SECOND READING DEFERRED.

HC Deb 24 July 1857 vol 147 cc373-415

Order for Second Reading read.

MR. HENLEY

said, he rose to move that the order for the second reading of the Bill be postponed for one month. In stating the reasons which had induced him to make this Motion he should refrain from raising any question on the principle of the Bill, and should confine himself entirely to showing in what manner it would be convenient for the House and advantageous to the public that this course should be taken. He should be obliged probably to touch on the provisions of the Bill, but he should cautiously abstain as much as possible from offering any opinion upon them. As the law at present stood persons wishing for a dissolution of marriage were obliged to go through a threefold operation. First, they had to sue in the Ecclesiastical Courts; next, to bring an action in the Common Law Courts, usually called an action of crim. con.; and, lastly, they went to the House of Lords for what was called a Bill of divorce by way of privilegia. He was quite willing to admit that these privilegia had now become matters of right, but, by a Standing Order of the House of Lords, that right was accompanied by a prohibition of marriage between the guilty parties, and a clause was inserted in each Bill to that effect, which, however, it was the practice to strike out afterwards. In 1855 the Government of the day issued a Commission to inquire into the present state of the law of divorce, and their attention was specially directed to the mode of obtaining divorces a vinculo matrimonii. That Commission made a Report embodying certain Resolutions, and in the following year legislation commenced in the House of Lords. He was not aware whether the Bill of that year ever came down to this House, but, at all events, no action was taken upon it. There the question rested until the present year, when a Bill was introduced in the other House, which, after various discussions, was sent down to this House in its present shape. It was scarcely necessary to call attention to the, great gravity and difficulty of the subject. Not that it would affect many persons, for the number of persons who would come under the operation of a measure of this kind was not very great; but what made it so important to proceed with extraordinary care and deliberation in this matter was, that if any false step were taken, if a wrong course were entered upon, it might have the effect of shaking the sanctity of the marriage vow, and so lay the foundation of a vast amount of social evil. It was in that sense that this question was eminently grave and difficult, and the possible evils which might result from hasty and ill-considered legislation far outweighed the inconvenience which a few persons might suffer from the postponement of the measure to another Session. He was the last man to refuse its due weight to anything which was an authority on this subject; but he should have to call the attention of the House to circumstances which would very much diminish the weight which might otherwise be given to the various ordeals through which this Bill had gone, and which would go far, ho thought, to prove that it ought to be discussed on its own intrinsic merits, and could not stand upon the authority of what had been done elsewhere. He would first of all contrast the recommendations of the Commission with the provisions of the Bill of 1854, and of the Bill now before the House. The Commissioners recommended that there should be a tribunal of three independent Judges. The Bill of 1854 proposed that all matters connected with judicial separation should be thrown into the Court of Chancery, and this Bill constituted a tribunal consisting of several persons—the Lord Chancellor, the Chiefs of the three Common Law Courts, and the Judge of the Probate Court, who was to be the Judge Ordinary—three to be a quorum in matters relating to dissolution of marriage, while all other matters were to be confided to the Judge Ordinary sitting alone. Then as to the question of appeal. The Commissioners recommended that there should be a general appeal to the House of Lords. In the Bill of 1854 the appeal was the same as that which the Chancery Courts had, with an ultimate appeal to the House of Lords. In the present Bill there was no appeal in cases of dissolution of marriage upon the facts, but upon points of law there was an appeal to the House of Lords, and in all matters connected with judicial separation and other matrimonial suits there was an appeal from the single Judge to the full Court. On these points the recommendations of the Commissioners had not been carried out; in fact, there did not appear to have been any constant mind with respect to them. Then, again, the Commissioners recom- mended—and gave reasons for their recommendation—that these matters should be decided by Judges and not by juries, and in 1854 the House of Lords was of the same opinion as the Commissioners, that there ought to be no juries. This year there had been a change of mind, and when this Bill was brought into the House of Lords there was not to be a jury as a matter of right in any case, but only at the discretion of the Court. During the discussion, however, there was a further change of opinion, and as the Bill now stood a jury was given as a matter of right in all cases of dissolution of marriage, and in other cases at the discretion of the Court. It was quite clear that on every point on which it was possible a difference of opinion might arise there had been a great conflict of opinion, and he appealed to hon. Gentlemen—for he could not for a moment doubt that it was their desire and that of Her Majesty's Government to pass a good measure upon this subject—whether it was likely, therefore, or possible even, that at this period of the Session these matters could receive that full discussion in Committee which their importance demanded? Point after point would have to be discussed, the various reasons pro and con. which had been urged elsewhere would be brought forward again, and so much time would be taken up, that either nothing would be done in the end or what was done would be done in so hurried a manner as to reflect no credit upon the House and gain no advantage for the country. But there had been as great difference of opinion on the thing which was to be dealt with as on the manner of dealing with it. The recommendation of the Commissioners in regard to judicial separations or divorces a mensâ et thoro, as they were now called, was that conjugal infidelity or gross cruelty should be a ground for them, and that in cases of wilful desertion there should be a remedy either by judicial separation or allowance of alimony. In the Bill of 1854 there was no definition of the ground upon which judicial separation was to take place; probably it was intended that it should be for the same causes as those for which it was now decreed in the Ecclesiastical Courts, but there was a provision in the Bill by which desertion for three years was made a ground for the allowance of alimony. In the Bill of this year desertion for two years was made a ground for judicial separation. Then came a rather curious provision, the practical results of which, he thought, would be more awkward than its proposers imagined—namely, that a wife who had been deserted for twelve months should have a power to protect her earnings from her husband or from his creditors. This protection, oddly enough, was to be given by a single magistrate, but it could be upset again by any two magistrates, and this might go on toties quoties. Nothing of this kind appeared in the recommendations of the Commissioners, or in the legislation of 1854. The period of desertion thus fell from three years to two, and this anomalous remedy was added over and above. So far as to what was called judicial separation. Next, there were the differences of opinion which had existed on that more serious question, the dissolution of marriage. The report of the Commissioners recommended that when a dissolution of marriage was sued for by the husband it should be for adultery and for adultery only. The same principle seemed to run through the mind of the House of Lords both in 1854 and in 1857. But when it came to be a question of getting rid of the privilegia and substituting a general law, it naturally occurred to our legislators (although the Commissioners said little on this point) that there were two parties concerned in a marriage contract, and that if they did not choose to give the wife the same remedy as the husband, they ought, at all events, to consider what her remedy should be. If the House had to discuss this question, it would be of great advantage to have a steady current of authority to guide them. But how stood the fact? The Commissioners merely suggested this—that a, dissolution should take place on the suit of the wife only in what they termed cases of "aggravated enormity," meaning by that phrase incest and bigamy. This recommendation was followed in the Bill of 1854 as originally introduced; but when the measure came to be discussed, the minds of its framers enlarged, and the definition of the grounds to which the remedy of the wife should be confined, expanded into "incestuous adultery, bigamy, and unnatural crimes, or the attempt to commit them." As the discussion proceeded, however, another change took place; "bigamy" was at length excluded, and the remedy of the wife was ultimately left to depend upon "incestuous adultery" alone. This showed how much vacillation there was in the mind of that portion of the Legislature in 1854. This brought them to the year 1857 and to the Bill now before them. That Bill differed entirely from the mind of the Commissioners—differed entirely from the mind of the House of Lords in 1854, and presented the matter in a totally new shape. After being restricted to two grounds, then enlarged to four, and then narrowed down to one, the remedy on the part of the woman was at last again rested upon four grounds. Those grounds were—first, incestuous adultery; second, bigamy; third, adultery coupled with gross cruelty; and, fourth, adultery coupled with desertion for two years. But that was not all. The result of the deliberations of the other House this year was not arrived at without great fluctuations of opinion; and if anything should induce the House to be on its guard against hasty legislation it surely was the extreme indecision and uncertainty evinced by those who had had this subject so long under their consideration. Before, however, calling attention to the unsettled state of the mind of the Upper House during the present Session, he must refer to a portion of the question which was not the least important, and which had excited no little public feeling. He meant the subject of remarriage. Conscious of the difficulty by which this point was surrounded, the Commissioners gave no opinion whatever upon it. He was told, indeed, that they left it where it was, but they certainly did not go the length of distinctly suggesting that it should continue as it stood. They merely gave it a, very handsome go-by. The legislation of 1854 indicated a tendency in favour of permitting the parties to marry again; and he would presently allude to the manner in which this point was dealt with in the present Bill; but he would first of all advert to the last point on which he had to trouble the House. The Commissioners stated their belief that no verdict of a Court of Law and no sentence of an Ecclesiastical Court should be required as a condition precedent to the dissolution of a marriage. In 1854 the House of Lords did not seem to have dealt with that part of the subject at all. But the Bill of this year, in its finished state, declared that there should be no action for crim. con., that the adulterer should be made a corespondent, and subjected to a limited fine. He would next beg the House to remark how strangely the mind of the House of Lords had wavered in the present Session. He had already touched upon the jury question, and indicated the ebbing and flowing of opinion to which it had given rise; and to return to the question of remarriage, he had also to point out that when the Bill was first introduced it contained a power to the parties to marry again; that during the progress of the measure the right of remarriage was confined to the man alone; and that the provision was afterwards changed back again into a permission to both parties to remarry. Was it possible to conceive a more unsettled state of mind on important points than these facts disclosed? When the Bill was brought in, the action of crim. con. was not to precede but to follow the dissolution of the marriage. That, however, was subsequently swept away; and the offence of adultery was created a misdemeanour. A little afterwards another change is made, and it is proposed to inflict fine and imprisonment. That does not stand long. The action of crim. con. was to be entirely abolished, but the adulterer was to be liable to a fine. Could they imagine greater uncertainty than had prevailed on all these important particulars? On these grounds alone, he thought he was justified in asking for a postponement of this measure till another Session. But this was by no means all. The number of persons affected by this question was extremely limited. According to a return now on the table the number of divorce Bills passed within the last ten years was but thirty-six; for the ten years preceding the number was forty-eight; and again for the ten years before that it was thirty-four. The proportion for each year was therefore only between three and four. It would be impossible therefore that parties should be inconvenienced by this matter standing over. It had been said that hitherto this privilege had been within reach of the rich, but wholly out of the reach of persons of moderate fortune, and this was urged as a reason for the change. But this Bill was so framed that it deprived a very considerable portion of Her Majesty's subjects of any remedy whatever. In suits for the lesser separation—the judicial separation—parties living at the extremity of the kingdom would be shut out from any remedy except they came to London. He was not surprised that the Commissioners had not touched upon this matter, but it was remarkable that it had escaped notice and discussion altogether. Let the House see how this matter stood. There were no recent returns as to the number of divorce suits at present occurring per year, so that in order to get any information he was obliged to go back to the Ecclesiastical Report of 1832,—a very well known Report, which was reprinted in 1842 or 1843. In this Report he found the account of all the matrimonial suits of all the Courts of England during the years 1827, 1828, and 1829. The matrimonial suits during those three years were 101 in number, of which there were sixteen in the Arches Court of London and forty-two, in the Consistory Court of London, making fifty-eight altogether in the metropolis. In the other courts of the country there were forty-three, so that four-tenths of the whole were now to be swept away and no remedy provided for these parties. And yet the House was asked to legislate for persons of moderate income who wanted a remedy, about the propriety of granting which there was no difference of opinion. These persons would be cut off from the chance of a remedy for the sake of giving some facilities to persons who were better off. He would assume that the business in the country at present bore the same ratio as in the years he had specified. He found that in the three years 1827, 1828, and 1829 the matrimonial cases in the Consistory Court, were forty-two, while the cases of divorce were only sixteen. It happened that in the year 1827 there were scarcely any, but the average for the three years was five for each year. The Commissioners in 1853 had a return made of the causes in the Consistory Court, their amount in 1854 being nine per annum. That, however, was an imperfect return. In the Court of Arches in that year the causes were fewer than in preceding years, and that must have swelled the causes in the Consistory Court, so that the number was not so much increased as might seem. The amount of business fluctuated in different years, but a considerable amount of business was done in the districts of York, Chester, Glocestor, Norwich, and Durham. For the more ordinary business, parties living in these districts would be put to great inconvenience if their causes were all brought to London and decided at a central court. The Bill provided that testimony should be given orally. That was a most important provision, and there was a pretty uniform opinion in its favour. The Bill gave a power to send a commission into the country to take the evidence of persons who were rich and could not be brought to London; but it would not be very satisfactory to the poorer classes of the community who lived at a distance to be deprived of the advantage of the Bill. He had now stated the reasons that induced him to come to the conclusion that if the Government persisted in proceeding with this Bill during the present Session there must be very lengthened discussions upon it in Committee. He did not wish to give an opinion upon the Bill, but when the House heard of the petition signed by 6,000 clergymen against it, it was clear that the interest taken in the Bill was very great and had not abated. That interest must secure for the Bill very long and protracted discussions. If those discussions were cut indecently short by the lateness of the Session the House would run the risk of shocking the high feeling existing in the country against the Bill, and the still greater risk of passing a crude, ill-digested, and not well-considered measure. Feeling, as he had already stated, that the Government had no interest in the matter, except to get a good Bill for the country, and feeling that very few parties would be inconvenienced by the delay, he would ask the Government to remember that much good might result from the delay. It was possible that when those who now had a strong feeling against the Bill had had more time for reflection they might come to a truer and juster opinion of the best mode of dealing with this difficult and complicated subject. Upon all these grounds therefore he implored the Government to concede his request that this Bill should be postponed until next Session. He thought it better to make this appeal before the House entered upon the merits of the Bill, because it was undesirable that they should pledge themselves to a great principle either for or against the Bill, unless they were sure they saw their way clearly to go through with the Bill, and had all the adjuncts for fairly discussing it. It would be more just to the subject itself that hon. Members should not be asked to pledge themselves to the second reading with the understanding that the Bill should not go further during the present Session. Such were the reasons that had induced him to take this unusual course. He believed he had entirely abstained from giving an opinion upon the various provisions of the Bill. He had only endeavoured to show that there must be very lengthened discussions upon the Bill, and he hoped the Government would allow it to be postponed.

