CONSIDERATION, AS AMENDED. (Hansard, 25 April 1881)

§ MR. SPEAKER
Are there any Amendments?

§ MR. ANDERSON
No.

§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL
said, he really hoped that this very important Bill would not be proceeded with at that hour of the night (12.35). He did not think that the Members of the House or the public in Scotland had the least idea of what the nature of this measure was. It was a Bill of enormous importance, and it totally changed the character of husband and wife in relation to the possession of property. It provided that in future marriage should be a mere partnership, and not one and the same interest. He believed that the measure was referred to a Select Committee; but the Committee was largely composed of Members who were what was known as "women's rights' men." He also found on the back of the Bill 1180 that the names of the hon. Members who had introduced it were all "women's rights men." It was a very important measure, but, nevertheless, it was to apply to Scotland only. In that respect he thought that the hon. Members who had brought it in had been a little unjust to Scotland. So far as the Bill had been discussed in Scotland very serious objection had, he believed, been taken to it by various persons of importance, weight, and authority; and he saw no reason, if the principle of the measure were a good and just one, why it should not be applied to the whole of the United Kingdom, seeing that the property of the whole of the country was in precisely the same position. The Bill now came before them, at that hour, as a matter of surprise; seeing that the questions involved in it were of so much importance, he must be allowed to express a strong hope that it would not be allowed to be proceeded with at that hour of the night.

§ MR. ANDERSON
said, the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) had, he thought, drawn a very erroneous picture of the meaning and object of the Bill. Its provisions had already been considered by a Committee, not of Members in favour of women's rights, but of Members whom he, as the promoter of the Bill, looked upon as rather a hostile Committee. The evidence taken by the Committee was that of the principal lawyers of Scotland, and the Bill had been moulded in accordance with the statements which they made. The consequence was that the measure was not now entirely what he should wish it to be. It had been a good deal changed in its character, according to the opinions of the learned Lord Advocate, of the Solicitor General for Scotland, of the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates of Edinburgh, and also according to the opinions of other lawyers of Scotland who came to give evidence upon it. He had deferred his opinion to theirs, although he did not entirely agree with the views which they put forward, and the Bill was not now at all of the character described by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy, but was an extremely reasonable, moderate, and mild measure. Then, again, in place of taking the House by surprise, the Bill had been before the House for a whole Session, and it had been, as he had already 1181 said, before a Select Committee upstairs. It had passed through that Committee, and various Amendments had been inserted in it. Certainly, the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy never placed any Amendment on the Paper at all, and never expressed any opinion upon what Amendments should be made on the Bill. The subsequent Amendments which had been made in Committee of the Whole House had been proposed by lawyers, and they had all been adopted. As the Bill now stood, it was a measure which, by a consensus of opinion, had been accepted by the lawyers of Scotland, and he was sorry that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy should not accept it also.