LORD BROUGHAM,in presenting a petition from magistrates of Cumberland, as parties charged with the suppression of vice and immorality in their county, for an alteration of the law affecting marriages (Scotland), said, he trusted that this petition would command the attention of the House, and especially the attention of his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack, of his noble and learned Friend the Lord Chief Justice, and of his noble and learned Friend behind him (Lord Lyndhurst). It emanated from the magistrates of the county of Cumberland, assembled at quarter sessions, who approached their Lordships with a complaint, in his opinion well-founded, of the evil consequences which resulted from the conflict of the marriage laws of England and Scotland on the borders of the two countries—a state of things which in no part of the civilised world was surpassed in absurdity and inconsistency, and the injurious effects which it produced upon the morals of the people. It called for a decisive remedy. But the evil was not confined to the county of Cumberland; it extended to all the counties on the border, in which almost every restraint on improvident marriages was removed by the contiguity of a country whore a totally different law of marriage existed. In the conterminous counties of England and Scotland, Lord Hardwicke's Act was a mere dead letter, for there, every day, marriages were contracted without the knowledge or consent of parents, guardians, or friends. The petitions alleged that since the beginning of November upwards of 100 of these marriages had been celebrated at Gretna Green. At another place, where there was a register kept, 400 marriages had been celebrated, it turning out that the register was not at a blacksmith's shop, but at a public-house; and it appeared from the statements in the petition that the parties were often under the influences of the other wares sold at this public-house at the time of marriage, ft was not at all proposed to alter the law with respect to England, or to Englishmen domiciled in Scotland; all the petitioners desired was, that an end should be put to that disgraceful conflict of the laws of marriage which enabled a man, by moving 1382 a few yards, to evade the law of England. Formerly, in 1835, with the concurrence of his noble and learned Friend (Lord Lyndhurst), he had introduced a Bill to remedy this evil. But he felt that it would be impossible to confine the question merely to marriage. Divorce must be made a part of any measure on the subject; for the going to Scotland to obtain a marriage was no more a violation of the law of England than going there to obtain a divorce, and both ought to be put upon the same footing. He thought that residence of at least a fortnight in case of marriage, and residence of a month or six weeks in case of divorce, ought to be required in Scotland. If this plan were adopted, there would be an end put to a system which permitted such absurdities as that a man might be married in Scotland, but not married in England, and his issue might be legitimate on the north side of the Tweed, and illegitimate on the south. A case of the greatest hardship and cruelty had occurred in consequence of this conflict of law. He meant the case of Mr. Laurie, a most respectable merchant of Liverpool, who had obtained a divorce in Scotland which declared that he was a free man, and might marry again, but who married a second time—not in Scotland, but in England—and who was convicted of bigamy, and sentenced to seven years' transportation—a punishment which was commuted to a year's imprisonment at the hulks. The reason for his conviction was, that the law should be made perfectly clear. He mentioned this case as an illustration of the evils which were produced by this conflict of the English and Scotch laws on the subject of marriage and divorce.
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, the law in its present state was most disgraceful and mischievous—along the whole border, from the German Ocean to the Western Sea, it was productive of the most immoral effects. The description given by the Cumberland justices was not exaggerated; but he would by no means confine the remedy to that which they suggested. He would have the law of Scotland amended with respect to Scotchmen as well; and he did not despair of seeing such an amendment made for the more certain and proper performance of the most important of all human contracts.
LORD BROUGHAMentirely agreed that Parliament ought to go considerably further than the Cumberland magistrates 1383 petitioned for, and further even than was proposed by his own Bill of 1835, in which he had confined himself to an attempt at remedying the conflict of the English and Scotch laws.
THE EARL or MINTOsaid, that he rose briefly to express his sense of the importance of this matter, and to bear his testimony that the effects of the present state of the law of Scotland were quite as grievous in Scotland as they were on the border in England.
§ THE EARL OF ABERDEENsaid, that having been one of those who opposed the Bill of 1835, his opinion was not in the least changed about the matter now. If such a measure were again introduced it should meet with his opposition, and with an effectual opposition, he trusted, in the House of Commons. He admitted that the evil stated by these petitioners did exist; but it might be remedied without altering the law of Scotland with respect to marriage—a law to which the people of that country were devotedly attached, and which was sanctioned by the good effects which had resulted from it.
§ Petition read, and ordered to lie on the table.