SIR GEORGE GREY

The right hon. Gentleman in the concluding sentence of his speech has anticipated the remark with which wish to begin the few words I have to say, when he expressed an opinion that the course he was taking was an unusual one; I believe that it is not only a most unusual, but also a most inconvenient course. When the order of the day for the second reading of the Bill was read, my hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General rose. [Mr. Henley: I did not see him.] He gave way to the right hon. Gentleman, but he rose for the purpose of making a complete statement to the House, not only of the principle of the Bill and its effects and general purport, but also of the grounds upon which the Government have resolved to ask the House to consent to the second reading and to the further progress of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman rose according to notice to move that the order for the second reading be postponed for a month, no doubt believing that if the House agreed to that postponement the Bill would be postponed to another Session. The notice was therefore equivalent in its effect to that given by the hon. and learned member for Dundalk (Mr. Bowyer), who had given notice that he should move that the second reading be postponed for six months, although I presume that the object of the right hon. Gentleman in distinguishing himself from the opposition of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Bowyer) was that he might guard himself from expressing an opinion against the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman stated that he would not enter upon the principle of the Bill, and, passing by the principle of the Bill, and leaving the House in doubt whether he would assent to it or not, the right hon. Gentleman entered into a minute detail of some of the provisions of the Bill, and addressed to the House a speech which would lead to a discussion of matters that could only be properly discussed in Committee. This is an extremely inconvenient course to pursue, and I must therefore beg the House not to follow the example of the right hon. Gentleman by entering into the discussion of matters of detail. I shall myself abstain from taking that course, and I trust my hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General will not address the House upon this subject until he is about to move the second reading of the Bill, when he will be prepared to enter into a full statement of the nature of its provisions. In the observations which I am now going to make, I shall content myself with simply replying to the reasons which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) has urged against the further progress of this measure. The first objection which the right hon. Gentleman has advanced—and which I must confess appears to me to be one of rather an extraordinary character—is, that if we proceed with the Bill we shall run the risk of legislating in a hasty spirit. Now, if this were the first Session of Parliament in which a measure of this nature had been introduced, and if no previous inquiry with respect to the question with which it proposes to deal had taken place, I could understand the force of the right hon. Gentleman's argument. But what are the facts which the right hon. Gentleman himself has laid before the House? Why, he admits that there have been repeated inquiries instituted into this subject; that Bills in reference to it have been upon more than one occasion submitted to the other branch of the Legislature; that they in that assembly received the most minute attention, and that several alterations have been made from time to time in their details, thus proving that they did not meet with a merely cursory consideration. The result of that consideration has been that a measure to amend the law of divorce has at length passed through the other House of Parliament, and I cannot help thinking therefore, that, taking these circumstances into account, we are about to enter upon the discussion of this question with all the advantages which the fullest inquiry is calculated to confer. If the argument of the right hon. Gentleman be of any weight at the present moment, it would be of equal if not of greater force next Session, for he would then be able to add a fourth to the list of rejected Bills on this subject, and I trust the House will not be led away by it to assent to the postponement of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman has, however, urged another objection to the further progress of this measure. He says we are near the end of the Session, and that we ought not in consequence to proceed to legislate upon a subject so important as that under our notice. Now, for my own part, I cannot regard it as being of much consequence at what period of the year a question is submitted to the consideration of the House provided there is a sufficiently numerous attendance of its members, and although our benches may just now be somewhat deserted, yet that is an usual occurrence at this hour (a quarter past eight o'clock), and one which by no means contravenes the fact indicated by the division lists—that the attendance of hon. Members is quite large enough to justify us in dealing with any measure, however important it may be. Her Majesty's Government have deemed it their duty to propose this Bill to Parliament; it has received the deliberate attention of the other House, and it would, I may add, be a matter of great regret that this House should come to a determination which would have the effect of perpetuating for some time longer those scandals in the existing law which it is the object of the Bill to remove. I fear that if hon. Members come to that conclusion there is but little prospect that the measure will meet with a more favourable reception in a future Session, while it is not improbable that, whatever the nature of the Government proposal next year may be, we should find the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), voting in favour of a Motion such as that which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dundalk (Mr. Bowyer) has given notice that it is his intention to make. If the right hon. Gentleman should be of opinion, after he has heard the details of the Bill explained, that its further consideration ought to be postponed, he might propose an Amendment to that effect. That would be the proper course for him to have taken, instead of anticipating, as he has done, all discussion of the measure. I hope, however, that the House will not concur in the view which the hon. and learned Gentleman has advocated, but that they will consent to enter at once upon the discussion of a Bill by means of which Her Majesty's Ministers earnestly expect that a remedy may, during the present Session, be applied to the scandals of the existing law of divorce.

