A NOVEL POINT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3006, 17 February 1917, Page 10

A NOVEL POINT

A GERMAN SUBJECT BY LAW. By Telegraph—Press Association. ' Auckland, February 16. A case was brought iu'.-the Magistrate's' Court to-day by tho Customs Department agaiii6t John A. 15ock, merchant, who was charged that being an alien enemy ho engaged 'in foreign trade, contrary to tho AYar Regulations. , , . , Mr. Selwyn Mays stated that defendant had imported from California a line of insect powder used by defendant for manufacturing purposes. AVhcn the goods arrived in December they vera held by the Customs on the ground that defendant was a,n alien enemy subject. AYhen the Customs held the goods- defendant wrote stating that though, born in of German parents lie had come to New Zealand when young, and by tho naturalisation of his father, then in South Australia, he became a naturalised British subject. In 1000 lie came to New Zealand and had been there ever since. He had never been outside the colonies since his arrival with his father in 1880. Defendant had not, however been naturalised in New Zealand, and though the regulations might • seem drastic the licparljment could not allow any person who was an enemy subjeot (oven though just technically such) to trade with any place at all outside the Dominion. . Mr. J. Lundon, for the defrndaift, dwelt on the injustice to defendant,'in that though ho was naturalised in South Australia by his father's naturalisation years ago, and had always lived and been in every respect a British colonial subjcct, ha was now regarded as an alien enemy subject, because he had not carried out the formality of naturalisation in New Zealand, when he was ignorant that such formality was needed. Defendant's brother gave evidence that ho believed that his father was really Danish, and had shifted to Hamburg, where witness and his brother were born. His father's mother could not speak Gorman. The Mncistrate said that children born in Germany of German parents were not deemed naturalised through the naturalisation of the father except in that part of the Empire where the naturalisation took place. Defendant by virtue of his father's naturalisation was still a naturalised British subject in South Australia, hut when lie came to New Zealand and did not take out naturalisation papers he became a German subject here._ His AVorship said lie was not reflecting on defendant, as lie had no reason to believe he was less loyal than if born in South Australia, but lie was a German subject by law, and therefore within tho scope of the regulations. The Magistrate said this was the first case of the. kind m New Zealand, and was not serious. Ho imposed a line of C' 2.