiry, and it would be far more satisfactory to all the country as a whole. We are told in the Press at the present time, and I think most unjustly told, that His Majesty's Ministers are slack and feeble in their administration of the law. I think in such a case it might be very desirable to have the case fought out in an inquiry. No doubt it would be for the person affected to ask for an appeal, but it would be an inquiry, as I understand, in open Court. On the grounds of justice, and also in order to relieve the Home Secretary of a duty which might at times be very invidious, I would press him strongly to accept this appeal.

Major NEWMAN
I very much hope the Home Secretary will not accept this Amendment. If the condition is accepted, I candidly tell the Committee that the main object of the Amendment which I moved earlier in the afternoon will be utterly defeated. The main object why I moved the Amendment was that I did not want to give a naturalised alien the chance of starting a lawsuit in every case where the Home Secretary thought his certificate ought to be revoked. I did not want to see a perpetual lawsuit going on, with counsel employed on each side, and, above all, a great deal of delay. It was for that reason that I moved that the words "after such inquiry as is herein- 1161 after specified," which might be necessary in ease there should be a lawsuit, should be omitted, and substituted words which gave the Home Secretary discretion, if he thought fit, to allow a naturalised person to make his appeal and to prove his case if he could. But, if the words of the hon. Member were added, then the idea with which I moved my Amendment is gone, and I hope the Home Secretary will not accept it.

Mr. H. SAMUEL
I was not able to be present at the time of the discussion this afternoon, to which the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken has referred, as I was engaged in the service of the House on a Committee elsewhere, and I do not quite know what passed. But I very much regret that the Amendment then proposed was made. I supported this Bill on the Second Reading, and strongly, because it contained two principles. One principle was that there ought to be denaturalisation where a person who has had—

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I am afraid we cannot discuss an Amendment which has already been dealt with.

Mr. SAMUEL
No, I am discussing the Amendment now before us, as I think I shall, after a moment, quite clearly show. There were two principles in the Bill, one of which would be to a considerable extent restored if the Amendment to the Amendment now before the Committee were adopted. One was that a person should be denaturalised if he had, by action of his own, proved false to the obligation which he undertook when he became a citizen of this country. The other was that this should be done, not lightly by the fiat of any Minister, but after a judicial or quasi-judicial inquiry in each case. A naturalisation certificate is a very solemn contract between the State on the one hand and the admitted citizen on the other, and both undertake an obligation. It is an extremely invidious duty, as the hon. Member for Lincoln said, to throw upon any citizen the duty of judging in cases of this sort without the assistance of an inquiry by some impartial persons. The Minister is very often hard pressed with business, and it is very difficult for him to ascertain all the facts of an individual case, and he ought properly to refer these matters for such an examination as is now given by the Committee deal- 1162 ing with the internment of aliens, over which Mr. Justice Sankey presides. In a moment of popular passion the position of the Minister may be exceptionally difficult. The Amendment we inserted just now would have this effect. If we were to be at war with Russia, unhappily, in the future, every naturalised Russian in this country, and there are tens of thousands of them, might have his certificate of naturalisation cancelled at once if the Minister held that such action was conducive to public interest. There might be a strong popular agitation to secure that result—an agitation stirred up by a short-sighted Press anxious to support some sensational cause and to attract public attention to it. It might bring most severe pressure to bring on the Minister of the day to cancel all such naturalisation, and if the Bill remained as it is now the Home Secretary might reply, "I am prepared to make an investigation into each case." But he would be met with the rejoinder that Parliament, in 1918, left it entirely to his discretion, and he could at once, if he chose, take away the certificates of all these thousands of people. The Home Secretary would, indeed, have no defence against such a claim. The Amendment of my right hon. Friend says that in such a case the man affected should have the right to appeal to an inquiry which the Government, in their Bill as originally drafted, proposed should take place in each case. That seems to be the right thing, and if the House has decided otherwise, if it has decided there should not be an inquiry and that the Home Secretary should take action in the first instance, then in my opinion, the person aggrived should have the right of recourse to a quasi-judicial tribunal, and the Home Secretary should not be left to face without any protection an agitation such as that I have described.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I do not regret the decision of the Committee this afternoon, because I think there are cases where inquiry would be useless and absurd, such, for instance, as cases where there had been actual conviction for crime. In these cases I think it would be quite right to dispense with an inquiry. Then there is the case of long absence abroad. As the House will conjecture I have a waiting list of persons who may be dealt with under this Bill, and this list contains a large number of names of persons who are naturalised in this country but who have never shown their faces here for a good 1163 many years past. In such cases it would be practically impossible to give notice of inquiry to the persons affected, and I would in those cases make the inquiry optional. In other cases I agree there is fair reason for giving the person affected the right to ask for an inquiry. These cases would be cases of overt act or speech disloyal to the State, cases of trading with the enemy, and cases of double nationality. I quite feel that in these cases the Home Secretary would not care to decide without giving the persons concerned a chance of a hearing. What I suggest is this. I am very loth to accept the Amendment for this reason, that there is no limit of time within which the inquiry may be demanded, and it might, therefore, postpone the whole matter for months. The form of the Amendment therefore requires consideration, as well as the cases to which it should apply, and I should like to postpone actually dealing with this matter until the Report stage of the Bill.