MR. GLADSTONE

I think my right hon. Friend who has just spoken hardly himself conceives that there is much force in the objections which he has urged to the course which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire has taken. My right hon. Friend seems to be of opinion that it is most undesirable that the scandals of the existing law of marriage should be permitted to continue for another year, but I must confess I scarcely know what those scandals are to which my right hon. Friend refers. If he alludes to the defective state of our law with respect to the protection of the wife and the husband, respectively, in regard to their carn- ings and property under the circumstances of a separation between them, then I admit that there are scandals arising from that cause, but I must at the same time contend that they are not of such a nature as would render the application of a remedy to them a work of very great difficulty, nor do I think they are at all affected by the Motion which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire has submitted to our notice; for, if Her Majesty's Ministers aim at doing that which I frankly own and believe the people of this country, and among them the working classes, desire to see accomplished—namely, the securing a better protection for themselves and their families as regards their property in the case of the misconduct of the wife or of the husband respectively—then my right hon. Friend has it in his power to attain that end by pressing on our consideration simply and solely those portions of the Bill before us which have reference to that subject. Those provisions might, I venture to say, be pursued without difficulty even during the remaining portion of the Session, because they do not lead to any of the rocks, shoals, and quicksands with which the Bill as it stands is beset. My right hon. Friend, however, has perhaps in view another description of scandal which I grant exists, although I cannot help thinking its importance has been enormously overrated,—I allude to the scandal which is embraced in the fact that persons who have a certain amount of property at their command can obtain by Act of Parliament a dissolution of the marriage tie, while no such privilege is open to those who do not happen to be equally fortunate. Now that that is a scandal I do not mean to deny, but I am at the same time of opinion that the mode in which it should be dealt with is a question which demands the most serious consideration of the Legislature. That being the case, there is surely no pressing necessity for dealing with that question at the present moment. The circumstances out of which it arises do not operate during the recess, inasmuch as they altogether depend upon the passing of an Act of Parliament, and its consideration may consequently, without the slightest inconvenience, be deferred to a future Session. It, therefore, appears to me that the right hon. Gentleman opposite in urging the postponement of this subject has taken a perfectly legitimate course—in fact the most legitimate course; for, as I understand the right hon. Gentleman, he enter- tains some difficulty with respect to the proper mode of dealing with the matter in a legislative enactment. He does not appear to be disposed to deny that the whole question of the law of marriage may justly be submitted to the consideration of Parliament; but my right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Home Department seems to have some suspicion that the right hon. Gentleman entertains a latent determination to oppose anything and everything which the Government proposes, and has put upon his Motion a construction to which I do not think it is fairly liable. Is it not, I will ask my right hon. Friend, a possible state of things, that there may be many persons in the House of Commons who do feel that great difficulties exist in reference to the course which ought to be taken upon this subject? We all must be aware that it would be impossible to exaggerate those difficulties, and are we all bound to be so presumptuous as to think that we can at a moment's notice see our way out of them? Are our ideas of public duty so slavish and debased as to lead us to the conclusion that we should be justified in dealing with this important and sacred subject in accordance with those which are supposed to be the ordinary motives of Parliamentary operations with reference to the Government? It is a subject with respect to which our obligations, whatever they may be, are obligations affecting us in common as Christians, and which bear no relation either to our present or former political views. I do therefore trust that my right hon. Friend will not continue a discussion of this character by ascribing to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire sentiments and views the existence of which he entirely disclaims. It is not fair of my right hon. Friend to say that the right hon. Gentleman, whatever may be the nature of the measure which may be submitted to Parliament next Session, would be found voting in favour of a Motion such as that of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk. It is not worthy of my right hon. Friend to seek to withdraw this great question out of the atmosphere of conscience and reason, which is that in which alone it ought to be discussed, and to place it in the denser and fouler atmosphere of common political motives. For my own part, I frankly own that I entertain no doubt with respect to the main question which is involved in the present measure. I refer to the question of the true interpretation of the Christian law of marriage. I, however, feel it to be my duty at the same time to make upon my own behalf the very same petition which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire has thought it his duty to present to our consideration upon his; and I contend it is but fair that we should have before us the necessary means of deciding upon and measuring the general wants and exigencies of the community before we proceed to legislate upon this most important subject. I have no desire that the legislation on this subject should be adapted to my views of Christian doctrine, but to the general wants and wishes of the country; and in my opinion, the sentiments showing the feelings of the country, the opinions of the classes most interested in the subject, such as the clergy, and the opinions of Members of Parliament, are all important elements in the determination of the subject, and should be allowed full opportunity for expression. I do not come here with a cut-and-dry system of opinions which I wish the House to give effect to, but to do my duty as a Member of Parliament in passing the best enactment which the delicacy of the subject will admit of, and which cannot be accomplished if the measure is brought forward under circumstances preventing the question from being properly discussed. My right hon. Friend says that the attendance of hon. Members is not such as to cause any apprehension that the measure will not be properly discussed. Now, if I thought that the attendance in the House during the last three or four days had been occasioned by hon. Members waiting to dispose of the Divorce Bill, I should entirely agree with him; but no one knows better than my right hon. Friend that it is not the Divorce Bill that keeps hon. Members in town. There is a question arising on Monday next which has much to do with the attendance of hon. Members. A matter has been depending within the last two or three days, and is not altogether disposed of, having reference to a possible conflict of opinion between the two Houses of Parliament. There is a question relating to the compensation of certain Ecclesiastical officers, and to certain Ecclesiastical Courts, which is not yet disposed of, and which has had a great deal more to do with the attendance of hon. Members in town than the present Bill. I believe that for the next few days hon. Members will keep together to discuss the Indian mutiny and the affairs of Doctors Commons, but that when these questions are disposed of, forty hon. Members of the House in office, and forty other hon. Members, actuated by unusual zeal, will probably be the only attendance left to dispose of the Divorce Bill. My right hon. Friend says that the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire has adopted an unusual course, but an unusual course is sometimes necessitated by unusual circumstances; and I ask the hon. and learned Attorney General to state on what occasion a Bill of this nature, magnitude, and gravity was ever before submitted to the House of Commons for a first consideration on the 24th of July. My right hon. Friend says that we should consider the various inquiries and discussions which have taken place in the House of Lords as a proof that the subject has been brought to something like maturity; but he has entirely misunderstood the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire. If it were true that those discussions and inquiries had all moved forward in one uniform line, advancing slowly but certainly, undoubtedly there would be something in what my right hon. Friend said; but the case is exactly the reverse. The upshot of the statement of the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire was, that those discussions and deliberations had not exhibited a movement of uniform progress, but an uncertain, fluctuating, and "wabbling" movement, showing an absence of any clear and fixed principles. Consequently, the multitude of alterations and the very discussions which have taken place elsewhere are arguments to show that this is for us an unsolved problem, and that if we go into debate upon it we go without assistance from the labours of those who have preceded us. The House should, therefore, take care, if it entered upon the consideration of the Bill, to do so, under such circumstances, in respect to time, as would enable it to arrive at a clear and satisfactory conclusion. Whatever discussions may have taken place elsewhere on the subject, this, at least, is the first time on which the House of Commons has been called on to entertain for the purpose of debate the question of the dissolution of marriage. I grant that for four or five years the subject has been in some sense before the country—that is to say, it is true that Commissions have been issued by both Houses, and the measure has been discussed by the House of Lords, but that discussion is of very little practical importance. According to my experience, nothing is practically before the country until it comes to the House of Commons. No doubt the Bill has been ably discussed in the House of Lords, but the country took no notice whatever of those debates. I am not offering a mere arbitrary opinion, but giving the results of experience. There were no petitions sent to the House of Lords, nor was any anxiety exhibited out of doors. There were, to be sure, a couple of stray pamphlets on one side or the other, but mark! what was the case when the Bill came to the House of Commons? From that day our table has groaned with an increasing number of petitions. In the Lords there was no demonstration on the part of the clergy, but now. Sir, there has been put in your hands a declaration, which has been prepared and signed in the course of ten or twelve days by about 6,000 clergymen, and that declaration is receiving hundreds of fresh signatures every day. The names of these clergymen bear most unequivocal testimony that they do not consist of one party only in the Church, but show that those who have signed the declaration represent the general mind of the clerical order on this subject. Therefore, it is a fact that it is only now, when the Bill has come down to the House of Commons, that the country begin to believe that the Bill is practically before us as the subject of a legislative enactment. It is not difficult to understand why the country should have been sceptical as to changes of the law respecting ecclesiastical jurisdiction. We have cried "wolf" a great deal too often. For the last twenty-five years Bills respecting ecclesiastical offices and jurisdiction have been brought in every year or every two years, until at last their introduction appeared to be a mere formula, to be followed by another formula—their withdrawal. No doubt within the last two or three weeks there have been evidences of a strong feeling in the country with respect to this Bill. Two petitions have been sent to me, one signed or approved by every person of mature age in the parish from which it proceeded, and the other signed by almost every Churchman and Dissenter in the place. I do not mention this as a reason why this Bill should be rejected, but as a reason to show that there is a feeling abroad which on a subject so sacred and tender should be treated with deep respect by the House and Government, and why we should take no step in a matter of such awful and immeasurable responsibility without being assured that as rational and responsible beings we have given ourselves every advantage with the view of arriving at a proper conclusion. The right hon. member for Oxfordshire has been accused of dealing with the details of the measure. I do not know on what ground, or how he could have taken a different course; for he wished to show that there was an immense mass of work to be done, and he wishes us to do it in a workmanlike manner; and I also say that we must not allow ourselves to pass a hasty and slovenly Bill in this matter. It is dangerous to play with edged tools, and we should indeed be playing with edged tools if we pierced the heart of the country on such a subject as the law of marriage. We must have time to consider the points of importance arising on such a Bill. I will not discuss those points, but, notwithstanding the anathema of my right hon. Friend, I must refer to some of them to enable the House to obtain a true appreciation of our position in being summoned on the 24th of July to enter for the first time on the consideration of this question. In the first place, it must be recollected that the proposal made is not only to effect a change in a most ancient system of law, but is a proposal to adopt a new system, entirely without precedent in the legislation of any country. If the Bill gave but two alternatives—one, the indissoluble marriage, to