PROVISION FOR DEPENDENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 February 1931, Page 6

PROVISION FOR DEPENDENTS.

It is rather remarkable that it should have been left to a private member of the British House of Commons to introduce a Bill in regard to adequate provision for the dependents of any individual who by bequeathing his estate to outsiders has left his dependents unprovided for. This would seem one of the instances in which one Act might be applicable to the whole Empire, and the simplification of such matters was one of the aims of the Imperial Conferences. In this country statutory power is held by the Supreme Court to vary the terms of a will should they bo unjust to dependents. It is authority which the Bench has handled with scrupulous discretion and it is doubtful if there has been a single complaint in regard to the alteration of any testator’s instructions. On the other hand, it has prevented cases of undoubted hardship, and in some instances has actually relieved the« State of the necessity for providing dependents of a deceased person with sustenance. The Act has been in force long enough to show whether it has justified itself, and there seems no reason why a similar measure should not apply throughout the Empire. In regard to personal possessions and individual rights Great Britain is perhaps the most conservative nation in the world. It i? a rugged national characteristic that has. made for strength, though at times it has inflicted quite unnecessary hardship and has developed a kind of domestic tyranny, which is as out of date to-day as mediaeval armour for fighting men. The fact that a Bill giving the courts power to review a will has passed its second reading in the House of Commons with little opposition gives some hope that it may be taken up by the Government and so find its way into the Statute Book, for without the sponsorship of the Ministry its chances of becoming law are not very bright.