so doing being often entrusted, according to a statement made on Saturday last in the House of Commons, to "the ship's carpenter's boy 1."

The legislation of almost every other civilized country upon this subject is far more stringent; as is the case in some of our own colonies. Thus by the Victorian Chinese Act, 1881, a Chinese immigrant may not land till £10 has been paid for him, and a limit is placed upon the number of Chinese who may be brought in one vessel2.

The expulsion of aliens, perhaps never effected by the Royal prerogative", has since 33 Geo. III. c. 4 been authorized by temporary Acts of Parliament; such as 11 & 12 Vict. c. 20 (1848), which recites that "it is ex"pedient, for the due security of the peace and tranquillity “of this realm, that provision should be made, for a time to be limited, respecting aliens arriving, or resident, in "this kingdom"; and proceeds to empower a Secretary of State, on information, to order the removal of any alien or aliens, within a year from the passing of the Act and to the end of the next Session of Parliament.

By the Prevention of Crimes (Ireland) Act, 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 25), sec. 15, the 11 & 12 Vict. c. 20 was re-enacted for the United Kingdom, to continue in force for the same period as the principal Act 1.

It is hardly necessary to call attention to the numerous Acts by which aliens have been disabled from exercising

1 See Stat. Law Rev. Act, 1874, 47 & 48 Vict. c. 43, sec. 4; Parl. Rep. on Aliens, 1843, p. ix; C. Booth, Life and Labour in East London, vol. i. p. 551 (cited 6 L. Q. R. p. 39); and the debate in the House of Commons on Feb. 11, 1893.

2 See Musgrove v. Chun Teeong Toy, '91, App. Ca. 272, where the Privy Council expressed an opinion that, apart from the Act, an alien may be prohibited by the prerogative of the Crown from landing on British territory, although diplomatic representations might follow. Cf. 6 L. Q. R. 27, especially a list of enactments restricting Chinese immigration, at p. 41; also 7 L. Q. R. 299.

8 See, however, L. Q. R. vol xiii. p. 165.

4 Cf. the early Acts for the discouragement of alien artificers,

functions of a political character, from holding land, and from owning a British ship; or to the, now mainly obsolete, Navigation Acts, by which the colonial and coasting trades were closed to foreign vessels1.

On none of these points are we likely to be in conflict with other Powers; and it might be supposed that the rights of excluding and of expelling aliens were equally unquestionable. This is, however, not the prevalent view among continental jurists, as sufficiently appears from certain resolutions carried at the Geneva meeting of the "Institut de Droit International" in September, 1892, by large majorities against those members who maintained that International Law imposes here no limits to the discretion of the several Governments 2.

2. The right of this country to the allegiance of its subjects is asserted by two groups of statutes, in a way that might easily lead to friction, in cases where the same persons are also claimed as subjects by other States.

The old Common Law doctrine, that all persons born within the Queen's dominions are British subjects, is re-affirmed by the Naturalization Act, 1870, but with important relaxations, practically abolishing another common law rule, expressed in the maxim "nemo potest "exuere patriam suam." In the first place, any person so born, who was also at his birth the subject of some foreign State, can terminate his British allegiance, by making, when of full age, a declaration of alienage; and, what is more important, any British subject who may voluntarily become naturalized in a foreign State, there

1

1 Ric. III. c. 9; 21 Hen. VIII. c. 16; 32 Hen. VIII. c. 16. A Commission based upon them was issued by James I. Cf. 6 L. Q. R. 27. By 16 & 17 Vict. c. 107, secs. 324-326, and 39 & 40 Vict. c. 36, sec. 140, where reciprocity is not granted, restrictions may still be imposed on these trades. As to alien clergy, see 27 Eliz. c. 2; 1 Jac. I. c. 4; 10 Geo. IV. c. 7, secs. 28-38.

2 See the Annuaire de l'Institut, t. viii. p. 166; t. x. p. 227; t. xi. p. 273; t. xii. p. 184.

upon ceases (speaking generally) to retain his British nationality.

On the other hand, the old statutory provisions, imposing the quality of British subject upon the children and grandchildren born out of Her Majesty's dominions of British subjects, viz. 25 Ed. III. st. 1; 7 Anne, c. 5, sec. 3; Geo. II. c. 21, sec. 1; 13 Geo. III. c. 21, are still in force, subject to rights of renunciation, or of obtaining foreign naturalization, under the Act of 18701.

