A.—7.
place on record its warm appreciation of the work which had been accomplished and of the manner in which the Commission had discharged and was continuing to discharge the duties entrusted to it. The Conference desired that, in view of the wide interest that was taken in this work, the Imperial War Graves Commission should make arrangements for the report to be published. XIV. CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS. Certain constitutional questions which had been raised by His Majesty's Government in the Union of South Africa were considered by a Committee on Constitutional Questions under the chairmanship of the Right Hon. E. Lapointe, K.C., M.P., Minister of Justice, Canada. Questions as to the nationality of married women, which had been raised by His Majesty's Government in the Commonwealth of Australia, were referred to the same committee. The committee presented the following report, which was adopted by the Conference:— (i) Nationality. The committee considered certain questions which had been raised in regard to the relationship between the common status possessed by subjects of His Majesty and the particular status of membership of any one of the individual communities forming the British Commonwealth of Nations. This subject was dealt with in paragraphs 73 to 79 of the report of the Conference on the Operation of Dominion Legislation, 1929, and Section VI (b) of the Summary of Proceedings of the Imperial Conference, 1930, and it was then contemplated that further consultation should take place with a view to arriving at a settlement of the problems involved. In the course of the discussions at the present conference it was in no way suggested that any change should be made in the existing position regarding the common status based on the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act of the United Kingdom and the corresponding enactments in other parts of the British Commonwealth. This common status is described by the term " British subject."' The term does not, of course, mean a " subject of Great Britain." It is one of long standing as denoting generally all subjects of His Majesty, to whatever part of the British Commonwealth they belong. Attention was drawn to the fact, as indicated in the report of 1929 above referred to, that British subjects not only have this common status, but also, generally speaking, have a particular connection with one or other member of the British Commonwealth. It was pointed out that in the absence of rules for determining the part of the Commonwealth with which any particular person has the connection just referred to, practical difficulties arise, or might arise, with regard to such matters as immigration, deportation, diplomatic action, extra-territorial legislation, and treaty rights and obligations. The suggestion was made that these difficulties could be overcome if each of the members of the Commonwealth were to undertake to introduce legislation, as some members have already done, defining its nationals or citizens. It was, however, found that some members of the Commonwealth were not disposed to introduce such legislation. In the case of the United Kingdom in particular it was pointed out that the wide differences existing between the large number of separate territories, legal jurisdictions, and races for which the United Kingdom was responsible would render impracticable the adoption of any single classification which would be in any real sense analogous to that expressed by the terms " national " or " citizen " or " member of the community " in the case of other members of the Commonwealth. Moreover, it is the practice of the United Kingdom to make no distinction between different classes of British subjects as regards the grant of" civil and political rights or the right of entry into and residence in the United Kingdom, and the paragraphs which follow must be read in the light of this position so far as the United Kingdom is concerned. It should also be mentioned that in foreign countries where there is no separate diplomatic or consular representation of a particular member of the
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