BRITISH OR AMERICAN?

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16299, 24 August 1918, Page 4

BRITISH OR AMERICAN?

an interesting case

Au interesting point as to nationality cropped up at tho Magistrates Court yesterday, when a man was charged under the War Regulations that, being an unlicensed alien, he had workedon. British ship, contrary to the KegulatlCThe case for the police depended on the defendant's being an American subject, while Mr Booker, who appearedl for the defendant, claimed that he was a British subject. Mr Booker stated that the man's father had been borfl in Wales, his mother in Scotland, and' all his older brothers in .the United Kingdom, the defendant himself having been born in Brooklyn, U.S.A. By American law, an Act passed in no alien could apply for naturalisation' as an American citizen until he had resided in the United-States for at least five years, and Mr Booker proved that less than five years had elapsed between the birth in England of the brother nest to the defendant, and the birth of the defendant in America. Defendant s father, therefore, Mr Booker contended, could not have been an American citizen at the time of defendant's birth. In fact, defendant did not know whether his father had ever been naturalised. Mr Booker went on to show that American law held that minor children of naturalised parents oould not be American citizens until they had "commenced to reside permanently" in. America, and this the defendant hacL never done, as he had run away to sea when 12 years old, and had only been back to America once since, and then only for a week, having £bent the remainder of the time in British territory. He had always considered himself a British subject, and had registered for service as such in New Zealand. „ Tho Magistrate, Mr S. E. McCarthy, said that aefendant's parents had been originallv British subjects, and there was nothing to prove that they were not so still. Moreover, the defendant, wi>ile still a minor, had left America and had never re&ided there since, having been domiciled in British territory. His Worship held that he must be considered a British subject and dismissed the information. A charge had been laid against the master of the 6hip on which the defendant had been working of permitting him to do so, but in view of the previous decision this information was withdrawn*