MR. HERBERT’S HOPES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 277, 23 November 1936, Page 8

MR. HERBERT’S HOPES

DIVORCE BILL IN COMMONS LONDON, Nov. 20. “I know that the real struggle will begin in Committee, but it looks as if the walls of Jericho are falling at last,” said Mr A. P. Herbert (Independent), commenting, in the House of Commons on his Divorce Bill, which was read a second time. He added that the grounds for divorce were three years’ desertion, cruelty, incurable insanity, habitual drunkenness, and ir/.prisonment for life. Mr A. P, Herbert, who was elected to the House of Commons for Oxford University last November, placed divorce reform in the forefront of his election programme, and brought forward his Marriage Bill some months ago. He was unfortunate in the ballot for private members, and his Bill was a long way down the list. He was also not optimistic about the outcome of his first attempt to alter the law. “Let me give a word of warning to any who are suffering under the present law concerning the Marriage Bill which I have presented to Parliament,” he wrote. “They may not, because they see that a Bill has been introduced to Parliament, begin to hope.” It is now twenty-four years since a Royal Commission reported on the marriage laws, and all its recommendations failed to pass through Parliament. These recommendations, of which the chief are new grounds for divorce and nullity, Mr Herbert has embodied in his Bill. The measure provides also that there shall be no divorce within five years of marriage, because of Mr Herbert’s I belief that these years are the most difficult, and, among the hasty, give

rise to dissolutions which, with delay, might bo avoided. Another clause relieves the clergyman from legal compulsion to re-marry a divorced person whose former spouse is still living, or to permit the use of his church for that purpose. It is proposed also to give selected magistrates a limited jurisdiction in divorce. The evidence will be taken before them and recorded, as now in depositions In criminal cases. The Court will announce findings of fact and the documents will be sent on to the Divorce Court, where in clear cases a divorce will bo pronounced. Doubtful cases will be transferred to the High Court. There was local jurisdiction in divorce before 1857. Mr Herbert points out. and there are Domestic Courts in the United States to-day. The decree nisi will be abolished. Apart from this the measure is based on the Bill of Mr Holford Knight years ago.