WITH reference to Kevin Sinclair's article on passports (South China Morning Post, August 8), Mrs Katherine Fok Lo Shiu-ching and others who think passports are only travel documents should learn from the fate of William Joyce. Joyce (nicknamed ''Lord Haw-Haw'') was prominent in British Fascist politics in the 1930s. In 1939 he fled to Germany, where he broadcast Nazi propaganda during World War II.
At his trial for treason it was discovered that he was born in the US and was probably not entitled to the British passport for which he had applied, and which had been issued to him before the war. Notwithstanding this fact, he was convicted and hanged on the basis that just as the passport entitles the holder to the protection of the Crown, it also requires the loyalty of the holder towards the Crown.
There is surely a lesson here for those who hold passports from the UK, Canada, etc, while loudly proclaiming that their loyalty and allegiance belong to China.
C. G. BILHAM Jardine's Lookout