§ Mr. C. ROBERTS
I am very much indebted to the Home Secretary for the promise he has given to bring up some Amendment in a different form on the Report stage. I may say in my turn he has convinced me that in reference to the cases of long absent from the country, although there might be matter for argument as to the meaning of maintaining substantial connections. I agree that in cases of dual nationality there ought to be a right of appeal. I wish to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has met me, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment to proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Proposed words there inserted.

§ Mr. WATT
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (3) to leave out the words "a Committee" ["shall be held by a Committee"], and to insert instead thereof the word "Committees."
My object is to bring in the Committee which exists at the present time for Scotland. I imagine that under this measure Mr. Justice Sankey's Committee will deal with the English cases, and we desire that the Scottish Committee should continue to sit for Scottish cases. The right hon. Gentleman knows that that Committee presided over by a judge of high judicial experience and including two Members of 1164 this House has been dealing with Scottish cases, and we desire that some similar Committee should continue to exist for Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, rather indicated that the Committee would travel about the country. Its labours would therefore be very considerable, and as we do not wish the interests of our country to be neglected in any way I trust the Government will see their way to accept this Amendment. I brought the matter up on the Second Reading in the absence of the Home Secretary, but the Under-Secretary who was in charge promised to look into it and to give us the views of the Home Office when the Bill reached Committee.

§ Sir G. CAVE
In any case the Amendment in this form cannot be accepted because, of course, the inquiry must be held by a Committee, and you cannot have the same inquiry held by more than one Committee. It is not our intention that the powers conferred under this Bill shall be exercised by Mr. Justice Sankey's Committee or by the, corresponding Scottish Committee, whose duty it has been to deal with the exemption of aliens. It is proposed to set up a new Committee to act under this Bill. There will be, at all events, a Committee newly set up under Statute for the purpose of this Act. Whether that purpose would require one Committee or two, I do not know. This is an Imperial matter. It may be that one Committee for the whole of the United Kingdom is sufficient, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the desire of Scotland to be represented on such a Committee would not be lost sight of. There would be a Scottish representative on the Central Committee for the whole United Kingdom, or if we do divide the matter up no doubt there would be a separate Committee for Scotland, constituted in accordance with the desires of Scotland; so that one way or the other the object of the Amendment will be achieved.

§ Mr. WATT
I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Sir R. COOPER
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (3), after the word "office," to insert the words, one member of this Committee shall be a representative of the British Overseas Dominions. This Bill is not a national Bill but an Imperial Bill. It concerns the whole 1165 Empire, including the Crown Colonies. The British Dominions are referred to no fewer than seven times in the Bill. This Bill has been held back for a considerable time while His Majesty's Government took counsel with the Governments of the Overseas Dominions in order that they might pass through the House a Bill that would satisfy these Governments. That only shows how exceedingly important it is that the administration of this Bill when it becomes an Act should be safeguarded, go that the interests of our Overseas Dominions shall be fully looked after at every turn. While I can quite understand the Home Secretary pointing out the objection that only one representative is proposed when there are several Dominions to be considered as well as the Crown Colonies, I do feel that our Dominions, especially at the present time while we are at war, are sufficiently united one with another as well as with us to look broadly at this matter and feel satisfaction at any suitable arrangement which His Majesty's Government at home might think proper for carrying out this Bill. It is a very important matter, and I hope that in this form, or in some other form, the interests of the Dominions may be regularly safeguarded in the administration of the Bill.

§ Sir G. CAVE
It is quite clear that this Amendment will not read. Apart from that, as the hon. Gentleman no doubt knows, the question is somewhat complicated. My view is that in order that this Bill should affect citizenship in the Dominions, it must be adopted by the Dominions. Therefore, we do not know that denaturalisation will affect the Dominions at all. If it does, then, no doubt, the Dominions, if they desire to act upon the denaturalisation, will make proper provision.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
This Amendment does not read, and therefore it is not in order.

§ Sir R. COOPER
Will it not read with a subsequent alteration in the words, so that the concluding part will read "and the Committee shall be conducted in such manner as the Secretary of State may direct."

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
We cannot make any alteration in the Clause before the alteration that was made in the last Amendment.

