1532 IMPERIAL UNITY [PART VIII
each Dominion being left free to grant local nationality on
such terms as its legislature should think fit.
(2) The Mother Country finds it necessary to maintain
five years as the qualifying period. This is a safeguard to
the Dominions aswell as to her, but five years anywhere in
the Empire should be as good as five years in the United
Kingdom.
(3) The grant of Imperial nationality is in every case
discretionary, and this discretion should be exercised by
those responsible in the area in which the applicant has
spent the last twelve months.
(4) The Imperial Act should be so framed as to enable
sach self-governing Dominion to adopt it.
(5) Nothing now proposed would affect the validity and
effectiveness of local laws regulating immigration or the like,
or differentiating between classes of British subjects.
The Bill was accordingly at once re-drafted !
(f) Commercial Relations? and (g) the All-Red Route.’
The non-political subjects must be considered briefly.
Sir W. Laurier disposed of the vexed question of (f) com-
mercial relations by moving a resolution which was accepted
by the Imperial Government subject to a rider to safeguard
the Imperial Government and the Dominions from being
obliged to accept recommendations from the Commission as
to tariff policy. As so amended the resolution (xx) runs :—
That His Majesty should be approached with a view to the
appointment of a Royal Commission representing the United
Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,
and Newfoundland, with a view of investigating and report-
ing upon the natural resources of each part of the Empire
represented at the Conference, the development attained
and attainable, and the facilities for production, manufacture,
and distribution ; the trade of each part with the others and
with the outside world, the food and raw material require-
ments of each and the sources thereof available, to what
extent, if any, the trade between each of the different parts
has been affected by existing legislation in each, either
' Parl. Pap., Cd. 5746-1, pp. 253 seq.
Parl. Pap., Cd. 5745, pp. 339-41. ® Ibid., pp. 344-58,
