POLITICAL NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 60, 8 September 1905, Page 6

POLITICAL NOTES.

»- PUBLIC WORKS STATEMENT. It is understood that the Public Works Statement will not be brought down till Tuesday. DIVORCE LAW AMENDMENT. Considerable amendments have been made by the Joint Statutes Revision Committee in the Divorce Act Amendment Bill, which passed through the House early in the session. It will be remembered that clause 2 of the Bill as it passed the House provided that a divorce could be obtained if respondent had been continuously confined for seven or more years in any lunatic asylum, and, in the opinion of two medical men, was not likely to recover. The Statutes Revision Committee has proposed to amend this clause to provide that in order to secure a, divorce on grounds of lunacy, it must be shown that respondent has been a lunatic for ten years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition, and has been detained in a lunatic asylum for not less than seven years, and the Court must be satisfied that the lunacy is likely to continue till death. The provision in the original Bill that no decree shall be issued if it appeals to the Court that the lunacy of respondent is in any way attributable to or that his recovery therefrom has in any way been prejudiced by petitioner's misconduct. The proposal to extend from five to seven years the term of desertion constituting a ground of divorce is struck out. A new clause is suggested to make the lunacy of either petitioner or respondent a bar to the granting of a decree for the restitution of conjugal rights.