1166

§ Sir R. COOPER
The alteration could be made after the word "and," which comes after my Amendment. But I may dismiss the matter by saying that I understand from the Home Secretary that my Amendment should not be adopted because of the considerations to which he has referred, and I therefore ask leave to withdraw it.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Mr. D. MASON
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7 (3), after the word "direct," to insert the words, Provided that the holder of a naturalisation certificate shall have the right of appeal against the decision of any such inquiry to the High Court for consideration and report.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I am not sure whether the undertaking given by the Home Secretary on the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lincoln (Mr. C. Roberts) does not cover this.

§ Mr. MASON
I would be very glad to have that assurance from the Home Secretary. I understand that he accepts this as part of the other.

§ Sir G. CAVE dissented.

§ Mr. MASON
Then I had better move the Amendment. It seems to me that as the Secretary of State may, if he thinks fit, refer an inquiry to the High Court, the holder of a naturalisation certificate should equally have the right of appeal to the High Court against any decision that might be come to by this Committee. That does not in any sense reflect upon the Committee, which, I have no doubt, will be a judicial one commanding confidence and respect in all quarters. But it is the procedure of our Courts to allow appeals. We have appeals with regard to military service, we have appeals at common law to the next higher Court, and if we have to regard this measure as permanent we are very anxious to get this point settled. It is possible that you might have a miscarriage, and there might be, in times of passion or prejudice, a case in which a false decision was arrived at by the Committee, against which there should be an appeal. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will agree to this, because it gives the holder of the naturalisation certificate the same rights, not greater rights, as the right hon. Gentleman has in the Bill, namely, the right of appeal to the Higher Court.

1167

§ Mr. HOLT
It seems to me that this is a very necessary proposal, and one which should be supported by the Committee, unless the Secretary of State gives some explanation as to the character of the Committee he may appoint. There is nothing in this Bill to prevent a Committee being appointed for every particular inquiry. An ad hoc Committee might be appointed in every case. It would be possible for the Home Secretary, under the influence of popular excitement, to appoint a Committee almost entirely of such persons as the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy, the hon. and learned Member for York, the hon. Member for Brentford, or the hon. Member for Horsham, to make inquiry. I do not say that the right hon. Gentleman would appoint such a Committee, but I do say that it could be done, and what chance of justice would there be if such a Committee were appointed? There would be the greatest chance of a miscarriage of justice. If there is to be an inquiry, we are entitled to have a Committee which will conduct it judicially, and that there shall be a guarantee that it shall consist of persons accustomed to exercise judicial functions. I think the hon. Member for Coventry has rendered a considerable service to the Committee by bringing this Amendment forward.

§ Sir G. CAVE
The scheme of the Bill is that denaturalisation shall be by the administrative action of the Secretary of State, who will be advised by a Committee presided over by a person having judicial experience. Or, if the Secretary of State thinks fit, he can refer the case for full inquiry by the Court, which, in that event, would take the place of the Committee. But, throughout, the act is the act of the Secretary of State, and not of the Committee. I do not think it would be right to give in every case the right of appeal to the person affected. I think that, in ninety-nine cases out of 100, the inquiry by a body such as I propose to set up would certainly do justice. The appointment of a Committee such as the hon. Gentleman opposite suggested is safeguarded against, and, after all, the question remains with the Secretary of State, who would act as he thought fit on the facts. I do not think I can agree to a universal appeal.

§ Mr. MASON
Can the right hon. Gentleman agree to a partial appeal?

1168

§ Sir G. CAVE
I cannot consider a general appeal, but I think an inquiry ought to be held in cases where the Secretary of State thinks it necessary. The Amendment now suggested has been tried in France, where originally denaturalisation was referred to the Courts. After a time that was repealed, and the system which now obtains in France is very much nearer to that which we propose to have.

§ Mr. SHERWELL
I think the question would have been much simpler if the Home Secretary had been able to give us some sort of indication of how the Committee is to be constituted.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I am sorry I did not refer to that. I never contemplated the appointment of an ad hoc Committee, as suggested by an hon. Member, but what I have in mind is the setting up of a Committee which will be presided over by a judge. I cannot give any names, nor have I even considered the names, because there is no right to appoint a Committee until the Bill is passed.

§ Mr. SHERWELL
I would like the right hon. Gentleman to be aware, or made aware, of the feeling of misgiving and disquietude in the minds of some because of past experience of the constitution of so many of these Committees. Personally, I sincerely hope that no representative of Parliament would be a member of that Committee, because such a selection would not be a very happy one. It is very difficult, with all kinds of pressure being brought to bear upon the Government of the day, to secure nominations really representative of the House of Commons, and unless the nominees of the Government, as representatives of the House of Commons and the Committee, are really representative and chosen on their merits, the system of including Members of the House of Commons is a vice instead of a virtue. I only express my own personal opinion in suggesting to the Home Secretary that the right hon. Gentleman would be well advised to exclude all Members of Parliament from membership of the Committee.

