CITIZENS AND SUBJECTS OF THE STATE
'"T^HE institution which to-day is wrongly named jl “the State” only knows of two kinds of individual : State citizens and foreigners. State citizens are all those who, either by birth or naturalization, enjoy the rights of State citizenship ; foreigners are those who enjoy similar rights under other States.
Nowadays these rights are acquired, in the first place, by the fact of being born within the frontiers of a State. Race and nationality play no part in it. The child of a negro who once lived in a German pro¬ tectorate and now is domiciled in Germany is auto¬ matically a citizen of the German State.
The whole procedure of acquiring State citizenship is not very different from that of becoming a member of an automobile club for instance.
I know that this is unwelcome hearing ; but any¬ thing crazier and less thought out than our present laws of State citizenship is hardly possible to conceive. But there is at least one State in which feeble attempts to achieve a better arrangement are apparent. I, of course, do not mean our pattern German Republic, but the United States of America, where they are trying, partially, at any rate, to include commonsense in their councils. They refuse to allow immigration of elements which are bad from the health point of view, and absolutely forbid naturalization of certain defined races, and thus are making a modest start in the direction of a view which is not unlike the con¬ ception of the national State.
17 4 MY STRUGGLE *75 The national State divides its inhabitants into three classes : State citizens, State subjects, and foreigners.