NATIONALITY AND NATURALIZATION. Nation ality may be defined as the quality of being a national of a given State. It may be pointed out by way of abundant caution that in the British empire the term nationality is used only in the political sense, since the empire having no common law, the per sonal law of a British subject is determined not by his nationality, but by his domicil. In those States where the national law pre vails throughout their respective territories, the necessity for this distinction does not arise. Political and civil status are synony mous. The law of British nationality then now rests upon the common law and upon three statutes, viz., the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914 which came into operation on Jan. 1, 1915, which professed to be a consolidating and amending statute, and which repealed a number of former enactments; the Amending Act 1918 ; and the Amending Act 1922. These statutes are now officially printed as one statute and cited as the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Acts 1914-22.
At common law, with certain exceptions to be mentioned later, all persons born within the British dominions are natural-born British subjects. For instance the child of French parents born during their temporary residence in England is a British subject and liable to be convicted of high treason if he took part in hostile operations against Great Britain (see Aeneas Macdonald's Case 18 State Trials, 857).
By s. I (I) of the statute the following persons are deemed to be natural-born British subjects, viz. :—(a) "Any person born within His Majesty's dominions and allegiance." It was neces sary to add the condition of birth within the allegiance of the king in order to prevent the acquisition of British nationality by a child born to an enemy father within the British dominions at the time in the occupation of the enemy or by a child born to a foreign sovereign or foreign ambassador or diplomatic agent. (b) "Any person born out of His Majesty's dominions whose father was at the time of that person's birth a British subject, and who fulfills any of the following conditions, that is to say, if either (i.) his father was born within His Majesty's allegiance; or (ii.) his father was a person to whom a certificate of naturaliza tion had been granted ; or (iii.) his father had become a British subject by reason of any annexation of territory; or (iv.) his father was at the time of that person's birth in the service of the Crown ; or (v.) his birth was registered at a British consulate within one year or in special circumstances, with the consent of the secretary of State, two years after its occurrence, or in the case of a person born on or after the first day of Jan. 1915, who
would have been a British subject, if born before that date, within 12 months after the first day of Aug. 1922." (c) "Any person born on board a British ship whether in foreign territorial waters or not : provided that the child of a British subject, whether that child was born before or after the passing of the act, shall be deemed to have been born within His Majesty's allegiance if born in a place where by treaty, capitulation, grant, usage, sufferance or other lawful means, His Majesty exercises jurisdiction over British subjects. Provided also that any person whose British nationality is conditional upon registration at a British consulate shall cease to be a British subject unless within one year after he attains the age of 21 or within such extended period as may be authorized in special cases by regulations made under this act (i.) he asserts British nationality by a declaration of retention of British nationality in such manner as may be pre scribed by regulations made under the act ; and (ii.) if he is a subject or citizen of a foreign country under the law of which he can, at the time of asserting his British nationality, divest himself of the nationality of that foreign country by making a declara tion of alienage or otherwise, he divests himself of such national ity accordingly." By the act of 1772 a child born out of the British dominions whose father or whose grandfather was born within those domin ions was deemed to be a natural-born British subject, provided that his father at the time of his death had not ceased to be a British subject. By the act of 1914, however, this privilege was taken away from grandchildren born after Jan. 1, 1915, outside the British dominions. Such children were not British subjects unless their father had been born within the British dominions, with the exception of those children born in a place where by treaty, capitulation, etc., His Majesty exercised jurisdiction over British subjects. But owing to the agitation by British subjects resident in foreign countries and particularly by those residing in the Argentine--the British colony in Buenos Aires numbered some 30,000—the act of 1922 was carried, which provides that a British subject who has a child born abroad after Jan. 1, 1915, may secure British nationality for such child by registering its birth at a British consulate in the manner above stated. Consequently British subjects, whether natural-born or not, living abroad can extend British nationality to their descendants in perpetuity.