§ Mr. HOLT
Will the right hon. Gentleman consider this matter at a later stage, with a view to inserting some words in the Bill which will show the character of the Committee in a much more conclusive way than is done at present? I really think we should have, not an ad hoc Committee, but a Committee established for 1169 this purpose, and which will not be capable of being altered. That is very important. Surely the right hon. Gentleman can introduce some words at a later stage to make sure of this.

§ Mr. MASON
The suggestion of the hon. Gentleman opposite is a most valuable one, and, in view of what the Home Secretary has said, if he will undertake to carry out the suggestion of the hon. Member that a Court will be constituted on that basis, I will not press my Amendment. We have to remember that this Bill will remain after the War, and the body which is established should command the confidence of the country. If the right hon. Gentleman will put words in the Bill making sure that we will have such a Court, I shall have great pleasure in withdrawing my Amendment.

§ Sir G. CAVE
Words are in the Bill which require the Committee to be presided over by a person, appointed by the Secretary of State with the approval of the Lord Chancellor, who holds or has held high judicial office.

§ Amendment negatived.

§ Amendments made: In substituted Clause 7 (3), leave out the words "referred to," and insert instead thereof the words "held by."

§ Leave out the words "for consideration and report."

§ Leave out the words "of any inquiry so referred," and insert instead thereof the words "on any inquiry so held."—[Sir G. Cave.]

§ Colonel YATE
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7A (1), to leave out the words "the Secretary of State may by order direct that."
When we were speaking on the Second Reading of this Bill I said that I thought this Clause had been drafted the wrong way on, and the effect of the Amendments that I wish to move would be that the Clause would read: Where a certificate of naturalisation is revoked the wife and minor children (or any of them) of the person whose certificate is revoked shall cease to be British subjects, and any such person shall thereupon become an alien. That is, if a German is married to a German whose certificate of naturalisation is revoked, his wife goes with him; but the alteration I wish to make is to the effect that where the Secretary of State so directs, the nationality of the wife and 1170 minor children of the person whose certificate is revoked shall not be affected by the revocation, and they shall remain British subjects. If an alien is married to an English woman, and the Secretary of State so directs, she can retain her British nationality. It appears to me that that is the natural way to put it, and why the Clause was put in the opposite way I cannot tell. It is drawn, I presume, by a lawyer, and I cannot pretend to get at the back of the lawyer's mind, but it seems to me that the natural and proper way to put the Clause is as I have put it.

§ 10.0 P.M.

§ Sir G. CAVE
It does not make a great difference, because in either case the Secretary of State would have to direct either that the wife shall or shall not follow her husband's nationality; but, on the whole, I think the scheme of the Bill is the better one.

§ Colonel YATE
Is it not natural that if the wife is an alien she would go with her husband?

§ Sir G. CAVE
That is a big question. Amendment negatived.

