§ Question put.
§ Agreed to.
THE ATTORNEY GENERALThis is an important Amendment with reference to registration. The proposal in the Bill was that the district registrar should issue loose sheets to the person desiring to get married, or possibly to the person solemnising the marriage. He would hear no more about it until they were returned, and the only safeguard was that they should be returned within three months. If they were not returned it was suggested that the superintendent registrar should take such steps as he might deem necessary, to ascertain where the intended marriage had been solemnised, with, a view to receiving registration thereof. It would be very difficult to impose this duty of going to find out where the parties were, as they might have left the place; and without a. record of where the ceremony was performed, the task of the registrar would be absolutely useless. When I came to grapple with the problem of this Bill, I found that, it was absolutely necessary to have something more than loose sheets of paper, and, in addition, I concluded that the registration should be in connection with the building. I therefore propose, for two reasons, that books shall be issued in which entries shall be made by an authorised person, and by the parties to the marriage, and that copies of each book shall be returned regularly in the same way as other Reports are returned. I therefore move.
§
Question put—
Page 3, line 14, leave out from 'marriage,' to end of line 24, and insert 'register in duplicate in two of the marriage register books provided for the purpose the several particulars relating to the marriage according to the form in Schedule C annexed to the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1836, and every such entry shall be signed by such duly authorised person as may officiate at the marriage and by the parties to the marriage and by two witnesses, and all such entries shall be made in consecutive order from the beginning to the end of each book, and the numbers of the place of entry of each duplicate marriage register book shall be the same. The Registrar General shall, when so requested by the trustees or other governing body of any registered building in which marriages may be solemnised under this Act, supply a sufficient number in duplicate of marriage register books, and forms for certified copies thereof, as may be required for the purposes of this Act.
§ Agreed to.
§
Question put—
That clause 7, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
§ Agreed to.