ENGLISH GIRL IN WARSAW PRISON.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1182, 18 July 1911, Page 5

ENGLISH GIRL IN WARSAW PRISON.

INDIGNATION MEETING IN LONDON By Tcleeraph—Press Association-Copyrlehl {Rec. July 17, 10.10 p.m.) London, July 17. A Social Democratic demonstration has been held in Trafalgar Square to demand the intervention of Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on behalf of Miss Malecka, who has been imprisoned for several months at Warsaw. Miss Malecka was born in London, but Russia apparently vrould not admit her British nationality. Mr. Will Thome, Labour SI .P. for West Ham, presided, nud said the Government should insist, on the release or bringing to trial of Miss Malecka, even- if it were necessary to send a Dreadnought or two to Russia.

A QUESTION OF -NATIONALITY. About two months ago (says the "Daily News" of June 8) Miss Makcka, a British subject, and a pianist well known in London, was arrested in Warsaw by order of the secret police. No specific charge has been made against her, but sho remains incarcerated in the Alexander Citadel. She had been living in Poland for some months before her amst, and had occupied herself by giving music lessons. , ~ The question of Miss Makcka s nationality is simple. Her mother was an Englishwoman and her father a Polish emigrant and a naturalised British subject Hence, according to English law, Miss Malecka is a British subject, and has the right to expect such help and protection as the British Government can afford her. According to Russian law Mr. Makcka remained a Russian subject in spite of naturalisation in England, an act in which the Russian Government refuses to acquiesce except in rare instances. Hence the Russian authorities assume that Miss Malecka is a Russian subject. They are apparently not aware that the marriage of her parents was, according to Rnssian law, null and void. The ceremony was performed in an • Anglican church, although Mr. Malecka was a Roman Catholic. Russian law requires that a Russian Catholic be married by a Catholic priest. Miss Malecka, therefore, according to Russian law, takes her mother's nationality, and is a British subject. Miss Makcka has lived almost all her life in England. Sho is an orphan, and it is comparatively lately that sho learnt the Polish language out of reverence for her father's memory.