§ Sir W. DICKINSON
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7A (1), after the word "wife" ["may by order direct that the wife"], to insert the words "if she is not a natural-born British subject."
I raised this question on the Second Reading, and said that I hoped to move certain Amendments dealing with the whole question of the status of the married woman, especially the British woman married to an alien. This is quite a different subject from what we have been discussing all day. We have been discussing the question of how we shall treat Germans or other aliens whose nationality we wish to revoke; but the Committee now has before it, not the German at all, but the British-born woman, and I hope I may appeal successfully to the Home Secretary to give sympathetic consideration to the extremely urgent case and the strong demands that have been made on this House on behalf of the unfortunate women who have in past years married Germans or foreign subjects, and who have suffered immensely by the law, which compels them to become of the same nationality as their husbands. I need not detain the Committee for very long with any general comments upon 1171 this particular position, as I feel sure that most hon. Members have realised by now the position in which those women have been put. But perhaps I might be allowed, in order to show what the position is, to quote a letter out of many that I have received since I raised this question in the House. It is from one of these women, and she says: As one of them, I can assure you that they feel very strongly the injustice of being robbed of their nationality merely because they have contracted marriage with an alien. I have been separated from my husband, a German, who was interned nearly four years ago. He has got nearly all my money in Germany and is trying to starve me into submitting to do what he wishes me, namely, to go to Germany, a thing I will never do. As the law stands, I can neither divorce my husband nor yet appeal to my own country for protection, or for my money. Equally I cannot apply to Germany, as I am dead against it. I am stranded. I cannot even find suitable work to do, though well qualified in one or two lines, as the question of nationality stands like a spectre at every turn, beating me back to helplessness. It is quite a chance that that letter was sent to me, and I received it yesterday. I have received many letters of the same kind, and I am sure the Committee will realise that we are bound to try and make things better if we can in this Bill for this class of woman, and certainly not to make things worse. In this particular Amendment on this particular Section the Government propose to make the position of a woman who is married to an alien worse than it was before. The Section gives power to the Secretary of State to exercise his discretion, and I have no doubt he contemplates being very generous when he is dealing with the case of the wife of an alien who has become a British subject when she herself is British-born. At the same time, he is taking away a right from that woman that she at present possesses. The proposal is that if it is necessary to denaturalise a naturalised alien, then his wife and children must be denaturalised also. That is to say, if you have a case in which a German has come over to this country years ago, has become naturalised and then married an English woman, though that English woman has never ceased to be a British subject and her children are British subjects, you nevertheless propose to pass a law to say, because of some act—some wrongful act we will say—of the husband, which justifies the Home Secretary in directing him to return to his German nationality, you authorise the Home Secretary to say 1172 that the woman, who has never ceased to be a British subject, is to be converted into a German. That is the proposition which is before the Committee at the present moment.
This question was discussed in 1914, when the new British Nationality Act came into operation, and on that occasion, although we did not succeed in doing all we wanted to do to remedy this injustice to the married woman, as I think it, we did succeed in doing this. We got the proviso, which says: Provided that where a man ceases during the continuance of his marriage to be a British subject, it shall be lawful for his wife to make a declaration that she desires to retain British nationality, and thereupon she shall be deemed to remain a British subject. If that law stands unaltered, then when the Home Secretary exercises his discretion under this Bill, and denaturalises this naturalised alien, the wife, whatever her nationality may have been, has a right to say, "I prefer to remain a British citizen." That is a right which the women outside feel very strongly about, which was granted to them after a great deal of struggle in 1914, and which, I submit, ought not to be taken away from them. Of course the answer of the Home Secretary, I have no doubt, will be this, that if you have a naturalised German who has become a British citizen and he has a wife who has also become a British citizen, it would not be safe perhaps under the existing circumstances to allow that wife to claim to retain her British citizenship. I quite admit there is something in that answer, and, therefore, the Amendment I put down excludes that, and I am saying that the rights given in 1914 to the British-born woman shall not be taken away from her. I differ from a good many of the women who have taken an interest in this subject who have said you have in the 1914 Act given a right to the wife of any person who has changed his nationality to say, "I prefer to remain a British subject." I am prepared, under the circumstances of war, to admit that there might be a reasonable case made out for insisting that a woman of German birth should follow her husband of German birth if, by his action, the Home Secretary thinks it necessary to deprive him of British citizenship. But I do ask the Home Secretary not to withdraw from the British-born woman, who has never lost her rights, the protection of the British Government, and her right as a British subject to say, "If you 1173 denaturalise my husband, I, at any rate, will insist on the right you gave me in 1914 to remain a British subject." I hope, under these circumstances, the Home Secretary will consider this matter sympathetically and support me in the Amendment I have put down.

§ Mr. C. ROBERTS
I should like to support the appeal made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Pancras. He has put the case with great fulness, and I only want to reinforce one or two points. I should very much prefer that the Home Secretary would make a clean job of this matter and deal with it on the lines of an Amendment which I have on the Paper.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I am going to deal with it on those lines.

§ Mr. ROBERTS
If I only knew the inside of the Home Secretary's mind I would very willingly sit down.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman unless he does sit down. I am very much in sympathy with what my right hon. Friend has said. I understand he agrees with me that if a man, say, a German, is denaturalised, and his wife is a German, there ought to be power to compel her to follow her husband in his nationality. On the other hand, if she is a British-born woman I am most unwilling to make her, against her will, a German. The difficulty is this: A wife may have so fully identified herself with her husband in nationality, in character and in conduct that she ought to follow his nationality. That is, she may have brought herself within the very conditions which enable the Secretary of State to cause her husband to be denaturalised. In that case I think the Secretary of State ought to have the power to deal with her at the same time. Therefore, what I propose to do is to combine the two Amendments which have been mentioned, that is, not to take this Amendment, which would absolutely prevent the Secretary of State from denaturalising a British-born wife, but to insert words upon the lines of the later Amendment applied to natural-born British wives. The Amendment I have to propose is at the end of the Sub-section, to insert this proviso: Provided that the Secretary of State shall not make any such Order in the case of a wife who is a natural-born British subject, unless he is satisfied that if she had held a certificate of naturalisation in her own right the certificate would properly have been revoked under the Statute. 1174 Those words may be, perhaps, more effective than the proviso on the Paper, and give effect to the principle, at all events, of the right hon. Gentleman.

§ Sir C. CORY
I understand by "a natural-born British subject" that a woman of alien parents born in this country would be a natural-born British subject. I have every sympathy for the woman who is born in this country of British parents, but I have not the same sympathy for the woman born of alien parents in this country. There are some very hard cases of British-born women of British parents who have been denaturalised owing to the law as it is. I move as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "natural-born British subject," and to insert instead thereof the words "the daughter of British parents." That, so far as I can gather, commends itself to most quarters of the Committee. I think it is very dangerous, perhaps, to admit women of alien parents, although born in this country.

