AN M.P.’s DIVORCE.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 14206, 3 September 1919, Page 7

AN M.P.’s DIVORCE.

extraordinary statement. LONDON, July 1. The “Staffordshire Sentinel,” Hanley, publishes the following letter from. Ooloncl J. C. Wedgwood, M.P. for New-castle-under-Lyme : “When I was divorced, the rector of Newcastle, with great charity, declined to join in the clerical outcry against me. I made up my mind then that in justice to him and those like him, 1 must, when the time came, write this letter, however unpleasant it is to publish my private affairs, for the -whole of North Staffs. “My married life was a very happy one until in 1913 my wife ceased to love me. She is one of those who believe that to live with a man you do not love is prostitution, and we separated for many years. I kept hoping that she would change, for after twenty years the break always seems inconceivable. I offered to start again in a now country where no one would know us. It -was all useless, and when I came back from Africa in 1916 and failed again I at last realised that plans had to ho made to reconstruct my life and home. I consulted a colleague, a leading K.C. in the House. He told me that there were only two ways for me to get free and re-establish a home. I could acquire a Scottish domicile and then divorce my wife for desertion, oi I could lot myself be divorced by her under English law. It takes (I think) three years to acquire the rights and privileges of a Scotsman, and it would have meant uprooting myself from ISA vjS. ordslxixc 7 so X iLriu.lly chose -the second alternative. The law which the Church will not allow us politicians to change insists that a wife shall only be able to divorce her husband if he has been found guilty of desertion and adultery. More merciful than the Church, the law allows desertion to be assumed if a writ for restitution of conjugal rights be obtained and not complied with, so letters were exchanged, and I was found guilty of desertion. “All the world read in the papers that I had deserted a wife and seven children after twenty years’ married life. Such a thing, if true, strikes me as being more blackguardly than adultery. There was no protest from Mr Sinker (vicar of St, George’s, Newcastle), but I am not likely to forget that day in the House of Commons. I spoke six times that day on the Education Bill to a perfectly silent House, feeling that every man -was saying, ‘ ‘ That is the man who has deserted his wife and seven children.” “The next stage was to get myself proved guilty of adultery. I chose the simplest way, took a suite of rooms at the Charing Cross Hotel, and took a lady there who was not my wife. As a matter of fact there was no adultery there. It is not exactly a festive occasion when you are carefully providing evidence to end. a happy married life. I cannot imagine what sensible people should expect me to be doing with a sitting-room at a London hotel except to sleep in, or why anyone who has a comfortable flat in London should go to the Charing Cross Hotel at all, but people who knew that my children were at Moddcrshall with me, and saw that the ‘desertion’ conviction must be formal, immediately jumped to the conclusion that the member for Newcastle was a thorough bad lot, and smacked their lips over ‘guilty of adultery.’ I think Mr Sinker might have been more reticent in the matter, as had I committed this frightful sin it -would only have been to satisfy the insistence of his church. Even this avenue to freedom is barred to all but the rich. It lias cost me several hundred pounds. Our divorce laws constitute the grossest case of one law for the rich and another for the poor, for which again Mr Sinker and his kind] are responsible. “Throughout I have done w r hat 1 conceive to be the most honourable thing in the most honourable way, and I have had good friends to back me up, but I ask you to observe what happens to a public man who tries to act honourably. Out of 900 similar cases last year, mine was the only one reported three times, my portrait was in the picture papers three times. I was deluged in anonymous abuse throe times. An honourable name was dragged in the mud, and foremost in the hunt is a minister of the Church of England. I thank the ‘Sentinel’ for taking another line, and for trying to hud explanations for what seemed inexplicable. Whatever my associations may be in the future with those who have honoured me with their confidence for 14 years, I know that at least they regard me as a man of courage. In the circumstances, they would not have expected mo to do other than I have done, and I have my reward, for before those linos are read I shall have exercised my right of remarriage, and in that I believe I shall have the good wishes of all that is best in the county of my birth.”