which we have adhered since England was England; the other, dissoluble marriage, well understood, carefully limited, sustained by the clear authority of learned men, and the legislation of other countries—the ground would be much cleared and simplified; but there is not a country which has legislated with a view to make marriage dissoluble which has legislated in the same manner. The proposal is one of a perfectly novel character, not only with respect to the law of England, but also as regards the law of Christendom; it is one which never to this hour in the history of the world has been adopted. It is opposed to the law of the Church; to the law of nature, and to the law of God; and, whether good or bad, was one upon which the wit of man had never been able to hit before. The law of no country has ever made marriage dissoluble but upon principles far wider than those which are now proposed for our adoption. It may be said that is a proof of moderation. Well, I will not dispute the fact that it is a proof of moderation on the part of the framers of the Bill, and of the Com- missioners, who must be regarded in a great degree as being responsible for this Bill. It may, I say, be a proof of moderation, but I am not here to bring an indictment against the framers of the Bill for want of moderation. What I want to know, among other things, is this:—In making a change in the law upon a subject of such great importance, what prospect is there of any stability under the new system which is now proposed? As I have said, it is a system which has never been adopted by any portion of Christendom, whether by Roman Catholic countries, by countries professing the religion of the Eastern Church, or by Protestant countries, and I must confess that that appears to me to be a very good reason, among a multitude of other reasons, why time should be afforded to us to see what we are about. I will venture to say that we are not at this moment even provided with the requisite information to enable us to legislate. The observations of the right hon. Gentleman opposite with reference to one point struck me as being of immense importance. If the right hon. Gentleman had not raised the question for which he is now censured by my right hon. Friend, if we had passed the Bill in haste—and it would no doubt have been convenient for the projectors of the Bill if we had done so—what should we have done? Why, Sir, as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, on the pretext of legislating for the poorer and middle classes, we should have deprived those very classes of the facilities which they now enjoy with regard to matrimonial suits through the medium of the local courts. Let us look at the nature of the ground upon which we are treading. Why, Sir, it is most dangerous ground, full of snares and pitfalls. This Bill has been discussed for two months in the House of Lords, where all the eminent talents of the great legal authorities of that House were brought to bear upon it, and yet they never found this point out at all, and it was reserved for the patient industry and acumen of the right hon. Gentleman to discover that, while we were pretending to legislate for the poorer and middle classes, we should, in point of fact, by the centralization of the courts deprive those classes of the juridical remedies in suits upon marriage which they had hitherto possessed. I had some short time ago the honour of a conversation with the right hon. Gentleman upon the subject, in the course of which he mentioned that point to me, and I was therefore led to endeavour to ascertain how the case stood in Scotland. We have in this country at present no means by law of dissolving the marriage tie, yet the poorer and middle classes have the means of effecting a judicial separation, that is to say, of placing the ordinary obligations of marriage in a state of abeyance on account of the misconduct of either of the parties. Our system, as contrasted with that which obtains in Scotland, is this—that where we have local courts to administer a limited law, Scotland has a centralization of courts, which administer not a limited law, but the jurisdiction of which extends to the dissolution of marriage. Now, that being the case, what would have been more natural than to have inquired into the state of facts in Scotland, in order to ascertain what would be the probable result of centralizing all our local courts in London? It is true that, as regards Scotland generally, Edinburgh is an easier place to resort to than London is as regards England; but it is unnecessary to dwell upon that; what we want to ascertain is, the expediency of enacting that all matrimonial suits shall be carried on in London instead of being spread over thirty local courts in different parts of the country. Well, Sir, after the conversation which I had with the right hon. Gentleman, in which, as I have stated, he pointed out the positive restriction which this Bill would place upon the poorer classes, endeavoured to ascertain how matters stood with regard to Scotland, and I wrote to the Lord Advocate upon the subject. That learned Lord then told me that he could inform me as to the number of divorces, but he could not give me any information upon the point with regard to which I chiefly sought information, and that was ns to the habitat of the parties. I found, however, from an Appendix to the Report of a Commission which sat in 1853, that 100 divorces had taken place within the preceding six or eight years. In that Appendix the names of the parties are given in most cases, and their residences stated, not in all but in nearly all of them, and as far as I can recollect not one of those divorce suits came from a remote part of Scotland; and, in point of fact, it appears, from the information which I was enabled to obtain, that the Scotch law of divorce is not a law of divorce for Scotland, but for Edinburgh and Leith, and the immediate neighbourhood of those towns, and certain other towns which are within cheap and easy access to them, and that the bulk of the population in the northern and western parts of Scotland are wholly precluded from instituting matrimonial suits on account of the system of centralization. Now, with facts like these before us, is it right that we should proceed hastily and without due consideration to establish one court in England in lieu of those which already exist? I know that legal reformers draw schemes upon paper, and view them as a mathematician views a neat problem; they create a well-arranged court, competent judges, well-paid advocates, and satisfied suitors. But here is a practical point involved, and I have mentioned these facts to show the importance, as affecting the rights of the poorer and middle classes, of the proposal for establishing a single central court, instead of a number of local courts spread through the country. The population of Edinburgh and Leith is about one-twentieth of that of the whole of Scotland, so that they ought to have about one-twentieth of the divorces if the business of the courts were equally distributed. But by the return contained in the Report of the Commissioners to which I have alluded, it appears that, instead of one-twentieth, Edinburgh and Leith, without speaking of the neighbourhood, furnish one-third of the whole of the divorces that take place in Scotland. That fact alone is enough to show that the question of local Courts is a question of vital importance as regards this Kill. Do not let me be told that we can make these courts local afterwards, for it appears to me that one of the clearest axioms which can be applied to this subject is, that we cannot be perpetually tampering with the law of matrimony. Establish what you think will be a good system, but do not be, in a subject of this kind, continually and perpetually making changes. My right hon. Friend appears to think that the right hon. Gentleman opposite has made a speech which ought to have been reserved to the second reading of the Bill; but I can assure him that if the Bill comes to a second reading he will be entirely undeceived, and he will find an abundance of material produced quite germane to the second reading, but which ought not to be touched upon on the present occasion. There are many matters connected with the Bill which, although not strictly speaking matters of detail, can only be properly considered in Committee, and when we go into Committee we shall have to consider whether we shall establish for England a system such as no other country in the world has ever seen, or whether we shall adopt some one of those systems which have the sanction of legislation elsewhere; whether we shall confine divorce to adultery alone, or whether we shall extend it to other causes which the judgment of men as wise as we has considered worthy of it. One authority has been cited to induce us to adopt the principle of this Bill—the Reformatio Legum. Now, it is true that the Reformatio Legum does say that there may be a divorce on the ground of adultery; but it does not stop there, for it also assigns many other causes for a divorce; and how, therefore, can a man who relies upon the Reformatio Legum as an authority for divorce on the ground of adultery refuse it upon the other grounds therein authorized? Again, the Reformatio Legum proceeded upon the principle of an equality of rights between the sexes with regard to a right to divorce; and, for my own part, I shall always in my place assert the principle of equal rights. It is impossible to do a greater mischief than to begin now, in the middle of the nineteenth century, to undo with regard to womankind that which has already been done on their behalf, by slow degrees, in the preceding eighteen centuries, and to say that the husband shall be authorized to dismiss his wife on grounds for which the wife shall not be authorized to dismiss her husband. If there is one broad and palpable result of Christianity which we ought to regard as precious, it is that it has placed the seal of God Almighty upon the equality of man and woman with respect to everything that relates to these rights, and I will offer the utmost resistance to any attempt to induce this House to adopt a measure which I believe would lead to the degradation of woman. Then there is the question—Is adultery to be made a criminal offence? Besides that and the other questions I have touched upon—as for instance, are we to have one, central court only, and limit the facilities I for divorce to London and its immediate neighbourhood—comes a whole family of questions when we touch upon those subjects which we dealt with in the numerous petitions which have been presented to the House. It is a point which has been much debated, whether we are bound to frame the legislation of this House upon the law of Scripture. I will not enter into that question at the present moment. It is one of great solemnity and difficulty; but I will say, it appears to me that by this Bill we are dealing with an unprecedented levity with matters which do not belong to us. I do not speak simply of the consciences or interests of the clergy, although I think the views of the clergy, as a class, are entitled to much weight with regard to a question of this description. I speak of the religion which we entertain, and I do say it is a matter of the deepest consequence to take care that in our legislation with respect to matrimony we do not offer profanation to that religion by making its sacred rites—designated by apostles themselves with the very highest appellations—the mere creatures of our will, like some turnpike trust or board of health, which we can make to-day and unmake to-morrow. I am quite certain that in this House, where all classes of the community are represented, it will be felt that the religious element in this question ought not to be under-estimated. I do not assume, however, that the religious part of the question is to be conclusive upon your whole proceedings. You have established in this country a system of civil marriage—marriage contracted before the registrar, apart from the special sanction of the Christian religion—and whether or not you choose to introduce as a counterpart of that civil marriage a civil divorce and a civil remarriage is, in my opinion, a question of the utmost gravity and importance. I venture to say you cannot pass the Bill as it stands with reference to the clergy. I appeal not merely to the people of this country or to this House, or to any party in this House, but I appeal to the Members of the Government themselves. I am quite convinced their own feelings will teach them that some alteration must be made in the religious bearings of the measure. You must provide that the ecclesiastical law shall remain untouched. You must provide a civil form of divorce and re-marriage which does not touch religion at all; but these are questions of the utmost gravity and difficulty, and we ought not to be asked to approach them for the first time on the 24th of July. Fault has been found with the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) because he has raised this question. It appears to me that the right hon. Gentleman—not altogether concurring with the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Bowyer), has pursued a wise and judicious course. He did not wish to commit himself to an entire and absolute opposition to this Bill. I am on some points more strongly opposed to it than he may be, but there are many important provisions of the measure which I should wish to consider carefully and maturely. I put it, however, to the House, without any distinction of party or creed, whether at this period of the Session, when it is certain that after a few questions of political interest have been disposed of our benches will be empty, it is fair or just to call upon its to deal with such a subject? By the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the question of time is submitted to the House in a form completely distinct and separate from the merits of the Bill; and so that when we go to a division it may be well understood that those who vote with him for the postponement of the measure give no vote against any principle involved in it, but merely vote in favour of deliberate legislation, and in opposition to a course of proceeding which I think—and I hope the House will think—both rash and dangerous.

