Memorandum by Frederick H. Boland of a meeting with Norman Archer

In the course of his visit on the 6th February, Mr. Archer handed me the attached reply to our memorandum of the 24th October, 1947, with regard to the draft British Nationality Bill.¹ At the same time, he handed me copies of the revised draft of the Bill.

Mr. Archer said that he was instructed to assure us that a very sincere effort had been made to meet the various points raised in our memorandum, but on some of the points there was no possibility of agreement. Where there was a possibility, they had done their very best to meet our point of view. It was now proposed to introduce the Bill about the end of this month. Though Mr. Archer did not specifically say so, I got the impression that the British authorities were not inviting any comments on the revised draft but intended to go ahead with the Bill in its present text.

Mr. Archer said that there was one point which was not referred to in the official British reply - our fear that the Common Law would be revived. This point had been put to the law officers of the Crown who had given it as their opinion that our fears in that regard were groundless.

I told Mr. Archer that I would not say anything at this stage but that we would examine the texts he had given me as quickly as possible.