Mr. T. WILSON
I am not certain what the effect of the Amendment to the proposed Amendment will be. I do not think the proposal of the Home Secretary goes quite far enough. It seems to me that he ought to take more power to make the position of a British-born wife of an alien enemy more clear. Unfortunately for the morals of the country, we have a number of British-born women who are the mistresses of alien enemies. This proposed Amendment will give these women the protection of the law to call themselves English women, whilst an English woman, becoming the honourable wife of an alien enemy, is going to be deprived of her citizenship. I would like the right hon. Gentleman to make the position quite clear. What I mean is that if an English woman has married a German, as many of them have, and even if the husband is denaturalised, she should retain her position as a British subject. I have met quite a number of women who, unfortunately perhaps for themselves, have married Germans or enemy aliens, and they have not the least sympathy with their husbands, whom they would get rid of altogether if they possibly could. These loyal women ought to have the protection of the law, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be prepared to make an Amendment on the lines I suggest and make it clear that a 1175 woman of English parentage is not going to be excluded from her position as a British subject by this Act. If he cannot make that clear now, I hope he will consider some Amendment to do so between now and the Report stage. The great majority of women who have married alien enemies have no sympathy with them. Nor have I. We must remember that not only are the women who have married Germans affected; their families are indirectly affected as well. For the honour of our young womenfolk, the Home Secretary should make it clear that they will not cease to be British subjects because they have married alien enemies.

§ Sir W. DICKINSON
As the Amendment is my Amendment, may I point out to the Committee the extraordinary innovation in the law. I do not see how you are going to differentiate the particular kind of British subject. A British subject is known now to be any person born anywhere in the British Empire. It would be extremely unwise to try to distinguish a different kind of British subject unknown to the law at the present time, namely, a British subject who, although born in the British Empire, is of foreign parents.

§ Amendment to the proposed Amendment negatived.

§ Question again proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

§ Mr. HOLT
Now that we are on the original Question again, may I say I have very little sympathy with the aspect of the case put forward by some hon. Members, or with the motive which underlies their advocacy of this proposal? It appears to me to be fundamentally ignorant of what are the real objects of marriage. I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who seems to think that it is most unfortunate that a woman should have married a foreigner. Are we really to understand, then, that a woman who marries a foreigner is to be considered an outlaw? I suppose when she marries him that the matter is one of mutual satisfaction! Then the Home Secretary talks about the woman who may have identified herself with her husband. Does he suggest—I do not for a moment suppose he does—that that is a wrong thing to do? I should imagine that an English woman who married a German would naturally identify herself 1176 with things German. Otherwise, I do not understand why she married at all. It may, of course, be an extremely foolish thing to do, but what I do know is that when an Englishman marries a foreign wife he certainly expects her to identify herself with his interests. The hon. Gentleman for Westhoughton says he has no sympathy with women who have married foreigners. I think he said that. But what were the hon. Gentleman's exact words?

Mr. T. WILSON
I am sorry the hon. Gentleman's memory is so bad.

§ Mr. HOLT
I put the words down at the time, but I cannot quite make them out. The hon. Gentleman said he had no sympathy with the man. I cannot, however, imagine a more ridiculous proposal than that if the husband is declared to be a German, and under the provisions of this Bill expelled from this country and compelled to go into Germany, that the woman is to stay here; for then you will have struck at the foundation of marriage. If you are going to intern the husband and declare the wife to be of a different nationality, then you ought to divorce the two, and terminate the marriage altogether. What you want in a case of that kind, then, for the woman is not the change of nationality, but a change of husband. The whole thing is really ridiculous. The woman must follow the nationality of her husband, and so must the children. They must stand or fall together. The affection of the family in that sense cannot be nationalised. Are you prepared to say that the husband, being declared of one nationality, must be deported from here to Germany, say, and the woman, being of another nationality, must be deported to another place, and the children—Heaven knows where? Let us face this problem properly. If the husband has behaved so badly that he ought to be turned out of the country, then the wife ought to have a divorce. If the husband is a bad citizen and a bad fellow, and you expel him to Germany, while the wife has to stay in England, the arrangement is absurd, and I am very sorry the Home Secretary has given any countenance to the proposal.

§ Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMS
It seems to me that the argument which we have just listened to is no answer to my right hon. Friend opposite. It may be true 1177 that it should be a ground for divorce when a man has been convicted of disloyalty in this country, but until that change is made it is surely no argument to say that an English-born woman, because you do not give her the divorce, is to be turned into an alien and made to follow the status of the man, with whom she may have quarrelled and separated from. I think the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has overlooked the fact that the woman is not to be denaturalised for having sympathised with her husband in any of the ordinary things of life, but for any disloyalty to His Majesty, causing him to be imprisoned, or having been seven years out of the country. Therefore, the idea that a woman is bound to sympathise with the husband in all things does not apply to crimes of this sort. I support the Amendment before the House that women should be recognised as British subjects in this very unfortunate position, and ought to be allowed the right to say that they will remain British subjects, unless some act of disloyalty has been proved against them individually.