MR. BOWYER

said, he was anxious to say a few words in support of the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire, which appeared to him to recommend itself to the prudence, wisdom, and good sense of the House. The title of the Bill was, "An Act to amend the Law relating to Divorce and Matrimonial Causes in England." It might be supposed from the title that the Bill did not affect great principles but related merely to the mode of procedure. He had, however, looked through the Bill to see what it really contained, and he had been quite startled by its provisions. They had heard much about the principle of the Bill. No doubt if there was one thing in the Bill more dangerous than another it was the principle of the dissolubility of marriage. That, indeed, might be called the principle of the Bill, from its pre-eminence in danger. The measure also proposed an important change in the criminal law of the country, and contained provisions constituting a new offence. Never since the jurisprudence of this country existed had adultery been dealt with as a criminal offence, except for a short time during the Commonwealth. Again, it sought to make a change in the ecclesiastical jurisprudence of the country which had never been recognised or permitted since England was England. It altered the most fundamental portions of the ecclesiastical law as it bore on the social state. That alone involved a great principle, and would require long and mature deliberation in that House. It further altered the civil law of property, too, inasmuch as it contained provisions affecting in that respect the relations between husband and wife. It also introduced changes touching the religious feelings and principles of the community. It raised to be decided by this House, with but scanty means of information, a question worthy to be decided by the greatest ecclesiastical assembly which ever existed in the world. He had no hesitation in saying that this Bill contained matter for three or four measures, which ought to be discussed separately on their own individual merits. They had all those different subjects dependent on different principles, and raising questions affecting the religion and morals of the people and the practical relations of society, jumbled into one Bill, and they were asked to discuss that Bill on the 24th of July. He had no hesitation in saying that all the available days before the close of the Session would not suffice for the discussion of the details of the measure in Committee. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gladstone) had, in a speech of the most suggestive character, raised points of the greatest interest and importance, which would all require sifting and discussion in Committee, and unless they were carefully sifted and decided after the most mature deliberation it was impossible the House could do otherwise than inflict upon the country a piece of legislation fraught with danger and mischief. He would suggest that the Government would do well to withdraw the Bill, and reintroduce it into that House, and not the House of Lords, at the commencement of the next Session, when time would be given for that full discussion which its gravity demanded. The debates on the Bill in the House of Lords showed a degree of vacillation which rendered them unsafe for the House of Commons to follow. He would, however, frankly own that he himself regarded the principle of the Bill as most mischievous and one which they could not with safety adopt, but he thought that before the House decided on the dissolubility of marriage,—they ought to assemble their Church and have the benefit of the opinions of its clergy upon it. He did not belong to their Church, but he must say they were treating their Church badly in this matter. The Bill dealt with a question of the Divine law, and they had a statute of Henry VIII. which declared that this country was divided into the temporality and the spirituality, and that to the latter belonged the consideration and decision of spiritual matters. If they were consistent members of their own Church they would not ignore a declaration like that which was written in their statute book. If an opportunity were afforded for the clergy giving an expression of their opinion on a point which many hon. Members thought clear—namely, whether it was competent for Parliament to establish this system of divorce, they would hear what they thought upon such a question. He would appeal to the declaration which had been signed by 6,000 of their Protestant clergy, to the effect that this Bill was a move in the wrong direction; and on the grounds he had stated he would call on the House to assent to the Motion of the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

said, that if anything could demonstrate the inconvenience of the course taken by the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire it was the circumstance, that although every speaker protested against discussing the principles of the Bill, the opinion of each was pretty clearly made known, not only as regarded the principle but even as regarded the details of the measure. He believed that there was but one great principle to be discussed in this Bill, and that was the dissolubility of marriage as a part of the law of the land. That the present state of things was productive of great evils few could doubt. He believed, notwithstanding all that had been said to the contrary, that the voice of the country was decidedly in favour of the change meditated by this Bill. If great public evils existed in this matter, of which there could be no doubt, surely it was of importance that they should proceed with the discussion of a, Bill which sought to apply a remedy. He did not think it was quite competent for his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire to raise the question of time just as his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, on the part of the Government, was about to lay before the House the principles on which the Bill was founded, and the necessity there was for passing it into a law. It was an advantage usually accorded, not merely to the Government, but to any private Member, that he should have the opportunity of explaining the necessity which existed for a Bill which he had introduced, and the manner in which it proposed to remedy the evil with which it was to deal. On this occasion, however, the right hon. Gentleman had, with the skill of a practised debater, interrupted that explanation, and had without any foundation sent out to the country notions and ideas calculated to enlist a most influential class against the Bill. He admired the skill of his right hon. Friend—and he was well followed up by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford—when he said that the local courts were about to be interfered with, and thus sought to excite again the measure the hostility of that powerful and influential class which was interested in the local jurisdiction of the country. This allegation of centralization he supported by stating that during three years there were 101 matrimonial suits, of which forty-six were decided in the country. How these cases were distributed, and whether the parties to them were really members of what the right hon. Gentleman called the lower orders, who were, according to his account, to be deprived of some benefit by this Bill, the House had no means of knowing, and therefore it might, he thought, abstain from entering into this question at this stage of the measure. It was said that the debates upon this subject showed that the mind of the House of Lords was so fluctuating and vacillating during the progress of this Bill, that it could not be said to have come to this House as a measure which had been previously considered and recommended by persons qualified to deal with the subject. For his own part, partial as he naturally was to the House of which he himself was a Member, he could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone), who had made so light of the discussions of the House of Lords on this measure—these repeated discussions following up the Reports of Commissions. The right hon. Gentleman said that this question had not engaged the attention of the country, but he (the Solicitor General) would say that it had engaged the attention of the country for years, and the discussions upon it in the House of Lords, supported as they were by great lawyers, assisted by bishops on all ecclesiastical questions—these elaborate and repeated discussions in the House of Lords were not to be so lightly treated. He therefore trusted the House would not agree in the statement of his right hon. Friend, that the mind of the House of Lords was not settled on this question. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire had made frequent allusions to the details of the measure, but to the principle he had made no reference. What he said was, that the details of the Bill were likely to excite much attention and to lead to considerable discussion, and therefore he would prevent the Attorney General from explaining to the House the scope of the measure and the grounds upon which it was brought forward. This was not a convenient and hardly a fair course to adopt. He could have understood such a course being taken after the principle had been affirmed by the Bill being read a second time; but at present he submitted that the Motion of his right hon. Friend was, to say the least of it, premature. When the details of the measure were examined, it would be found that they presented but few points for discussion. Even the ingenuity of his right hon. Friend would be taxed to discover more than six or seven, and he therefore hoped that the House would negative this Motion, and would allow the Attorney General to lay before them the grounds upon which this Bill was brought forward, and the means by which it proposed to effect the object for which it was introduced, and then the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Bowyer) might take the sense of the House on the principle.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

