§ MR. VINCENT KENNEDY (Cavan, W.)I beg to ask Mr. Solicitor-General whether he can state the total number of divorce suits entered for trial in the London Courts during the past year; the number of cases which went to a hearing; the number and nature of decrees granted; the number of cases in which the King's Proctor intervened; and the number of cases in which his intervention was justified by results.
§ THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY, Inverness Burghs)Seven hundred and seventy divorce and other matrimonial suits were set down for trial during 1904, making, with 167 pending at the commencement of the year, a total of 937 suits for hearing. Of this number 771 were tried or otherwise disposed of in Court, the petitioners being successful in 698 cases. The decrees included 636 decrees nisi for dissolution of marriage, twenty decrees for judicial separation, twenty-three decrees nisi for nullity of marriage, eighteen for restitution of conjugal rights, and one decree in a suit for jactitation of marriage. During the year ending March 31st, 1905, the King's Proctor intervened in twenty-three cases. In eighteen of these cases the decrees have been rescinded by the Court, three are awaiting trial, and in one judgment has been reserved. In the remaining case the action of the petitioner which led to the intervention was shown to have arisen from an honest mistake as to the law, the intervention was not pressed, and the Court, in the exercise of its discretion, made the decree absolute.