THE COLONIAL MARRIAGES BILL. (From the Home News.)

Evening Post, Volume XV, Issue 181, 4 August 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE COLONIAL MARRIAGES BILL. (From the Home News. )

It will be unnecessary to remind our readers that the Colonial Marriages Bill, the object of which is to confirm in England the legality of those marriages that are already legal in the British colonies, was read a second time in the House of Commons some months ago. A large majority, including many Conservative supporters of the Government, voted for it, notwithstanding the Ministerial protest against it as unnecessary and inopportune. The friends of the measure, determined to miss no opportunity of pressing its chums, and following up their triumph, organised a deputation to Sir Stafford Northcote, as leader of the House, and waited on him at his official residence in Downing-street on Wednesday, 6th June. The object of the deputation was to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to appoint a day for the further discussion of the bill, and the speech in which Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen introduced the deputation was moderate and conciliatory. When we commented on tbe Bubject several weeks ago, we

pointed out what may be called the domiciliary difficulty of the bill. This was fully recognised by the deputation, and that most rigid and sensitive of all lay bishops, Sir. Beresford Hope, need not vex his righteous spirit with apprehensions of steamers freighted with widowers and sisters-in-law bound for the Antipodes to bring them back in some three months time husbands and wives The promoters of the bill assented, Mr. KnatchbullHugessen said, to " Mr. Hope's proposal that there should be a certain specified time of residence in the colony in order to prevent people going out there merely to get married, and a clause had also been drawn which prevented lands previously inherited before the passing of the Act from being affected by the bill after it became law." Nothing could be more courteous than Sir Stafford Northcote's reply to Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen and his friends, and nothing, perhaps, less satisfactory. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not enter at great length into the general merits of the bill. He pointed out one or two practical difficulties which he thought it would, or might, involve, and he dwelt upon the very familiar truth, that though the issue of the marriages in question are not entitled to inherit property iv England, they can inherit property in the colonies. To say this was merely to re-state the grievance which Mr. Hugessen alleges, and not to advance any argument in favour of its perpetuation. Sir Stafford Northcote admitted that, p; ima facie, there was every reason why the measure should be proceeded with. The only thing is that Parliamentary time is precious, and there has been so much waiste of hours and words over the Eastern question, that public business is in a lamentable state of arrears. Therefore, Sir Stafford Northcote could merely state • ' that he recognised the importance of the matter, which was of such interest to the colonies, and should be very glad if he could see his way to find a day, but he was bound in frankness to say he did not think he could." This, from a Ministerial point of view, is a conclusive answer, but it may well seem hard to our fellowsubjects in the colonies that because members of the Imperial Parliament choose to occupy days and nights with factious divisions and profitless speeches, therefore justice, in so plain a matter as this, is deferred. It is little more than a year ago that Lord Beaconsfield enunciated in a series of amusing antithetical sentences, the absolute unity of the colonies and the mother country. From the point of view of the Prime Minister, it becomes the more anomalous that children who are legitimate in Australia should be for certain purposes treated as if they were illegitimate in England. Those who are now concerned to secure the legislation which logic and justice alike demand need not be disconcerted at the delay. The.re is now steadily in process of creation in England a body of public opinion which ensures the success of the measure at no distant date. Even among those who are indisposed as yet to legalise these marriages when contracted in England, the conviction exists that upon no grounds of reason or equity can the disabilities imposed on their offspring when born in the colonies be sustained.