NOT AFFECTED BY FREE STATE DECLARING INDEPENDENCE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 214, 4 May 1932, Page 5

NOT AFFECTED BY FREE STATE DECLARING INDEPENDENCE

(Press Assn.

BRITISH EXPERT'S VIEWS •

i — ^By Telfeijraph — Copyright).

LONDON, Monday. The assumption that the deelara-, tion of independence would result inIrish residents in Great Britain losing British citizenship rests on a misunderstanding, declares Professor Berriedale Keith, lecturer in Constitutional History of the British Empire, in an article in the .Manchester Guardian. "Separation of a part of the Empire by revolutionary action is not unprecedented," he states. "Decisions of British Courts show clearly, that a declaration of independence does not affect British subjects, including Irishmen, unless that independence is recognised by the Crown. If it is recognised, the Courts will probably hold that British subjects resident in the Irish Free State have lost their British nationality but could not maintain that Irish citizens resident in the United Kingdom and the Dominions forfeited the nationality conferred by British legislation which the Irish Free State cannot alter." "Parliament alone can deprive persons resident in Great Britain of British nationality, hut it cannot seriously he supposed that Parliament would do so even if Mr. de Valera broke the treaty. Irish citizens remaining in the Free State would become aliens pure and simple and subject to all the disabilities thereof."