III.

CONVENTION WITH BELGIUM,

CONCLUDED NOVEMBER 16TH, 1868.

ARTICLE I.

Citizens of the United States, who may or shall have been naturalized in Belgium, will be considered by the United States as citizens of Belgium. Reciprocally: Belgians who may or who shall have been naturalized in the United States will be considered by Belgium as citizens of the United States.

ARTICLE II.

Citizens of either contracting party, in case of their return to their original country, can be prosecuted there for crimes or misdemeanors committed before naturalization, saving to them such limitations as are established by the laws of their original country.

ARTICLE III.

Naturalized citizens of either contracting party, who shall have resided five years in the country which has naturalized them, cannot be held to the obligation of military service in their original country, or to incidental obligation resulting therefrom, in the event of their return to it, except in cases of desertion from organized and embodied military or naval service, or those that may be assimilated thereto by the laws of that country.

ARTICLE IV.

Citizens of the United States, naturalized in Belgium, shall be considered by Belgium as citizens of the United States when they shall have recovered their character as citizens of the United States, according to the laws of the United States. Reciprocally: Belgians, naturalized in the United States, shall be considered as Belgians by the United States when they shall have recovered their character as Belgians, according to the laws of Belgium.

ARTICLE V.

The present convention shall enter into execution immediately after the exchange of ratifications, and shall remain in force for ten years. If, at the expiration of that period, neither of the contracting parties shall have given notice six months in advance of its intention to terminate the same, it shall continue in force until the end of

twelve months after one of the contracting parties shall have given notice to the other of such intention.

(United States Treaties, 1870,

p. 341.)

IV.

NATURALIZATION OF BRITISH SUBJECTS AND AMERICAN CITIZENS.

SHOWING THE

(1.) PROTOCOL,

PRINCIPLES AGREED UPON BY THE BRITISH AND THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENTS ON THE QUESTION OF NATURALIZATION.—SIGNED AT LONDON, OCT. 9, 1868.

The undersigned, Edward Henry Lord Stanley, of Bickerstaffe, Her Britannic Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Reverdy Johnson, Esquire, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America, being respectively authorized and empowered to place on record the desire of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the President of the United States of America, to regulate the citizenship of British subjects who have emigrated, or who may emigrate, from the British dominions to the United States of America, and of citizens of the United States of America who have emigrated, or who may emigrate, to the British dominions, have agreed upon the following Protocol:

1. Such British subjects, as aforesaid, who have become, or shall become, and are naturalized, according to law, within the United States of America, as citizens thereof, shall, subject to the provisions of Articles II and IV, be held by Great Britain to be in all respects, and for all purposes, American citizens, and shall be treated as such by Great Britain.

Reciprocally: Such citizens, as aforesaid, of the United States who have become, or shall become, and are naturalized, according to law, within the British dominions as British subjects, shall, subject to the provisions of Articles II and IV, be held by the United States to be in all respects, and for all purposes, British subjects, and shall be treated as such by the United States.

II. Such British subjects as aforesaid, who have become and are naturalized as citizens within the United States, and such United States citizens as aforesaid, who have become and are naturalized

within the British dominions as British subjects, shall be at liberty to renounce their naturalization and to resume their respective nationalities; provided that such renunciation be publicly declared within two years after this protocol shall have been carried into effect, as provided by Article IV.

The manner in which this renunciation may be made and publicly declared shall be hereafter agreed upon by the respective gov

ernments.

III. If such British subject as aforesaid, naturalized in the United States, should renew his residence within the British dominions, the British government may, on his own application and on such conditions as that government may think fit to impose, re-admit him to the character and privileges of a British subject, and the United States shall not, in that case, claim him as a citizen of the United States on account of his former naturalization.

In the same manner, if such American citizen as aforesaid, naturalized within the British dominions, should renew his residence in the United States, the United States government may, on his own application and on such conditions as that government may think fit to impose, re-admit him to the character and privileges of an American citizen, and Great Britain shall not, in that case, claim him as a British subject on account of his former naturalization.

