The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-12
PAUL KRUGER ELIGIBLE
AS M. r. AND so IS COL. AR-
 THUR LYNCH.

What is Required for Admission
 to ParIinment-For Instance, the
 Oath of Allegiance.
 Col Arthur Lynch having been born in Ireland as a British subject, is per fectly eligible to Parliament at Vest minister and providing that no legal proceedings are instituted against him by the law officers of the British crown on charges of treason in bearing arms against the government and in giving aid to the kings enemies" there is no constitutional obstacle in the way or his taking his seat in the House of Com mons as the representative for Galway. l Of course he would be obliged to take i the oath of allegiance to King Edward before participating either in the de- bates or in the votes. The oath is, in- deed, indispensable to his full-1ledged membership of the national egislat on, and not only would his vote be invalid, but he would otherwise expose himself i to the most severe penalties in the shape of fine and imprisonment were he to take part in any division without having sworn to give his allegiance to King Edward. It is just possible, how ever, that the House of Commons may, by vote of its own, arbitrarily decline to allow Col Lynch to take the oath of allegiance and thus qualify himself for participation in legislative procedure. This course was adopted by the House with regard to Charles Brad'augh. It refused again and again. by means of vote to allow him to take either the oath or the affirmation which is its equivalent, and it was not until he had been returned for the fifth time for Northampton, in five successive elec- tions, that he was at last permitted to profess his allegiance to Queen Victoria and to take his seat as one of the mena- bers for Northampton.
 It is not until a newly elected mem- Der of Parliament has taken the oath or affirmation of allegiance that he is, in the eyes of the Legislature and of the law, full-tiedged member of Parlia- ment and entitled to the privileges and prerogatives as such. But even were Col. Lynch to have duly qualified him self by taking the oath of allegiance, he could still at any moment be arrested anu ifSiNi lOi litttSOil, liit ldlltl, dS WGll as felony of any kind, constituting an oifense that does not entitle members of Parliament to immunity from inn prisonment and other punishment
 So much for Col. Lynch. With regard to MT. Kruger, the circumstances are somewhat similar. He, too, was born under the British flag at Rastenburg, in that part of the British empire known as the Cape Colony, and, accord ing to the axiom of English law, once a British subject always a British sub ject The English law takes no &C., count of foreign letters of naturaliza- tion. Moreover, England maintains that the Transvaal has never ceased to form part of the British empire since 1877, when, in accordance with the rep resentations and petitions of the Boer authorities and the Boer people, who were overwhelmed with financial diffi- culties and troubles with the natives, the Transvaal was incorporated into the British empire, first as a colony and then as a semi-independent state sub ject to British suzerainty. According to this, any Boer born in the Transvaal since 1877, or who was a citizen of the
 
 tion in that year, is eligible to Parlia- ment at Westminster. MT. Kruger could, of course, be indicted for treason. not on the charge of having borne arms against King Edwards government, as in the case of Col. Lynch, but for hav- ing instigated and aided in acts of re- bellion against the British crown, and in that case he would become disquali- fled from membership of Parliament.
 Providing man is British subject, by birth on British soil, or by birth abroad of English parentage, or by vir- tue of naturalization, or, as in the case of the people living in the Transvaal in 1877, by annexation on the part of the British crown, he is eligible to Parlia- ment, no matter what his creed or his color. No property qualifications are required. Those which formerly exist ed have been abolished. Thus there is at the present moment a full-fledged Hindu, rejoicing in the name of Bhownaggree, who represents a metro- poitan constituency in the House of Commons, and there is nothing to pre- vent negro from any of the English, African or West Indian colonies, a | Chinaman born under the British flag at Singapore or at Hong Kong, or even | a canniabl from the Fiji group of is- lands in the Pacific, from taking his | seat in Parliament at Westminster, if l he can find any English or Scotch or Irish constituency willing to return him as it's representative in the House of | Commons. And there is as little bar to | creed as there is to color. The only ob- | jection which Great Britain's Parlia- ment seems to entertain is to people | publicly protesting atheism, and it was | for no other reason than this that the House of Commons so long declined to | permit Charles Bradlaugh to take his | seat, and the Scotch representative | peers refused to allow the late marquis | of Queensberry to represent their order l in the House of Lords.
 While both Col Lynch and MT Kru- | ger, having been born under the Brit ish flag, are eligible to Parliament, | there are plenty of cases where men