Chairman.

I

1. We are very much obliged to you for coming to help us in this matter. learn you have not been very well; you may be inclined to break off your evidence. I think I shall be perfectly Unfortuable to give my evidence.

nately, I have had a slight illness recently, and although I am perfectly well I may have an attack, and in that case I shall ask the Committee to excuse me.

2. I am going to ask you to go through the whole of your evidence, and we shall ask you questions subsequently, but we shall not break it up in parts.-Very good, if that is convenient to the Committee, it will be convenient to me.

3. First of all you are going to give us an historical summary of British law affecting the nationality of married women.Yes. In the first instance it would be convenient if I gave the Committee an idea of what was the position at Common Law in regard to the nationality of married women, and in doing so I shall only touch very briefly on the broad outlines of the law and the principles underlying it. I think it will be useful for the purpose of contrasting the law as it existed 60 years ago with the law as it

4. That is according to English law?— Yes. The national status of an alien woman would be entirely governed by the law of her country. The demand for a return to the Common Law position, which I have no doubt the Committee are aware of, is based on views which differ widely from the principles which seem to have underlain the nationality. rules at Common Law.

The national status of married women at Common Law was simply the result of the general principles. which governed the law of British nationality under the old system. The first of those principles was that British nationality could be conferred or acquired only by birth within the allegiance of the

5 June, 1923.]

a

Crown. There were certain immaterial exceptions-I think for this purpose they were immaterial. There were certain persons who, though born within the allegiance of the Crown, were not natural born British subjects, such as the children of an invading enemy. The result of that was that an alien woman could not become a British subject by the mere process of marriage to a British subject. The second principle was that no one could be discharged from or get rid of obligations imposed by birth within the allegiance. That is the principle of nemo potest exuere patriam, which is the principle that having once acquired British nationality you could not get rid of it. In consequence of that principle foreigner by the act of marriage could not deprive a British woman of her British nationality. In those days there was no question of self-determination for married women, or women generally. A married woman remained of British nationality, notwithstanding the fact of marriage, and simply as a result of the operation of rules of general application relating to Nationality Law. I would like to glance very briefly at the position of women at Common Law apart from the question of Nationality Law. That I can do in a very few words. A married woman could have no separate property; she could not make a valid will, and in other ways she was subject to disabilities which do not now exist. On the other hand, an alien woman was subject to many incapacities at Common Law which do not now exist. The first statutory modification of the Common Law position in regard to married women was Section 16 of the Naturalisation Act of 1844. That Act in substance enacted that any woman

married to a natural born subject should be deemed to have all the rights of the natural born subject. I think it had been more or less the rule of practice prior to the Act of 1844 to treat as a British subject any alien woman who at or after her marriage with a British subject became domiciled in Great Britain so as to be within the allegiance of the Crown. The existence of this rule seems to have been one of the considerations underlying the change introduced by the Act of 1844. I do not know how long that continued, and I do not think it is material to inquire further into that.

Chairman.

5. What do you mean by "practice"? -I think the alien woman who married a

[Continued.

British subject, if she came to this country and settled down here and acquired her domicile here, would be treated as having the same rights to passport facilities and so forth as her husband, the British subject. That was one of the things. I am not aware of any other respect in which she was so treated but I think there certainly were other respects.

6. By courtesy.-Yes.

Earl of Desart.

7. By domicile she would acquire certain privileges or rights in this country. You referred to passport facilities; surely the passport question would depend not on domicile but on nationality. I can understand that other things would depend on domicile?-I do not know how far the Courts recognised her as being a person who was to be treated as domiciled in the country for the purpose of applying the Law in her favour.

8. The instance you gave I should have thought would still have remained a question of nationality and not of domicile ?-I do not know that it is worth going into that.

Sir John Butcher.

9. She was necessarily subject to the restriction of aliens with regard to the holding of real property, for instance?

was

-A married woman had no right to hold separate property. It is a little difficult to give instances of cases where she would acquire practical benefit as the result of the treatment to which I referred. The law continued in that state till the Act of 1870 when the Naturalisation Act of that year passed. This Act of 1870 introduced certain exceptions in the general rule as to nemo protest exuere patriam. The principle was adopted that a British subject might get rid of his British nationality. In accordance with that principle provision was made for a married woman to lose her British nationality upon marriage to an alien. That is by Section 10. It enacts that a married woman shall be deemed to be the subject of the State of which her husband is for the time being a subject. That was accompanied by other provisions enabling British subjects in other circumstances to get rid of their British nationality. For instance in Section 6 there is a provision that a British subject who, when in a foreign