The Prime Minister:

Mr A.B.CD., an alien by birth, who has been naturalized in New Zealand and has recently come to the Commonwealth, has made application to be renaturalized in the Commonwealth.

On being forwarded the usual papers, he pointed out that he had already taken the oath of allegiance in New Zealand, and has only been resident a few months in the Commonwealth, and asked to have his New Zealand papers re-endorsed and recognised here. In reply, he was informed that two years' continuous residence in Australia was necessary for Commonwealth naturalization and that his New Zealand

certificate only held good within New Zealand, and that in Australia he is deemed to have retained his original nationality. Mr D. challenges this view, and desires to carry the matter further.

The Prime Minister asks to be advised on the question.

In my opinion, the information given to Mr D. was correct, and an alien who has become naturalized in New Zealand does not thereby acquire the status of a British subject in Australia. This seems to be the generally accepted view; see Sir Francis Piggott's Nationality, Part I, pp. 226-236; Keith, Responsible Government in the Dominions, p. 217.

But it is an illustration of the extraordinary ambiguity of the naturalization laws of the Empire that there is high authority to a different effect. Mr Westlake, in his work on International Law, Part I, p. 229, holds that colonial naturalization grants complete national status-so that the grantee, when out of the colony, remains a British subject-though he has not in other parts of the King's Dominions the privileges of a British subject; i.e. that in those parts he is subject to the disabilities imposed by the local law on aliens, though he is not an alien.

[Vol. 7, p. 236]