said, that both the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General had made a matter of accusation against his right hon. Friend, that he rose at the moment of which he had given notice in order to make his Motion, and that it was not right in him to have interrupted the statement of the Attorney General. But those hon. Members had overlooked the fact, that it was the avowed intention of his right hon. Friend to prevent the Attorney General from entering into his explanation of the Bill. The Solicitor General had said that this was a most improper course to pursue, because there was only one great principle involved in the measure. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that that was so, yet what was said on both sides of the House was, that that principle was of so much importance, that it touched so deeply and so nearly the best affections of the whole people of this country, that they could not permit it to be discussed at the fag end of an exhausted Session. The hon. and learned Gentleman went on to say, that it was a perfect misconception on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to think that the feeling of the country had been pronounced in any way against the Bill; on the contrary, he asserted the scandal of the present system to be so great, that the feeling of the country was eminently favourable to some such legislation. Now, he would challenge the Solicitor General to support that statement by a reference to the petitions which had been presented to that and the other House of Parliament. He knew not what could have been crossing the mind of the hon. and learned Solicitor General when he was induced to make a statement so extraordinary. That very afternoon he had examined the list of petitions with reference to the Bill, and he ascertained that not one single petition had been presented in favour of it: while on the other hand, petitions in numbers—but not only that, petitions in numbers entitled to the most respectful attention of the House, from the station, the ability, the learning, the virtue of the petitioners—had been presented against the Bill, and would continue to be so long as it remained upon the notice paper. The hon. and learned Gentleman had also objected to the statement of his right hon. Friend that it was impossible to discuss this Bill and pass it into a law during the present Session. His right hon. Friend did not mean to deny that it was in the power of Her Majesty's Government, which boasted of a majority said to be unexampled since the days of Mr. Pitt, to force either this or any other measure down the throats of Members of that House, if they were so minded. What he said was, that it was both physically and morally impossible that the Bill should, in the few days of the Session which remained, be so discussed as to insure that deliberation, forethought, and care, which ought to be exercised before the House legislated upon this solemn and delicate subject. The Solicitor General had complained of the allusion made by his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) to the matrimonial causes which had been decided in the various local courts throughout the country, and had stated that the House possessed no information with regard to those causes. Whose fault was that? If the Government thought it important that information upon those points should be laid before the House, surely it was their duty, as it was clearly within their power, to submit it before taking the discussion upon the second reading of this Bill. But, in point of fact, the Solicitor General was in error when he stated that the information in question was not in the possession of hon. Members, for if he referred to the Report of 1843, he would find the names of every one of those forty-eight causes set forth in detail. The statements of the Solicitor General showed conclusively that even the law advisers of the Crown were not prepared on the 24th of July to discuss fully, freely, and fairly, the very measure which they told the House they were so anxious to pass. If the Solicitor General was thus uninformed upon some of the points which he said were essential to the due discussion of this Bill, it might be permitted to hon. Members to say, with great respect, but with equal firmness, to Her Majesty's Ministers that they would not be dragged into a discussion at the end of a Session upon one of the most solemn and awful subjects which could be submitted to the consideration of any Christian Legislature. What they said to the Government was this, "Take back your Bill, and re-introduce it, if you please, when Parliament meets in another Session; we shall then be prepared to consider it free from prejudice or bias; but we are determined not to be forced at the last moment to discuss a measure which the other House, indeed, have had ample time to discuss, but which the more they discussed the more they showed that they were uncertain and perplexed as to its practical operation." If the Government would not take back the Bill they must be prepared to hear hon. Members assert their right to oppose it by every legitimate means within their reach; and he hoped he was saying nothing that would be regarded, even by the Home Secretary, as rude and informal, when he asserted his belief that those who wished the Bill to be postponed till another Session had the power to make good their claim not thus hastily, unwarily, and without due deliberation, to be compelled to alter the settled law of Church and State upon the subject of matrimony in England, and to bring that law into direct collision with the revealed Word of God.

LORD STANLEY

said, it was curious that those who asked for more time to deliberate were precisely those who, either in express terms or by the whole tenour of their observations, implied that, as far as they themselves were concerned, all deliberation was superfluous. He understood the opposition of those who said that they had not made up their minds upon this question, which was one of great importance, and therefore asked for time to consider it; but he did not understand those who said that they had considered this question, that they entertained the strongest opinion upon it, that they intended to oppose the Bill at every stage, and therefore they asked for further time to deliberate. The House had been told that they had arrived at the end of the Session. He wished he could think that they had; but quite irrespective of this Bill or any other public measure, he was afraid that those who were acquainted with the state of business "upstairs" knew too well that they had enough to keep them for several weeks to come. There were several important Committees which had not yet reported; some had not finished their evidence, while some had only just commenced their labours, and there was a large number of election petitions still to be tried. Now he believed the common feeling was, that it would be most undesirable to postpone these, together with some other subjects which had still to be investigated, to another year. Although he sympathized with those who wished an early release from their Parliamentary duties, yet in fairness to the public they were bound to remember that, though the Session commenced at the ordinary time, there had been an interruption of nearly two months in the business of the year. With respect to the complaint that ample notice had not been given, he begged to ask whether it was not a fact that this measure had been before the public sufficiently long to enable them to judge of and decide upon its merits. He said nothing of the Report of the Commission published some time ago, because, although that Report had been extensively criticised in its original form, it might not have passed generally into the hands of the public; but a Bill of a similar character was introduced last year, when the whole subject underwent much discussion in the other House; it had again undergone a very full discussion in the present year; it had been considered by those who were regarded as the highest legal and ecclesiastical authorities, and, whatever skill and ingenuity of debate might be brought to bear upon it in that House, he thought that after what had taken place it would not be easy to raise any objection, or to otter any suggestion which had not already been advanced elsewhere. The main reason, however, why he should urge Ministers to persevere, was that he be- lieved the measure to be essentially one of principle rather than of detail. A certain amount of detail was no doubt necessary for the carrying out of any great principle; but they were aware that what lay at the bottom of the opposition which was offered to this measure was a fundamental difference of opinion among hon. Members of that House and the public at large with regard to the theory of the subject with which the Bill proposed to deal. The one broad principle at issue was this, whether by the law of the land marriage was dissoluble for any cause or not. That was a question upon which he believed a majority of those who had the honour to hold seats in that House had more or less formed their opinion, and he did not think it was very likely that any considerable change of that opinion would be produced by debates. It was neither customary nor convenient to go into the details of a measure which was in reality not before the House, or to discuss its principle; but, as the subject had been referred to, he might be allowed to say one word as to the state of public opinion. A great deal had been said of a certain number of petitions—chiefly originating, he believed, with clergymen, but in some degree with laymen also—in opposition to this measure. Now, upon a reference to those petitions it would be found that the great mass of them turned not so much upon the general principle of the Bill as upon one clause proposed to be introduced, which placed a compulsion upon the clergymen of the Established Church to which many of them objected. That was a fail-matter for discussion, and hon. Members would no doubt be ready to express their opinions upon it when the proper time came; but it referred to the details of the Bill, and not to its general principle. Again, the fact that the movement in opposition was more active than the movement in support of the Bill admitted of a very simple explanation. The Bill had passed that branch of the Legislature in which perhaps some persons thought it stood in most danger. It was avowedly supported by the whole strength of the Government. Those hon. Members who were in favour of it entertained, therefore, but little fear of its failure, while, on the other hand, those who were conscientiously opposed to it were stimulated to more active exertions even by the probability of those exertions being unavailing. Moreover, when they looked back upon the history of the Session, it did not seem that they would have so much to show for the time they had sat that they could afford to throw away the result of the labours of the other House. Unless this Bill and the one for transferring the ecclesiastical jurisdiction became part of the law, he did not believe they would have anything to show in the way of reform, and sure he was that a large section of the public would see with regret and disappointment the Government or the House obliged to postpone a measure which it was in their power to pass.

