§ SIR G. OSBORNE MORGAN (Denbighshire, E.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Depart- 702 ment whether his attention has been called to a case in the South Western Police Court, reported in The Daily News of the 16th of March, of a poor woman who complained to Mr. de Rutzen that a clergyman refused to perform the ceremony of marriage between her daughter and her would-be husband because she was approaching her confinement, although the banns had been paid for; whether a clergyman of the Church of England can lawfully refuse to perform the ceremony of marriage between two persons, not otherwise incapacitated, upon the sole ground alleged; and whether, in view of the expense and delay involved in a prosecution for such refusal, he will consider whether a cheap and rapid remedy could be provided in such a case?
§ MR. ASQUITHI am not in a position to answer this question, as I have not succeeded in getting satisfactory explanations from the clergyman in question. I must ask my right hon. Friend, therefore, to further postpone it.
§ SIR G. OSBORNE MORGANI will repeat it on Thursday the 29th instant.