CLAUSE 2.—(Minor Amendments of the Principal Act.) (Hansard, 17 July 1918)

§ Sir W. DICKINSON
I beg to move, after Sub-section (3), to insert— (4) In Section ten (which relates to the national status of married women) at the end of the Section there shall be added the words "and provided that where an alien is a subject of an enemy State it shall be lawful for his wife if she was a British subject before her marriage to make a declaration that she desires to resume British nationality, and thereupon the Secretary of State, if he is satisfied that it is advisable that she be permitted to do so, may grant her a certificate of naturalisation. The Amendment is a change in the law, and it is one that I submit to the Committee has been rendered, if not more necessary, at any rate more apparently necessary, during the War. I want to give the Home Secretary full discretion in this matter, and to give him power to remedy some of the most crying evils that 1184 have made themselves apparent during the War. There are a very large number of British-born women—we have heard of them already this evening—who have, years ago, married Germans, and who now, all through the War, have suffered for that. I ask the Committee to take this opportunity of enabling these women to claim that their cases shall be reconsidered, and that they shall be, if the Home Secretary thinks it is advisable, readmitted to the benefits of British citizenship. With regard to what my hon. Friend opposite said, I know his views. They are quite patriotic. He believes that whatever the husband is or does, the wife must be and must do. But that is a new aspect of the law in England, because for many hundreds of years the British woman who married an alien did not therefore become an alien. Until the year 1908 an American woman did not by marrying an Englishman become an Englishwoman. It is quite a recent change, and a change I hold to be a mistake, but it was brought about in order to endeavour to bring the law of nationality in this country into consonance with the old Roman law, which held good for the rest of Europe. The old British law undoubtedly was that a British woman could not against her will lose her nationality by marrying an alien. But I want to bring the attention of the Committee back to the cases of the unfortunate women who have suffered through this War by the fact that they have nothing but the nationality of their husband. There is no reason why the husband and wife should not be of different nationality. There has never been any contract between them on the matter of nationality. The woman on marriage does promise to be of the same nationality as her husband. There is no logical reason for it, and I submit, with regard to these particular cases, it would be just and humane to allow the Secretary of State, after full inquiry, to permit a British-born woman on marriage with a foreigner to resume her British nationality. At the present moment, if a woman is divorced she can resume her British nationality. In these cases a woman cannot divorce her husband, and quite rightly so, but she should have the opportunity of resuming her British nationality. I hope the Home Secretary will see his way to concede what is a general demand on the part of women throughout the country.

§ Mr. ANDERSON
I, too, hope the right hon. Gentleman will give the Amendment favourable consideration. In this matter women are placed in a position of inferiority, but there is no doubt at all that the extension of political power to women will lead to a demand for the establishment of greater equality with regard to all these laws as between men and women. There are a large number of women to-day who have been placed by the War in a very pitiable position. They are British women; they know no language except the British language; their whole outlook is British, and yet they are treated as Germans, classified as Germans, and regarded as aliens inside this country. What is asked in this Amendment is that the Home Secretary shall have full power to investigate such cases, and, if he is satisfied that there is no reason why they should not resume their British nationality, that that should be done. Every safeguard is provided. The power rests with the Home Secretary and his Department. The Amendment will remove a very great injustice, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree to it.

Mr. T. WILSON
I would also appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to accept this Amendment. As the right hon. Gentleman (Sir W. Dickinson) has pointed out, a woman may be a shameless prostitute, and, on being divorced, she can claim to resume her British nationality, while the same privilege is refused to a pure woman who has never outraged the moral sense of the nation. The women of the country, who will soon have votes and will be a great political force, who are in favour of this proposal, have a right to have their demands carefully considered, and, apart from that, the demand should be conceded simply on the grounds of the requirements of justice.

§ Sir G. CAVE
This raises a very big question indeed. My hon. Friend, who supports the Amendment, takes the view that even on marriage a wife should be entitled to retain her nationality as distinct from the nationality of the husband. This is a part of a much wider question than that which is dealt with in this Bill, and I must ask the Committee not to deal with this very wide and very thorny question in this Bill. It is a question which affects the whole of the law of nationality in different places, and one which ought to be considered very care- 1186 fully. I am not going to express myself as opposed even to the wider proposal that has been made, but I should like time to consider it, and to see what the consequences would be. But I do hope that the Committee will not deal either with the wider question which is involved or the narrower one which has been raised. The wife of a German when she marries him marries him for better or worse, and, after all, it is a strong thing for a wife, even when her husband belongs to an alien nationality, to separate herself from him during the War and to assume the nationality of a country which is at war with his. It would be a strong thing to sanction, and also a rather dangerous thing, but I do not want to pronounce finally on the matter. I want to study the whole subject, and to study the views of experts on the question. Meanwhile, I have some hope that my right hon. Friend will not press his Amendment. If it is possible, when this Bill is through, I will immediately take in hand the appointment of a Committee on this subject. The passing of the Bill without this provision will in no way prejudice my view as to giving full consideration to the whole subject.

§ Mr. C. ROBERTS
What chance would this expert Committee have of dealing with the matter? Before a Bill could be founded on their Report a very long time might elapse till this question could be dealt with. The Amendment is interesting because it does accept the principle of a British woman reverting to her British nationality where her condition is affected by the circumstances of the War, and the right hon. Gentleman has a strong reserve of power to safeguard himself against undesirable action being taken. I am not prepared to abandon a principle of this kind. Later the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir W. Dickinson) will move a new Clause which raises the whole question of principle, and if he goes to a Division I shall support him.

§ Mr. A. WILLIAMS
I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman has not seen his way to accept this limited proposal giving a woman the right to claim re-establishment as a British citizen. The Amendment merely says she is to have the right to express a desire to be re-established as a British subject, and that if the Secretary of State thinks it advisable, she shall be 1187 permitted to do so. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider before the Report stage this very limited proposal.

Mr. WILSON
May I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give further consideration to this question between now and the Report stage. It really rests with the Secretary of State to say whether a woman shall be allowed to resume British citizenship or not.

§ Sir W. DICKINSON
May I point out that, although it is a great inducement to me to be told that there is going to be a Committee to inquire into this question, that Committee will not settle this particular point, which is urgent now. A Committee which sits for another year or so and then reports as to what the permanent naturalisation laws are to be will not affect these particular women for whom we are anxious to do something. They are women who in thousands of cases have given their sons to fight for us, whose sons have died on the battlefield for us, who are absolutely British in every sense, and I should have thought that the Home Secretary could have fallen in with the suggestion which has just been made and given the matter a little more sympathetic consideration before the Report stage.

§ Sir G. CAVE
I will think it over again.