NATIONALITY AFTER MARRIAGE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 120, 16 February 1944, Page 6

NATIONALITY AFTER MARRIAGE

Law Journal’s Opinion

NEW ZEALAND WOMEN AND AMERICANS

In a leading article in its latest issue, the New Zealand Law Journal sets out to answer the question: “What is the national character of a New Zealand woman who has married a United states serviceman in New Zealand ?” After quoting authorities and legislative enactments at length, the answer is given as follows: — “A New Zealand woman, who is a British subject by birth or naturalization, does not lose her British nationality or acquire United States nationality by the mere fact of her marriage to a United States serviceman. This follows from the municipal law of New Zealand defining the national character of a New Zealand woman married to an.alien, com-, b ned with the law of the United States, which prescribes the conditions on which its nationality is acquired, and which will not confer on her nationality as a United States citizen till she has resided in the United States for! the applicable period, and then only if she is eligible for citizenship and voluntarily applies for and obtains naturalization there. . In the meantime, and till she is naturalized as a United States citizen, she remains a British subject.” Congress “in unmistakable terms,” in section 303 of the Nationality Act, 1940, added —as persons eligible for and having a right to naturalization as United States citizens—“the descendants of races indigenous to the Western’Hemisphere,” to “white persons” and “persons of African nativity and descent.”. It appears, therefore’ says the Law Journal’ that Maoris are now eligible for naturalization as citizens of the United States. They are unquestionably “descendants of a race indigenous to New Zealand,” whatever might be the speculations of ethnologists. New Zealand is In the Western Hemisphere, which begins at the 20th meridian west of Greenwich. The Dominion lies between 162 degrees east longitude and 173 degrees west longitude, and, therefore, east of the 160th meridian east of Greenwich. Thus, the descendants of the race indigenous to New Zealand are eligible for naturalization as United States citizens as are the Polynesians in all New Zealand's island territories, as these are all in the Western Hemisphere.