ELOPEMENTS FROM THE CONTINENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13414, 16 February 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

ELOPEMENTS FROM THE CONTINENT.

ENGLAND AS GRETNA GREEN

Gkkmany is anxious to co-operate with the British authorities in measures for stoppingrunaway marriages in England, writes a Berlin correspondent. The evil has long been regarded in Germany as a crying one, and steps are about to be taken to call the Imperial Chancellor's attention to its existence with a view to remedial regulations. The prime mover in the reform is one of the dignitaries of the State Church, Dr. Wilhelm Faber, general superintendent and chief councillor of the Prussian Consistory, who fills, among other responsible offices,

that- of selector and sifter of literature for the Emperor's perusal. It is almost certain that Dr. Faber will embrace his numerous opportunities to enlist the interest of the Kaiser as well in the marriage-re-form movement.

"I view the epidemic of elopements to England," said Dr. Faber " first and foremost in the light of the indignity it casts upon the Church. It is highly unpleasant for us that our laws to prohibit undesirable marriages, which are drawn up essentially

in the moral interests of the community, can be set at naught with absolute impunity ] by anybody who cares to pay passage-money ! to England. In Hamburg and North Germany, where the fame of England's elastic marriage laws is most widely spread, and from which the journey to England is less formidable, this evil of illegal runaway marriages is disgracefully common. Yet we on this side are absolutely powerless to check it. Germany's position awkward. " Germany's position in the matter is, it will be seen, rather awkward. It is not for us to take the first step in a case where a change in England's laws is an indispensable preface to reform. We can hardly suggest that England should revolutionise her marriage regulations on our account, especially as this would entail the restriction of her own subjects' convenience. But if England were to take the initiative, which we in courtesy cannot, she would find us only too ready to co-operate in the work of reform."

At the Prussian Home Office I found, says the correspondent, officials to be as keen as Church authorities for action which would tend to end England's career as a Gretna Green for the Continent. One important department chief said : "We should be grateful if England would act on the same lines, say, as Switzerland, and refuse to solemnise any marriage between German subjects until full inquiries have in each case been instituted in Germany as to whether objections exist. Perhaps a simpler method would be for English clergymen and officials to refuse to perform the ceremony unless a license stamped by a German registrar or consulate be shown. That would practically eradicate the evil/' Flagrant deceptions, I am told, are regularlv practised on the English authorities by 'the Continental runaways. Instead of residing for the regulation three weeks in a London parish before marriage an ingenious subterfuge is employed. Rooms are engaged by letter from the Continent, and trunks forwarded with instructions that the owners' arrival shall be registered without delay. The couple do not actually turn up, however, until three weeks later, but thev are able triumphantly to exhibit a registrar's certificate of the required date, and become man and wife after a sojourn on English soil of sometimes not more than two hours. Up to the time that Heligoland became German territory it was the favourite refuge of runaway'marriage-couples, but England has since' monopolised the traffic.