BIRTH AND NATIONALITY.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2539, 13 August 1915, Page 6

BIRTH AND NATIONALITY.

Sir —Yoiir answers to "Inquirer" and "Britisher" re aliens seems very confusing. Letters of naturalisation aro required to be taken out hv aliens to heconm British subjects. If the parents did not cot naturalised at qny timo during their residence in New Zealand, and children arc horn to them in New Zealand, do tho parents remain aliens, and aro they debarred from exercising the franchise? In vour answer to Britisher you say that their children aro horn Britishers. How aro such children less German. French, or Austrian than their parents, because they happen to ho Now Zealand born while their parents remain aliens? If, say, German people settle in New Zealand, and loso their German nationality (sec answer to inquirer), aro they then British without getting naturalised? If not so. how can their children bo British, while their parents am aliens? Can you explain this fact: There aro two brothers born of tile same paronts who were never naturalised, the eldest born outside' New Zealand the other in New Zealand; tho older one is counted an alien and debarred of certain privileges, while the younger is accounted British? Would tho latter bo included ill tile double nationality you speak of or otherwise? To mo it appears by the rending; of the answers to your correspondents. that taking out naturalisation papers is only a farce, and it only requires a short residenco in New ZeaJai'd to become British, without any formalities being gone through with. " Can tho sons of unnaturalised parents horn in Nef'-Z?nknd occupy public positions on locrj bsuiss without themselves taking.

out naturalisation papers. Thanking you in anticipation.—l am, etc., INQUIRER. [Aliens coming to New Zealand remain aliens, and aro debarred from certain of the rights of citizenship until they take out naturalisation papers. J3ut the law of the British Empire is that all children horn within tlio Empiro are British subjects, whether their parents are aliens or not! As British subjects, children born in New Zealand of uimaturalised parents may exorciso the rights common to all British subjects in New Zealand, including tho right to occupy public position.] BAD TEETH AND CAMP SICKNESS, Sir, —Might I be permitted to use your columns to draw tho attention of the Trentham Commission to the desirability of calling evidence from the dentists in cainp? It is a fact well known' to dentists that bad teeth are generally associated with, and probably t'ha cause of, most affections of tho throat, and that a single diseased mouth in a hut full of men is constantly bombarding the healthy, with the deadliest of germs, the propagators of diseases from which the owners of the bad teetli havo becomo immune. From what I havo seen of the teeth of some of the men on leave, the commission need not inquire further for the causo of sickness in tho camps.—l am, etc., DENTAL SURGEON. . ,v ■ ""am