Office of the Historian

No. 594.
Mr. Lothrop to Mr. Bayard.

Legation of the United States,
St. Petersburg, June 1, 1887. (Received June 18.)
No. 119.]

Sir: I have the honor to inclose to you a cutting from the Journal de St. Petersburg of this morning, with a translation thereof, relative to the proposed law for naturalization.

If it shall become a law in the form proposed, it will not only distinctly recognize the right of expatriation, but remove many of the most serious difficulties we have had in dealing with the question.

I have reason to believe that the views and wishes of the United States, which I have not failed to present on every suitable occasion, have had a material influence with the Imperial Government.

I am, etc.,

Geo. V. N. Lothrop.
[Inclosure in No. 119.—Translation from the Journal de St. Petersburg of May 20 (June 1), 1887.]

According to the information of the Gazette de Moscow, the council of the Empire will shortly take into consideration the project of a law for the naturalization of foreign subjects and for the right of Russian subjects to obtain naturalization abroad.

The last right would be granted to all Russian subjects free from every obligation towards the country of their origin. Every Russian naturalized abroad could return to Russia for a period not longer than one year. If he remained beyond this term, he would be considered eo ipso to have become again a Russian subject.