“An Insult to Women”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 52, 24 May 1927, Page 14

“An Insult to Women”

Penalty of Marriage to Foreigners

In the Canadian House of Commons, Miss Macphail, the only woman member, made a strong: plea for the amendment of the Naturalisation Act, whereby women now possessing British citizenship should not lose that citizenship on marriage with aliens. She said it was an insult to women to compel them to transfer their allegiance without their own consent, and many cases were cited where Canadian women through marrying aliens, afterwards deceased, now found themselves without any legal nationality. She declared that she had noted a movement in recent years in Great Britain to remedy the situation by giving women the right to retain their nationality on marriage to aliens unless it was formally renounced, and urged the Canadian Parliament to declare in favour of a change in' the Imperial Naturalisation Act as suggested. Mr. Rinfret, secretary of State, replying, said that the Dominion Government endorsed the principle of equality of status between men and women in respect of naturalisation rights. The Canadian representatives at the Imperial Conference had urged this point of view. But, he declared, any change in the existing Act should have the concurrence of all parts of the Empire, and pending the report of the committee appointed by the conference to draft a uniform amendment, it would be inadvisable for Canada to take separate action.