IV. As it will not be practicable for Great Britain to carry into operation the principles laid down in this protocol until provision has been made by the Imperial Parliament for such a revision of the existing laws as the adoption of those principles involves, it is agreed that this protocol shall not take effect until such legislation can be accomplished.

The British government will introduce measures into Parliament for this purpose as speedily as may be possible, having regard to the variety of public and private interests which may be affected by a change in the laws of naturalization and allegiance now under the consideration of the Royal Commission, whose report is expected shortly to be made.

The same provision not being necessary by the Constitution and laws of the United States, this article is not made reciprocal.

Done at London, the 9th of October, 1868.

(Parliamentary Papers, North America, No. 1869, p. 8.)

(2.) BRITISH NATURALIZATION ACT, 1870.

33 Victoria, Chapter XIV.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE LAW RELATING TO THE LEGAL CONDITION OF ALIENS AND BRITISH SUBJECTS.

(12th May, 1870.)

Whereas it is expedient to amend the law relating to the legal condition of aliens and British subjects:

Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

I. This Act may be cited for all

Act, 1870."

66

purposes as The Naturalization

Status of Aliens in the United Kingdom.

II. Real and personal property of every description may be taken, acquired, held and disposed of by an alien in the same manner in all respects as by a natural-born British subject; and a title to real and personal property of every description may be derived through, from, or in succession to an alien, in the same manner in all respects as through, from, or in succession to a natural-born British subject: Provided,

(1.) That this section shall not confer any right on an alien to hold real property situate out of the United Kingdom, and shall not qualify an alien for any office or for any municipal, parliamentary, or other franchise;

(2.) That this section shall not entitle an alien to any right or privilege as a British subject, except such rights and

privileges in respect of property as are hereby expressly given to him;

(3.) That this section shall not affect any estate or interest in real or personal property to which any person has or may become entitled, either mediately or immediately, in possession or expectancy, in pursuance of any disposition made before the passing of this Act, or in pursuance of any devolution by law on the death of any person dying before the passing of this act.

III. Where Her Majesty has entered into a convention with any foreign State to the effect that the subjects or citizens of that State who have been naturalized as British subjects may divest themselves of their status as such subjects, it shall be lawful for Her Majesty, by order in council, to declare that such convention has been entered into by Her Majesty; and from and after the date of such order in council, any person being originally a subject or citizen of the State referred to in such order, who has been naturalized as a British subject, may, within such limit of time as may be provided in the convention, make a declaration of alienage, and from and after the date of his so making such declaration such person shall be regarded as an alien, and as a subject of the State to which he originally belonged as aforesaid.

A declaration of alienage may be made as follows; that is to say, -If the declarant be in the United Kingdom in the presence of any justice of the peace, if elsewhere in Her Majesty's dominions in the presence of any judge of any court of civil or criminal jurisdiction, of any justice of the peace, or of any other officer for the time being authorized by law in the place in which the declarant is to administer an oath for any judicial or other legal purpose. If out of Her Majesty's dominions in the presence of any officer in the diplomatic or consular service of Her Majesty.

IV. Any person who by reason of his having been born within the dominions of Her Majesty is a natural born subject, but who also at the time of his birth became under the law of any foreign State a subject of such State, and is still such subject, may, if of full age and not under any disability, make a declaration of alienage in manner aforesaid, and from and after the making of such declaration of alienage such person shall cease to be a British subject. Any person who is born out of Her Majesty's dominions of a father being a British subject may, if of full age and not under any disability, make a declaration of alienage in manner aforesaid, and from and after the making of such declaration shall cease to be a British subject.

V. From and after the passing of this Act, an alien shall not be entitled to be tried by a jury de medietate linguæ, but shall be triable in the same manner as if he were a natural born subject.

Expatriation.

VI. Any British subject who has at any time before, or may at any time after the passing of this Act, when in any foreign State and