The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-12

| take out letters of naturalization as an English citizen. It was in vain that he argued that he had repeatedly taken | the oath of allegiance, both as soldier | and as a policeman. It was explained to him that this was not sufficient to transform him into a full-fledged Brit ish citizen or to endow him with the same electoral privileges that any China
 man or Australian black born under the British flag would possess and that in the eyes of the law he was an alien, and would remain so until he had se- cured letters of English naturalization. It is not only aliens, however who
 are disqualified from membership of Parliament and from taking part in any parliamentary elections. There are
 plenty of full-nedged English citizens who are subject to similar disabilities.
 Thus all peers of the realm (eXcept those Irish peers who do not happen to
 have been elected for life to represent
 their order in the House of Lords) are
 barred from the exercise of franchise
 So, too, are policy officials, high and low; they have neither @ vote nor are they eligible. Ineligibility to Parliament extends to the Anglican clergy, to Scottish Presbyterian ministers and to the Roman Catholic priesthood. Undis- charged bankrupts, those convicted Of felony, and those who have not com- pleted their sentences, but are merely freed on tickets of leave. are likewise disqualified from election to Parlia.
 ment. So, too, are men under the age of 21, and persons who, having been i,rI tai Iac1orp6 hqNa nOt been legally restored to their civic rights and privileges. Insanity, how ever, does not constitute any disquali
 fication in the case of the upper house of Parliament. Lunatics are permitted to take part in the divisions in the Gilded Chamber, and at the time when the Irish home rule bill enacted by the House of Commons was defeated by the House of Lords no less than three crazy peers were brought down to Westmin ster by their keepers from the insane asylums in which they were held under restraint and voted as hereditary legis- lators against home rule being granted to Erin
 Andrew Carnegie is eligible to the British Parliament, having been born in Scotland, although he is a full-hedged American citizen, having taken out let ters of naturalization in this country. But it is as a born Scotchman that the author of Triumphant Democracy" has been elected lord rector of the an- cient university of St Andrews In the Land O Cakes" Louis Jennings, who was for many years the editor of a New York newspaper and a conspicuous fig- ure in the political life O. the Empire state, subsequently, became a member of the House of Commons at Westm'n- ster for the constituency of Stockport without any difficulty, owing to the fact that he was a cockney by origin, hav- ing been born in London, within the sound of Bow Bells, The fact that he had been naturalized in the United States was held to be no disqualifica- ton. It was the same with Sir Henry M. Stanley when he was returned to the British Parliament, for although he went to the United States as mere boy, yet he was born in Wales.
 On the other hand, Francis Chan ming. a native of Boston; Sir Elish Ash mead Bartlett, now forced out of the