Mr. NAPIER

said, that if the only principle which they had to discuss was whether marriage was dissoluble on the ground of adultery, he was prepared to admit that it was; but the Bill proposed to deal with a relation of divine appointment, and he thought therefore that the utmost caution and deliberation should be observed in the passing of this measure. A large proportion of the people of Ireland thought that marriage was a sacramental engagement. They all agreed in thinking that those relations were of Divine appointment, and their duties and obligations were to be measured by the word of God. By the common law marriage was indissoluble, and consequently there were a vast number of delicate, difficult—and most important questions to be encountered in carrying out the principles of this Bill. The noble Lord who spoke last adverted to the discussions which had taken place in the other House, but nobody could have attended to those debates without having his mind thrown into the greatest confusion and perplexity. There were many members of the Roman catholic church whose opinions would be most valuable, and he should have been very glad if he had been able to ascertain the views of the bishops and clergy of his own Church, and the opinion of his constituents, whom he was generally in the habit of consulting. He stood there, however, in a peculiar position, not having had time or opportunity for consulting any of his friends upon this subject. The Bill was one which would make vast changes in the law of the land; it would make one general law for the whole kingdom wholly at variance with the system which prevailed at present in various parts of the country. He found that an able jurist and eminent statesman, Sir J. Mackintosh, had spoken of a similar measure in the following terms:— To make dissolution of marriage in proper cases alike accessible to all is one of the objects to which in great cities and highly civilized communities it is hardest to find a safe road, How would the Bill in its present shape affect the various portions of the kingdom? In Scotland parties committing adultery are not permitted to marry after divorce. This Bill would allow marriage. In Ireland a very large body of the people held that marriage was indissoluble, but the Bill would make it dissoluble. The obligations which the Bill would impose upon the clergy of those countries against their sincere and honest convictions he could not but consider, in these days of setting up every fanciful right of conscience, to be a piece of most odious and intolerable tyranny, To that portion of the Bill he should give his most uncompromising opposition. With respect to the question of dissolubility of marriage on the ground of adultery, he, as at present advised, should support the proposition, as he believed it was the only ground of divorce which was sanctioned by the Holy Scriptures. That, however, was not the only matter involved in the Bill. They were not now called upon to determine that as an abstract principle, for the Bill involved the great social problem as to how far it was safe to give facilities to divorce. Legislation upon that subject would touch the foundations of society, and would sanction by statute that which the common law of the land at present forbade. Then, again, as to the details of the Bill, there were a number of complicated arrangements of a most difficult nature, upon which he should wish to have the advice and judgment of those learned persons to whom he had before referred, but whom he had no opportunity of consulting. For instance, he thought that the person who committed adultery should be punished as a criminal; but there was a great deal of difficulty in legislating without direction, and on the other hand the sin in the members of one sex was greater as regards social consequences than in the other. A few evenings since a most important Bill—one affecting to a great extent the interest of the humbler classes—the Savings-banks Bill—was withdrawn because, as the noble Lord told them, "their days were numbered." Where was the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) on that occasion? Why did he not press upon the Government the fact that there was ample time left this Session to discuss that measure? For himself, he (Mr. Napier) was not hostile to the Bill, and wished to approach its spirit; but the question of permitting adulterers to remarry, and of compelling clergymen to perform such marriages, required more consideration than he had yet been able to bestow upon them, and his difficulties were not lessened by the circumstance than in the other House the greatest authorities differed from each other upon those points. Indeed protests had been recorded in the other House against portions of this Bill. Surely at that late period of the Session a Bill of this great importance ought not to be forced upon the House of Commons for immediate decision. The right hon. Gentleman had been blamed for taking the course he had; but, in fact, that course was the fairest that could be adopted, for had the Attorney General been allowed to make his statement without objection, the right hon. Gentleman could only have met the Motion by a direct negative. He (Mr. Napier) hoped the Government would yield to the moderate request for a further opportunity to be given for the consideration of this measure in another Session.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

thought that one result at which the House could not fail to arrive, after hearing the speeches of so many hon. Members, unquestionably must be, that never was there a body of men more profoundly able or better prepared than they were to discuss this measure in all its details. And yet what was the plea they brought forward? Their cry was "Give us time for consideration." Now, did the House think his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) wanted more time? Was he ignorant of the subject to which the Bill related? Was his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford—whose knowledge and zeal and eloquence flowed forth so abundantly on this question—who boiled over, as it were, with arguments, while in the energy of his appeal eloquence exuded from every pore, was he an incompetent judge of the merits of this Bill? Was his right hon. Friend who last addressed the House, who had gone through the whole of the Bill and given his opinion on every point, unable to arrive at a sound conclusion? What was his plea? "Let me consult my constituents"—who, by the way, had been so indifferent to this subject, to which there was not an educated man in the kingdom who had not applied his mind—that they had made no communication of their wishes to the right hon. Gentleman. Then, said the right hon. Gentleman, if he understood him right, "Give me time to consult my spi- ritual advisers." But how long were they to give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity to perform that great and conscientious duty? "You will not," said the noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Manners), whose tone and language had been an exception to the rest of the debate, "You will not thrust this measure down my throat, and though I won't stand here to deliberate over its provisions and consult with you as to its great object, I will, nevertheless, stop here till doomsday to carry on a dogged opposition to prevent you entering upon it." These were specimens of the policy of hon. Members of the House of Commons who wished to postpone this measure, to put off till to-morrow the reform of an abuse which had been called for from year to year, which had been discussed till there was not a writer, not a jurist, not a foreigner who visited our shores who had not pointed it out as a blot or a disgrace to our social system. And would the Members of that House consent to fold their arms and to put off the full consideration and discussion of this most important subject of domestic legislation the moment that it was brought under their notice? He begged the House to consider what was the proper course of proceeding with regard to this measure. If it had been brought first into that House they would have been told that it was an indecent thing to introduce such a measure without having first submitted it to the House of Lords, where there were right rev. Bishops most competent to decide and most interested (in the best sense of that word) in the question, and where there was a body of learned men who would have been safe advisers on so important a subject. Well, that was just what had been done, and the House of Lords had carefully deliberated on the question. They had considered it again and again, and had sent this Bill down to the House of Commons as the result of their deliberate judgment. Now, suppose the House of Lords was to treat measures sent from that House in the way the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire proposed to treat theirs, what would be the consequence? Let it be observed that the other House had considered this question year after year, and it was proposed that the House of Commons should refrain from deliberating upon it, refuse to benefit by their deliberations, and reject it altogether, or put it off till another year. Now, that House had had before it year after year the Testamentary Jurisdiction Bill, and what would be said if the House of Lords treated that measure in the same manner, notwithstanding that it had been again and again under the consideration of that House? Would it not be said that that was an obstructive policy? He would appeal on this question to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli). He (the Attorney General) knew the candour of his mind. He told the country some time before the meeting of the present Parliament that he deprecated the dissolution because we should lose a year. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman did not desire to be a true prophet. He must rather desire that his prophecy should fail. This was one of the important measures of this short Session, and there was abundant time yet to consider it. He called on him therefore to appeal to his friends around him not to impede the progress of legislation on this subject. They one and all admitted the great importance of the subject, and all that was asked was, that they should consent to remain together for a short time to consider it. He pledged himself to the House that they would not find it a matter of great difficulty, or of much detail. He was unwilling to be dragged at the moment into a discussion of the principle of the Bill, but when the proper time came, though unable to do justice to the subject, he would endeavour to do something towards a clear explanation of the measure. In the discussion of the second reading every material topic could be fully considered. It was not a question of words, of doubtful paragraphs or sentences—it was a question of principle. It was not, however, a question of the introduction of a new principle, as the House had been told, without foundation. The Bill embodied nothing but what had been known to be the law of England for 200 years, save some humane provisions for rescuing married women from the tyranny to which they had been so long subjected. And why should they not proceed to consider such a measure, instead of spending time in deliberating whether they would deliberate or no? How unkindly had this interruption been! Had he been permitted to proceed with his explanation he would long since have concluded. There was no consideration, except that which he would not impute to the House—indifference to the discharge of a public duty—that could lead them at this particular time to decline entering upon this question. They had the benefit of the deliberations of the House of Lords and the benefit of great attention having long been devoted to the subject by many Members of that House, while they had the advantage of the House having been thoroughly awakened to a sense of its importance. He was not desirous that they should refrain from the consideration of any principle involved in the Bill, but he believed that one-half of the time which had been given to the discussion of the Testamentary Jurisdiction Bill would be more than sufficient for a full, abundant, and satistory discussion of this measure. He entreated the House not to put off till tomorrow a measure that had been so loudly called for year after year—not to postpone it till another Session, when other questions might intervene and prevent it getting its due share of deliberation. There was abundant time now. Let the House of Commons gird itself to the discharge of this sacred duty in the view of the observation of the country, and the country would sympathize with the Resolution.

