RIDDLE OF PEERAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 138, 13 June 1931, Page 11

RIDDLE OF PEERAGE.

RIGHTS IN DOMINIONS.

POSITION OF LORD LANGFORD STORY OF A SECOND WEDDING. The British and Australian legal authorities, according to the '"NewsChronicle," are now taking steps to solve one of the most interesting constitutional puzzles of modern times. It concerns Lord Langford, born at Tamaki, Auckland, who succeeded to the title early this year while in Australia, where he still lives—in Melbourne. Lord Langford (then Mr. C. W. T. E. Rowley) married Miss F. E. Shiel in Dublin in 1922. Reports have been received that he married again last June in Melbourne, and that he has said he had heard his first wife was dead.

Following reports in the Australian Press of this recent marriage the Melbourne .police communicated with Scotland Yard. They asked that an officer should interview Lady Langford, the young Irish peeress, now employed as waitress in a London teashop. A detailed statement was obtained from her, together with certified copies of her marriage record at the Church of The Star of the Sea, Dublin. Details of these have been cabled to Melbourne. If the Australian authorities consider that further inquiries should be made the initial steps will be effected by their law officers. Australian Criticism. In the meantime some Australian newspapers have raised the question whether proceedings, if warranted, can be taken in that country concerning a member of the British peerage, and they have been devoting attention 'to the matter from the constitutional point of view. One newspaper argues that it is anomalous in these modem times that all persons should not be equally amenable to the law in Australia, and there is criticism of the ancient law of privileges which gives peers the right to a jury of peers. High legal authorities in London consider that no proceedings could be taken in Australia, and any inquiry would have to bo held in London.

It has boon ruled that the right of a peer to bo tried by his peers cannot be waived, and the matter would therefore have to go to the House of Lords, with the Lord Chancellor (appointed Lord High Steward for the occasion) prcsidi"P- , . This procedure was last followed in the case of the late Earl Russell in 1001, when 130 Peers assembled to try him on a charge of bigamy. Lord Russell pleaded guilty, however, and was sentenced to three months' imprisonment in the first division. Lady Langford. Lady Langford, who is a dark Irish beauty, only recently returned from Dublin, where she had an interview with her solicitors. According to her own statement, she was 20 years of ago when she was married, and her husband was 10 years older. After a while her husband decided to emigrate, and after being in Canada for a time went on to Australia. She received a number of letters from him, and eventually she came to London with her mother and brother and went to live at Chelsea. Interviewed, Lady Langford said: "1 know nothing of the details of the supposed marriage in 1930. I have had no official communication from Australia at all. lam in touch with my solicitors in Dublin, who have the conduct of my affairs.

"The worry is beginning to tell on my nerves. The strangest part of the affair, from my point of view, is that I have received 'scores of begging letters from all parts of the country. As if I— who have been earning my own living for so long—had any opportunity of helping the unfortunate people who have written!" Among the letters received by Lady Langford was one from South Africa, addressed in the name of Mrs. Rowley, "waitress in a cafe near the Strand, London, England." It was from a man totally unknown to Lady Langford, asking her to buy him a ticket in the Irish Sweepstake. ■