4

3. A nation's ownership of its territory, properly so called, is too indisputable to need affirmation by Act of Parliament; but we find statutory provisions which imply something very like a limited right of ownership in what are called "territorial waters."

So much can perhaps hardly be inferred from the phrase in the Foreign Enlistment Act which includes adjacent territorial waters" in the "dominions" of Her Majesty, but several Acts confirmatory of special Conventions, e. g. 59 Geo. III. c. 38 (as to British America), 31 & 32 Vict. c. 45 (as to the Channel), and 46 & 47 Vict. c. 22 (as to the North Sea Convention), allow any British boats to fish within British territorial waters; and the lastmentioned Act gives a generally available definition of the term: "exclusive fishery limits of the British islands "."

The 21 & 22 Vict. c. 109 declares that, as between the Queen and the Prince of Wales, “all mines and minerals "lying below low-water mark, under the open sea, adjacent "to but not being part of the county of Cornwall, are "vested in Her Majesty the Queen in right of her crown, "as part of the soil and territorial possessions of the "Crown."

A bay, the opening of which is twenty miles broad, as is the case with the Bay of Conception in Newfoundland,

1 Cf. the Naturalization Act, 1895.

2 The Convention, incorporated in the Act, fixes the limit at three miles, and for bays at ten.

is not usually supposed to be wholly territorial, but in The Direct United States Cable Co. v. Anglo-American Telegraph Co. it was held that 59 Geo. III. c. 38 (passed mainly to carry out the Convention of 1818) was such an assertion of British dominion over that Bay as (with 35 & 36 Vict. c. 45, authorizing Newfoundland to legislate with regard to it) could not be gainsaid in a British court. The Privy Council doubted as to the International Law on the subject1.

4. The right of the British Crown to exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction within the realm is asserted by the early Acts against papal encroachments and by the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, 18512. Also by the bulk of our criminal law, which contains no exceptions in favour of aliens, as to offences committed on land within the British dominions, or on board of British ships upon the high Our Government had lately occasion to remind that of the United States of the necessary applicability of the "Coercion Acts" to American citizens who might happen to be in Ireland.

seas.

A claim to jurisdiction, growing out of past employment in a British ship, which one might suppose would prove internationally untenable, is contained in sec. 267 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, viz. that "all offences.

against property or person, committed at any place, "either ashore or afloat, out of Her Majesty's dominions, "by any . . . seaman, who, at the time when the offence "is committed, is, or within three months previously has "been, employed in any British ship, shall be " (in effect) triable as if committed within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England 3.

1 1 L. R. 2 App. Ca. 394.

2 14 & 15

Vict. c. 60, repealed 1871, but with a recital that no preeminence or coercive jurisdiction can be conferred otherwise than by the Crown, and according to the laws of the realm.

3 Re-enacted as sec. 687 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894 57 & 58 Vict. c. 60.

Three extensions of this right are deserving of attention :

i. For many purposes the British Crown claims to exercise jurisdiction over aliens and alien vessels, not only within its dominions, but also within the waters which wash the coasts of its dominions, to a distance of three miles from low-water mark. I have already mentioned that something very like a right of ownership in those waters is asserted by the claim to exclusive fishery therein.

A less questionable right, viz. one of jurisdiction, is asserted over these waters for the following purposes, viz.: (1) the prohibition of hostilities; (2) the enforcement of quarantine; (3) the prevention of smuggling; (4) the police of fisheries; and (5) the application to even passing vessels of English criminal law.

(1) The principle under which a neutral State prohibits the occurrence of hostilities within three miles of its coasts is clearly laid down in the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870.

(2) By 6 Geo. IV. c. 78, and subsequent Acts, any vessel on arriving within even six miles of the coasts of the United Kingdom is obliged to display a signal denoting its sanitary condition, and men-of-war may oblige an infected vessel to repair to a port appointed for the performance of quarantine, if necessary, "by firing guns "upon such vessel" (cf. 30 & 31 Vict. c. 101, sec. 56, and 38 & 39 Vict. c. 55, sec. 343, &c.).

(3) For the prevention of smuggling, the repealed Hovering Act, 9 Geo. II. c. 35 (1736), sec. 22, assumed a revenue jurisdiction of four leagues from the coast, by prohibiting the transhipment of foreign goods within that distance. It has, however, been supposed in more recent times that so extensive a jurisdiction could not be asserted with reference to any foreign ship the Government of whose country chose to object to its exercise; and in the