"This Court recognizes that citizens of certain countries who have resided abroad for a certain number of years, invariably have the Privilege of becoming subjects of that country in which they. have 80 resided. In Ching, it is an axiom of the Law that" foreigners who have resided in the land for a number of specified years may, upon due proof of such residence being Produced, together with a declars tion of their determination to renounce their original citizenship and to become citizens of the Chinese Republic, become citizens of China.
"Had defendant been abroad for any number of years, and thereby acquired the right of renouncing his Chinese nationality, " this Court would be in duty. bound to recognize the validity of the document produced. But what do we find? We find that defendant born in Kirin, and had onl far as Shanghai and Tientsin ju his business dealings, and had never been abroad, not even in any territory in China in control of. foreign governments, and now he! has the TImpudence to produce document purporting to give him the consular protection of a certain foreign country.
"We shall refer this matter to the. Foreign Office as it wil! be useful to bring all such inci to the notice of the illustrious foreign representatives who are no inquiring into the extraterritorial question in. our country. We are astonished that a foreig -consul could issue a document in favour of Chinese citizen who has never been outside of Chinese territory.
"Furthermore, it ig an axiom of the Chinese Law that foreigners cannot own land in China. Defendant owns land in Kirin and, therefore, it shows that there is'no record he has ever renounced. his Chinese citizenship.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.