WITHOUT A COUNTRY

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1930, Page 14

WITHOUT A COUNTRY

MAN’S SINGULAR PLIGHT. THE LAWS OF NATIONALITY. A peculiar case Jias -been, interesting the foreign consuls in Auckland. A man who applied for a passport to leave New Zealand was found to possess no nationality and it has been his fate for several years to wander over the f <ee of the globe with no country to call his own, no civil fights and no claim upon any nation for sovereign protection. His grandfather was a German, who went to live in Holland, and became a naturalised Dutch subject. His father, brought up a Dutch citizen, joined GarL baldi’s Red Shirts while a young.man and fought for the independence of Italy in 1866. This act earned him, and other Dutchmen who were similarly imbued with a hankering for warlike adventure, the censure of the Dutch Government, which summarily denaturalised him. He went to Switzerland and married a French girl, to whom a son was born. It is this son who was recently in Auckland. He was educated in France and Spain, but naturalised in neither of those countries, and has since married a girl in the South Seas. He belongs to no nation and cannot take his father’s nationality, owing to the action of the Dutch Government, The laws of naturalisation in most European countries are extremely strict and no one who wishes to live in peace and contentment, untroubled by conscience or the officers of the law, can afford to be contemptuous of them. If he is he may find himself in the unpleasant situation of the American who went to Europe for the first time and on his first night in Paris was awakened by knocking on his bedroom door. He opened it and admitted two gendarmes, who placed him under arrest for neglecting to pay his military taxes. “But I am an citizen and don’t know anything about your taxes,” he protested. “You may be an American citizen, but you are a French citizen equally as well, seeing that your father was born in France,” was the reply. “But I’ve lived in America ever since I was born. I’ve. never been in your country in my life.” But it was no use arguing in his pyjamas and he paid over something like £4O under threat of instant imprisonment. It warning that all European immigrants should bear in mind. According to the laws of many European countries a man is a citizen of his country, and so too are his children, until he has renounced that citizenship legally before a consul. A foreigner may come to New Zealand, become a naturalised New Zealand citizen by complying with the necessary formalities with the New Zealand Government, aud he may marry a New Zealand girl. .Yet he still has not renounced his original foreign citizenship, and unless ha goes®to his consul and formally cancels his original naturalisation he is still regarded by the foreign authorities as their subject, and so are any children that may be born to him. Nor is there much chance of the law forgetting about him. Every foreigner arriving in Auckland from overseas is obliged to register at his country’s consulate, and particulars >f the registration, together with details from the birth certificates of the man’s children, are sent to the authorities in his own country. That country looks to its emigrant and also to his children to perform military service, which is.compulsory in many European countries, or pay special per capita taxes in lieu of personal service. The tax ’s assessed according to income and may amount to £2 or £3 or considerably more a year according to the subject’s financial cir-’ cumstances.

To many foreigners, resident in New Zealand as naturalised 'British subjects, this military obligation under the laws of their former country is regarded as something of a joke. It may have unpleasant consequences, however, when the obligation is passed on. to the. next generation. A New Zealander, born and bred, of naturalised British subjects, regards with mingled scorn and amusement a suggestion that he owes the French, the Swiss, the Swedish, or some other Government, steadily accumulating taxes while he is living In New Zealand. Even when he appreciates the legality of the obligation he invariably says, “Well, it will' never worry me. I’m never going home.” There are cases in New Zealand of people who have been the recipients of bequests from relatives abroad and who have only received their money after years of prolonged negotiation and their final consent to the seizure of £5O or £6O in satisfaction of their military obligations. The lesson to be learned from such cases is that plain naturalisation is not enough. It is the practice of not. one but many European States not to recognise naturalisation only, and therefore it is necessary for the nationals of those countries to obtain a clearance from their own Government, as well as take out naturalisation ; apers in the country of their adoption. The laws of the different nations concerning nationality are hopelessly conflicting, and to unravel the entanglements that often ensue takes more than a nodding acquaintance with the laws of the respective countries. A case which occasioned some interest recently was that of a man who was born on a British ship in Japanese -waters. His father was Finnish and uis mother Armenian, he was educated ia Finland, America and in England, he served with the British military dission in Russia during the war, and met his wife, a Pole, in Vladivostock. He is living in Geneva and has two boys. Both arc naturalised British subjects.