HC Deb 13 February 1908 vol 184 cc186-7
*MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs)

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that under the joint operation of the Indian Christian Converts Dissolution of Marriage Act and the Indian Penal Code, converts to Christianity suffer hardship, and particularly Roman Catholic Christians, who are at present by the Civil law deprived of the benefit of the Pauline dispensation to which they are entitled by the Canon Law of their Church; whether he is aware that by this privilege of the Roman Catholic Church, and by immemorial usage in that behalf, the dissolution was permitted of a marriage subsisting between a convert and a spouse, who refused to live with him or her, because of his or her conversion, by a simple process outside the courts, lasting thirty days and costing nothing, whereas under the existing law the procedure is so dilatory and expensive as to make recourse to it impossible to the average Christian convert; and whether he will cause inquiries to be made into a position which results in such hardships to those concerned, in view of the substitution of some short and simple procedure in place of that now provided by law.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. MORLEY,) Montrose Burghs

The opportunity has been given to the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church in India of suggesting simplifications of the procedure laid down in the Act mentioned. I shall always be ready to consider such suggestions, but I am not prepared in any way to exempt the class of case referred to from the jurisdiction of the Civil Courts. I have no reason to suppose that the provisions of the Act are regarded as a hardship by the Indian Christian community generally, and I do not think it necessary to order a special inquiry.

*MR. REES

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it was represented that it was a grievance, and when I asked leave to introduce a Bill to remedy it, the answer of the Council was not that there was not a grievance, but that that was not the time to remedy it?

MR. J. WARD

Would it not be much better for the right hon. Gentleman to assume there was a grievance?