NATURALISATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 140, 14 June 1911, Page 5

NATURALISATION.

AN EMPIRE SYSTEM. ! APriLo, FIVE YEARS. (Received 1.45 p.m.) LONDON, June 13. At the sitting of the Imperial Conference to-day Mr. Lewis Harcourt (Secretary of State for the Colonies), presided and Mr. Winston Churchill and Sir John Simon (Solicitor-General) were present The proposals of the Commonwealth,' New Zealand, and South Africa for the acknowledgment of naturalisation throughout the Empir* were discussed. The general opinion favoured an Imperial certificate of naturalisation, with the retention of the Dominions' local conditions. Mr. Churchill crystallised his suggestions into a series of resolutions which were adopted, conceding world-wide nationality provided there has been five years' residence in any part of the Empire. The overseas resolutions were withdrawn. The last Congress ordered an inquiry into the question of naturalisation, and how far naturalisation in one part of the Dominions should be effective in others. The necessity for preventing the influx of the coloured races into the "white" dominions was the chief difficulty to be surmounted ; but fitter considering the matter in the interval, both New Zealand and Australia submitted resolutions on the lines of that now adopted.