Nationality and Allegiance

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Excerpt from Nationality and Allegiance: Thoughts on the Military Service (Conventions With Allied States) Act, 1917, and Problems Arising Thereon But it may not be generally appreciated that, should democracy seek to safeguard itself from the repetition of the flagrant blunders committed by the Legislature of this country in the passing into law of the Military Service (Conventions with Allied States) Act, 1917, and in seeking to enforce the Russo-British Convention based thereon, it will be necessary that our legislators should qualify themselves for the proper discharge of their office by acquiring an elementary knowledge, at least, of the historical problems on which they may be called upon to legislate. At a time of war, haste may account for many mistakes, but these should not be multiplied by the absence of requisite study, nor by neglect to require from prominent officials a higher standard of research than that exhibited in the drafting of the impugned statute. Nationality and Allegiance, like Scylla and Charybdis, confronted the framers of the Bill which became the Act of 1917, and most lamentably did they come to grief in their inability to avoid shipwreck. It is true that the Bill passed, but at what a cost to our consistency and to British prestige! Great Britain, which had long enjoyed the proud distinction of protector of defenceless fugitives seeking asylum from the persecution of despots, suddenly reversed her policy. National emergency may have required the modification of the rule theretofore observed that no alien resident in this country should be conscripted into the British Army for service abroad, or required to serve the country, save in the militia for home defence, or in the police. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.