Mr. WILSON
I am not quite sure whether the rather ingenuous arguments of the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Holt) have any weight with the Committee, but I would suggest to the hon. Member that he has placed himself in a very difficult position. We have to-day not one but hundreds of English women who have married alien enemies, some of them naturalised and some of them not. The alien enemy and the English woman have had children, and many of them are fighting with the British Army. The hon. Member says not only is the father of these children to be denaturalised, and deported or interned, but also the mother of those boys shall be denaturalised and deported, because she has married a German or an Austrian or some other alien enemy. I would like to point out to the hon. Member that a woman marries a man not because he is a German or an Austrian, but because he is a man, and I am very much inclined to think that the English woman who eight years ago married a German or an Austrian never for a single moment thought that we should be at war, and therefore I think his argument is a little far-fetched and will not bear examination.
As a rule, I have every respect for my hon. Friend's arguments, but in this case I think he has overstepped the bounds of truth, if I may say so. That being so, I 1178 think the Committee are justified in asking that a woman of English parents shall be protected in this instance. I am satisfied that the stronger the position of these women is made by the Home Secretary the more it will be appreciated by the English people, and we have no sympathy whatever with naturalised or denaturalised alien enemies. We do say that those women who innocently allied themselves in marriage to these people ought to be protected, because I am satisfied that in 99 per cent. of the cases the women are absolutely and honestly with this country in the War, and what is more, the offspring of many of these marriages are helping the Allies in the struggle in which we are engaged.

§ Mr. ANDERSON
I would like to ask the Homo Secretary what is the position and what the effect of this Amendment will be. I gather that he realises as fully as any Member the injustice of converting a woman, who has always been a British subject and who has done nothing wrong, into a German subject because her husband has done something wrong. I would like to know exactly what will happen if the Amendment is carried in the form in which it is proposed. I take it that a natural-born British woman, if she has done nothing wrong, will retain her British nationality even though her husband's naturalisation certificate is revoked. It is only if some charge can be brought against her showing that she has acted in some disloyal way that any action will be taken.

§ Sir G. CAVE
That is exactly the meaning.

§ Mr. C. ROBERTS
Of course, it does mean that the Home Secretary recognises the grievance and real injustice so far as the British-born woman is concerned, but it equally remains that he has not met the whole case. You may have the case of a foreign-born wife who is not a German. The husband loses his certificate, and thereupon the wife comes under what the Home Secretary described as the heavy penalties of a penal Statute, not for any offence of her own, but for some offence committed by her husband. That is clearly unjust. The Home Secretary is willing to redress the injustice if the wife can show that she is a British-born subject. He only does justice to the British-born wife. He will do an injustice on the condition that the wife is a foreigner.

§ Sir G. CAVE indicated dissent.

1179

§ Mr. C. ROBERTS
I think it is exactly the case. If the right hon. Gentleman would deal with both the British-born wife and the foreign-born wife on the lines of my Amendment, he would remove the double injustice which exists. He has removed one injustice, and I thank him for that. I am always glad to get anything that I can, but I still think that it is not a satisfactory position that we should make the doing of justice depend upon the accident of birth.

§ Mr. STEWART
Marriage does not always end with the two people who contract it. What will be the position of minor children under the right hon. Gentleman's words? If the woman retains her British nationality, will the children be considered to be British subjects, or will they follow the nationality of their father?

§ Sir W. DICKINSON
I rise to withdraw my Amendment, as I understand that the Home Secretary asks me to do so in order to move his Amendment. I am not satisfied about it myself, but it is something to have got what he has given us. Therefore I accept it. I would point out, however, that it is not bare justice to the women, and, sooner or later, I believe we shall get to a point where you will treat women on an exact equality with men and allow a British-born woman to retain her nationality in all circumstances.

§ Mr. MORRELL
I am sorry that the Home Secretary, who has hitherto been so fair in this matter, cannot do fairness to these women by providing that they shall not suffer vicarious punishment, as they now do under this Bill. Put yourself in the position of an American who has settled in this country, and then imagine that the American subject is deprived some time hence of his naturalisation certificate, long after the whole family has become practically English. Would it he just that the woman, because her husband, through committing some offence, is deprived of his naturalisation certificate, although she may have lived an unblemished life and is perfectly English in every way, should also lose her English nationality and be compelled, against her will and for nothing she has done, to follow the nationality of her husband and go back to America? That is contrary to all the traditions of English justice. By all means, if there is an offence committed by the woman, deprive her of the privileges she has enjoyed, but do not deprive a woman who has conducted 1180 herself well of the privileges she has hitherto enjoyed in this country simply because you are not satisfied that her husband also has behaved properly. It is nothing else than vicarious punishment.

