Citizenship

The subject of citizenship of the new Commonwealth has to be approached in the light of its principles and purpose. If these are admitted to be right and desirable no problem is created by the coming into effect of a valid World Citizenship restricted to those who have formally been received into the Commonwealth of World Citizens under its naturalisation laws. It simply means that such persons have been set apart for the carrying out of their impartial world obligations, and are to be released from certain claims of the State which would qualify or make it impossible to fulfil those obligations. This requires some discussion.

Citizenship is not a fixed star in the political firmament. It is not universally recognised as a natural right, automatically conferred by birth and enjoyed until death, unless voluntarily exchanged for another citizenship by naturalisation. In some countries a person can lose or be deprived of his citizenship, and we are now familiar with the terrible condition of statelessness. Neither is there any universal agreement that a change of citizenship has automatically to be conceded. It has happened that a State has refused to relinquish its citizens even when they have validly acquired another citizenship. There are circumstances which permit an individual to hold two citizenships and use two passports, employing whichever may be convenient. Two kinds of citizenship may also be recognised, such as that of the British Commonwealth and of the separate elements within it. The terms and conditions of citizenship are therefore what any State chooses to make them, and it is fully within the competence of every State to allow a citizen to hold World Citizenship in the Commonwealth of World Citizens.

I have used the word citizenship so as to avoid confusion with nationality. Nation and State are sometimes regarded as interchangeable terms, and even united in the form Nation-State. A new nation may evolve from the creation of a State by the fusion of diverse national elements, or a State may be founded by a single nation, and so make it possible to speak correctly of national citizenship. But a State may consist of two or more associated nations, and State frontiers may also divide a nation so that parts of it are citizens of different States. People do not readily lose their nationality when they change their citizenship, and such ideas as loyalty and patriotism are therefore open to widely different interpretations, as indeed is what is called the right of self-determination of peoples. The State as an artificial structure can hardly claim natural loyalty: it can only claim loyalty to its laws from those who consent to be governed by them and enjoy the privileges of the particular society which the State represents. Citizenship in this sense is not concerned with nationality: it corresponds to membership of a society. The difficulties which arise are due to the problem of domicile, since the State is a form of society associated with territory. Ideally a man may be free to choose the society in which he will live; but practically the State possesses a terrible coercive weapon in that it can make domicile and opportunity of labour dependent on obedience. This weapon can also be employed to control freedom to join other non-State societies whose laws may in fact be nobler and worthier than those of the State. The degree of allegiance demanded by the State should strictly be limited to matters affecting good conduct, internal social security, and a fair contribution to maintenance. Everything else should be voluntary. Internal social security implies that nothing should be done to overthrow the State in the interest of any foreign Power; but it does not preclude an indigenous people exercising a natural loyalty by asserting a right to self-determination or reunion with an unnaturally separated part of the same people.

The distinctions to which I have drawn attention are for the sake of clarification of Articles 34 and 37 of the Constitution. The Commonwealth of World Citizens, while it is a self-governing people, is not a foreign Power. It is a cross-section of our common humanity, the voice of Everyman hitherto unheard and unrepresented in the councils of the nations. It holds before. every people the image of its true self, the self that is united in brotherhood with all mankind. The Commonwealth, therefore, does not require its citizens to divest themselves of their State citizenship, to divorce themselves from their surroundings, associations and civic obligations. It only stipulates that the responsibilities of such narrower citizenship shall be restricted to those which do not do violence to world responsibilities. The area of obedience covers everything conducive to good neighbourliness, and it should be held that persons holding the Principles of the Commonwealth are the most satisfactory kind of citizens. They make a positive contribution to the welfare of the Community. They also actively assist in promoting peaceful international relations and economic well-being, thus increasing State security from external aggression and internal subversion. Even without a specific higher citizenship it is customary for a State to recognise a limitation of obligations where a special vocation is concerned, as in the case of priests and ministers of religion and members of the medical profession, and also now in the case of officials of the United Nations Organisation. What a State will justifiably not tolerate is action prejudicial to its integrity, and in this connexion the Commonwealth of World Citizens furnishes explicit guarantees in Article 14.

The Commonwealth does not challenge the right of a State to defend itself from attack. Neither does it require anyone who is not a World Citizen to be governed by its chosen standards. Its creation does not give rise to a problem of dual allegiance, for the allegiances are not equal. There is a primary allegiance to mankind, and a secondary allegiance to the State. These allegiances are not opposed, since the good of the whole benefits every part. This is understood in all States of a federal or unionist character, such as the U.S.A., U.S.S.R. and U.K. The Commonwealth of World Citizens is itself in a sense a Federation, not of States but of individuals, and consequently it involves for those individuals as regards their State citizenship certain restrictions of personal sovereignty. For these essential limitations they ask respect as servants of humanity.

Undoubtedly the existence of the Commonwealth creates a new situation, for under its Constitution there comes into being a self-governing people of a new order, which will have no homeland of its own and no force at its disposal. It creates a world community for the performance of world services, and must operate by goodwill and for goodwill. The status of its citizens must therefore be a matter for agreement with each State, and it is not doubted that such agreement will be reached because the need for such an agency is great, and becoming steadily greater as every country faces the complexities of the coming time.