IRISH CITIZENSHIP

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18587, 22 December 1934, Page 5

IRISH CITIZENSHIP

PROVISIONS OF RILL

ATTACK IN THE LORDS

LONDON, Doc. 20,

In the House of Lords, Lord Danesfort drew attention to the Free State Government’s Citizenship Bill and inquired whether the Government had protested against the'measure. He said no Parliament in the British Empire had even proposed anything so preposterous. It wbuld 1 deprive men and women of the rights of British citizenship that they had enjoyed for a lifetime? This 'legislation,, the said, was only part. and parcel of a deliberate attempt to establish an Irish republic. A distressing aspect of this attempt was the degradation of the office of Governor-General, who in Southern Ireland had been degraded to the position of a clerk iii an office. Lord Lucan, , replying, for the Government, said’ that nobody denied the Free State’s right to declare who would be regarded as a Free State citizen, but when it claimed that the recent bill was in accordance with theprinciples laid down at the Imperial Conference, the British Government entirely disagreed. Mi? Thomas’ statement in the House of Commons on November 27 made the British position clear. If a republic were declared an entirely new situation would arise and he -could not indicate the action the Government would then take. The British Government’s policy was to make it as easy as possible* for the Free State to remain a member of the British commonwealth.