§ Sir R. NEWMAN
I am sorry that the Home Secretary has not accepted this Amendment. As it is such a vital question to the woman whom he proposes to deprive of her nationality, he should allow the right of appeal to the High Court of Justice before the Order is allowed to come into force. I feel very strongly on this point. There is hardly a member of the Committee who would not feel that to be turned from an English subject into a German subject would be little short of the death penalty itself. I do not know what penalty I would not rather undergo than to be told that to-morrow I should become a German subject. We allow in almost petty cases an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal. We do that in cases involving only a small amount of imprisonment. The Home Secretary has such enormous powers. He can say to a woman who has been born a British subject and who has always been a British subject, "Now you must become a German," and she may be sent over to Germany, whether she likes it or not. In those circumstances she ought to have the right of appeal to the High Court. If the present Home Secretary were always the Home Secretary it would be another question, but when with a stroke of the pen it is open to the Home Secretary to impose these terrible penalties upon any British subject, there ought to be the greatest safeguards. The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Holt) said that there were foolish virgins who married Germans. Some of us have made a similar mistake. We have trusted Germans in the past, perhaps more than we ought to have done. We can remember the time when we were giving Heligoland to the Germans and when we were fighting under the command of a German at the time of the Boxer rising. We did not always know the Germans so well as we know them now. Therefore, if a British-born woman married a German who was then, perhaps, a naturalised British subject, she did something which was acknowledged by the law, and she ought not to be deprived of her nationality. At any rate, before that is done, she ought to have the right of appeal.

§ Amendment negatived.

1181

§ Sir G. CAVE
I beg to move, in substituted Clause 7A, at the end of Subsection (1), to add the words, Provided that the Secretary of State shall not make any such Order as aforesaid in the case of a wife who is a natural-born British subject unless he is satisfied that if she had held a certificate of naturalisation in her own right the certificate would properly be revoked under this Act. I think this entirely meets the point of my hon. Friend below the Gangway.

Mr. H. SAMUEL
The Home Secretary has found a happy solution of an extremely difficult problem. My hon. Friend (Mr. Holt) has omitted one consideration, He said a wife should follow her husband's interests, and should accept the nationality which her marriage brings with it. In this case it is the other way about. It is the husband who has already accepted the wife's nationality. It is the husband who has become naturalised, and it may be she has only married him on that condition. It would be very hard, indeed, if he, through some fault of his own, has gained denaturalisation, that she should be swept out of the British citizenship into which she was born. My hon. Friend (Mr. Roberts) said it would be very hard that a French or American woman married to a German should be deprived of British nationality because of some fault committed by her German husband. That does not follow as a necessary consequence at all. It is within the power of the Home Secretary either to direct or not to direct, in such a case, that she has lost her nationality, and he would no doubt take all the circumstances of the particular case into account. It is necessary, I think, to reserve some power in exceptional cases to denaturalise even a British-born woman, because some of them become very German, sometimes even more German than their husbands. I have known cases in which Englishwomen who have married Germans are at present very bitterly anti-British, and it would not be safe in such cases to leave the Home Secretary without any power to denaturalise the wife. She would be left carrying on her husband's interests as an Englishwoman after his denaturalisation, although she might have been guilty of just the same overt acts of disloyalty. The Home Secretary, therefore, has accepted an Amendment to the effect that if the woman had herself been guilty of such things as would have 1182 earned her denaturalisation had she been a naturalised British subject, she may be denaturalised, although she was a natural born British subject, and I think that is quite a right and just provision. I would only ask this: Would she, in such cases, have the same right of appeal to the Committee presided over by a judge as her husband has?
I am not quite sure that that is so. I think, perhaps, there may be some doubt when we come to see this Amendment embodied in the Bill. I think she ought to have the same right—her case for a right of appeal is even stronger than that of her husband alien-born, she herself being British-born. I hope before we reach the Report stage my right hon. Friend will look at the Bill, and see that that right is preserved to her, if not by the Amendment we are now about to add, then by special words inserted on Report.

§ Mr. HOLT
My right hon. Friend referred to the case of an English woman who married a German and compelled him to become a naturalised British subject as a condition of marriage. If you compulsorily denaturalise the husband of an English woman and you make an alteration in the state of one of the parties to that marriage, you are inflicting an injustice on both. You cannot get away from it. If you are going to alter the nationality of the husband, the only way you can possibly do Justice to the wife is by giving her a complete opportunity of considering the contract, and whether she shall terminate it.

§ Amendment agreed to.

§ Further Amendment made: In substituted Clause 7A, at the end of Subsection (2), insert the words: "Where a certificate of naturalisation is revoked the former holder thereof shall be regarded as an alien and as a subject of the State to which he belonged at the time the certificate was granted."—[Sir G. Cave.]

§ Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.