MR. MALINS

said, he begged to express his decided opinion that there was not an abundance of time, for the purpose of discussion, and that nothing could be more unseemly than that the House, exhausted by the labours of the Session, should be urged in the present season and the present weather to proceed with a measure which affected the interests of every family in England. It was impossible that the Bill could be read a second time that night, as his hon. and learned Friend would not finish his statement before half-past one o'clock. The discussion would therefore be adjourned; but to when? Monday was appointed for the discussion on that most momentous subject, India, and that debate would not in all probability be finished in one night; Thursday, July 30, was fixed for the Testamentary Bill; then would the noble Lord give Friday, and the Estimates not yet voted? Of course he would not. Therefore, the adjourned debate could not come on before Monday, August 3, at the soonest. How long did the noble Lord intend to keep the House? How long could the House, exhausted by labour and the heat of the weather, preserve its strength or its intellectual faculties? [a laugh.] Hon. Gentlemen might laugh; but he (Mr. Malins) asserted that no man was equal to intellectual labours on such a difficult and important subject at the close of a heavy Session, and in such weather too. The House had laboured most assiduously, and had sat there night after night until two o'clock in the morning, so that its energies must of necessity be greatly exhausted. The right hon. Gentlemen, the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) and for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone), had raised questions of the greatest gravity and difficulty in reference to this Bill, and had shown most conclusively that it was a measure which required the greatest care and circumspection, and yet his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, with a degree of boldness unusual even for him, maintained that it would take but a very short time for discussion. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford had pointed out, this was the first time that the House of Commons had had this Bill before them, and it was not until it actually came down to that House that the public had begun to think that legislation was intended and had applied their minds to the subject. The noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley), said the question had been discussed fully in the House of Lords, and that that discussion would be thrown away if the House did not proceed with the Bill. He (Mr. Malins), held in his hand a document against the principle of the Bill signed by between 5,000 and 6,000 clergymen of the Church of England. The Bill, moreover, had taken two months to be discussed in the House of Lords. Was it decent, was it fair, was it just, for Her Majesty's Government to call on the House of Commons to decide upon one of the most important measures ever perhaps submitted to it, on the spur of the moment, and at the end of the Session, when their physical and intellectual powers were prostrated with protracted labour and the heat of the weather? He (Mr. Malins) felt oppressed with the difficulties of the question, and with being called on to deal with a subject of that magnitude and importance for the first time. So far from being prepared, therefore, to give it that deliberation which it demanded, he was satisfied that no discussion adequate to its importance could be had if the House sat until October, so worn out were they all with labour. The Bill ought to be withdrawn for the present Session and brought into the House at the very beginning of the next Session, when it would be debated as its importance demanded, and then the discussion which it had undergone in the other House would not be thrown away, as it was feared would be the case. His hon. and learned Friend (the Solicitor General) had pointed to what he termed a great blot upon the law of England, that a rich man could get a divorce at present, while a poor man could not. Many persons, however, were of opinion that riches could not produce all blessings, and it might be among the blessings of the poor man that he was not enabled to dissolve the marriage tie. It was most unreasonable to call on the House to discuss the Bill under such circumstances, and on these grounds he (Mr. Malins) urged the noble Lord, seeing the universal feeling of the House on the subject [Cries of "No!."]—he (Mr. Malins) repeated, seeing the all but universal feeling of the House ["No!"]—well, then, at all events, as there was such a strong feeling against the measure on his side of the House—not to press on the measure, unless he intended to keep them there till September, and to oppose himself to the sense of the House.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

I must say that the course which has been taken with regard to this Bill is one of the most extraordinary in my experience, and one of the widest departures from ordinary procedure that I can remember. It is undoubtedly common for hon. Gentlemen who object to the principle of a Bill, instead of negativing it upon the second reading, to move as a middle term, that it be postponed for six months, but I confess I do not happen to recollect an instance in which those who object to a Bill, instead of allowing the hon. Member who has charge of it to explain to the House the reasons on which it is submitted to their approbation, have stepped in, anticipated the discussion, and, without listening to a single syllable of the motives on which that Bill is founded, have demanded that it shall be immediately postponed to a time beyond that to which they expect the Session is likely to extend. I say that that is an unusual proceeding—a proceeding not very courteous to those who have charge of the Bill, and not in conformity with the ordinary practice or usages of Parliament. But it is also a proceeding which in itself negatives the very grounds upon which it is based, because, while those who propose it affect to say they are unprepared to discuss this Bill, and that they wish for time to consider it, it is quite manifest by the speeches by which their Motion is supported, that they are against the principle of the measure. It would have been much fairer, therefore, much more honourable, much more in accordance with their real opinions and the petitions they themselves have presented, if, in place of this miserable Motion for delay, they had opposed the principles of the Bill in the usual way on the Motion for the second reading. But the pretence that there is not time to consider the Bill is one too shallow to be for a moment entertained. For whom is that delay demanded? Is it demanded for the sake of the opponents of the Bill? Those who have heard the speeches of the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone), or the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Bowyer), will probably be of opinion that those hon. Geutlemen have deeply and maturely considered the matter, their minds are stored full of argument on the subject, that they have given play to their imagination in starting every objection which can be urged to the measure, and that they are as ready now as they would be this time twelve months to discuss its principle and its details. As far as they are concerned, then, the demand for delay is futile. Then is it for the country that we are asked to postpone this measure? Is delay wished for simply that public opinion may be matured on the subject? Why, we know that this Bill has been before the public not merely for weeks or months, but for years, and that there is no man in this country at all likely to give his attention to the subject, who has not long since made up his mind as to the principle involved. The very arguments used on this point by the supporters of this Motion disprove their assertions. It is urged that petitions from 6,000 clergymen and from every part of the country are being presented against the Bill. Are these petitions, then, got up without any clear knowledge respecting its provisions? The only exceptions, indeed, are the constituents of the right hon. Gentleman, (Mr. Napier), who, differing apparently from the clerical body generally, have not thought it necessary to instruct him to oppose the Bill, neither has he thought it necessary to ask them what course he shall pursue respecting it. Well, then, is this Bill really new to the House? Why, will any hon. Member who is likely to take part in this discussion say that he has not anxiously watched the protracted proceedings of the House of Lords? Has the Bill not been for a full month lying on the table of this House? Has there not been ample time for examining it with the utmost minuteness, and making up his mind on all its principles and details? And is this a measure of such enormous magnitude that a great length of time was required to discuss it? Comparatively speaking, the Bill is a short one, and its provisions are contained in a small number of clauses. I say, then, that the Motion for delay is a shallow pretence, under which those who make it wish to conceal their opposition to the measure, but that very desire of concealment shows their consciousness that public opinion is against them, that the feeling of the country is favourable to some measure of this sort, and that the Bill, therefore, is one which ought now to be considered. Well, then, the hon. and learned Member for Wallingford (Mr. Malins), rising with that eminent physical power which he fortunately possesses, speaking with that intellectual vigour with which he always addresses the House, tells us that our bodies are exhausted, and our minds prostrate from the labours we have undergone. Why, Sir, he is a living example of the fallacy of his own argument, and is not the man, therefore, to tell us that we are so exhausted by the labours of the Session as to be unable to pay proper attention to this Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman is perhaps anxious to take advantage of that health and vigour which we are so glad to see him possess in the enjoyment of some other species of amusement. His desire for delay may perhaps be excused by the impatience with which he is looking forward to the termination of the Session, but I do trust the House will take a more serious view of this matter, and not run away with the idea that one month is more appropriate than another for the prosecution of business of such importance. They ought not, I say, to be led away by an appeal to the almanac, or be frightened by the names of July and August. A measure of the greatest importance, for which the country has long been looking with anxiety, cannot be thrown on one side by the mere assertion that we are at the end of July, and that August is fast approaching. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked me how long I proposed to keep the House sitting. Why, Sir, as long as may be necessary to dispose of the important measures before us. I remember sitting in this House until the middle of September. I hope it may be unnecessary to continue the present Session for so long a period, but it is trifling with our duties—it is trifling with the great interests committed to our charge to say that because it happens now to be the 24th of July we are not to take into consideration a measure so important in itself, so anxiously expected by the country, and which for years has occupied the minds of men who attend to the consideration of these subjects. If this were a Bill brought into the House of Commons, not having been presented to the other House, and now for the first time laid before Parliament, I should admit that the argument against us would be forcible; but we are only calling upon the House to discuss a measure which has been well sifted and discussed in another place; and when we are told that the House of Lords has been unstable in its views respecting this measure, and has changed its mind upon different details, all I can say is, that this very discussion has paved the way for our consideration, has presented us with all the arguments for and against the principal points on which opinions are likely to be divided, and will render it more easy for hon. Gentlemen here to come to a conclusion on the contested matters. I therefore entreat the House not to forget the duties cast upon it by our constituencies, and to recollect that we sit here not merely to consider whether it is more convenient to adjourn in July or in August, whether we can carry on our discussions better at a cold than at a hot season, or at a time more consistent than the present with the intellectual vigour of the hon. and learned Gentleman, but that the country will think we are neglecting our duties if we put off this grave and serious question, and that by so doing the character of this House will materially suffer in public opinion. I will not enter now, as other hon. Gentlemen have done, into the merits of the question. My hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General will be prepared upon the second reading to state in detail the grounds upon which this important measure is founded. Let the House hear those grounds, and not shrink from deliberating upon a measure so deeply affecting the interests of the country. Least of all, let the House not be diverted from such deliberation by the shallow pretext that further delay is necessary to consider a measure which its opponents are evidently fully prepared to discuss now, to-morrow, or any day that may chance to be fixed upon.

Motion made and Question put, "That the said Order be postponed till this day month."

The House divided: Ayes 130; Noes 217: Majority 87.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

At this time of the night (ten minutes past 11), it would hardly be fair to my hon. and learned Friend or to the House that we should go on with the second reading of the Bill. My hon. and learned Friend would naturally wish to state at some length his views on the subject, and I therefore propose to go on with the second reading on Thursday, and to make it the first Order of the day.

MR. MALINS

Do I understand the noble Lord to say that the Probates and Administration Bill will not be proceeded with on Thursday?

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

We shall take this Bill first on Thursday. In all probability the Probates and Administration Bill will be proceeded with on Friday.

Second Reading deferred till Thursday next.