THIRD READING. (Hansard, 12 July 1887)

§ EARL BEAUCHAMP
said, he wished to alter slightly the form of the Amendment he proposed yesterday. That Amendment had reference to Clause 39, Sub-section 4, which applied to the real estate of an infant or lunatic. It had been pointed out that there might be considerable difficulty in defining the lunatic; and he proposed now that this section should not apply to any real estate of a person being an infant, and not being capable of disposing of it by will. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) had said that every person ought to make a will; and the Amendment which he now proposed dealt with the case of those who by law were not capable of making a will, and, therefore, ought not to be subject to pains and penalties. It had been suggested that power should be given to the Court of Chancery to make a disposition of the property; but he thought the Court of Chancery would be very much embarrassed in doing so. In the case of persons not capable of making a will, the property ought to go to the next in remainder.

§ LORD HOBHOUSE
said, he opposed the Amendment on the ground that it was contrary to the principle of the clause in which it was proposed to insert it. When the law made arrangements for the distribution of property, it should endeavour to make such arrangements as reasonable people would make for themselves. The justification of this alteration of the law was, that, as a rule, reasonable people did not give all their property to one, but divided it among their successors. "Why should not their Lordships do for the successors of an infant or lunatic that which they 491 did for the successors of other persons? The House had decided, after discussion, that equal division was a better rule of succession than primogeniture. If primogeniture was the most reasonable rule, why were we now altering it? If equal division was the most reasonable rule, why not apply it to the property of those who cannot judge for themselves? It could not possibly make any difference whether the deceased owner could not make any disposition of his property, or whether he had not. In each case alike we were bound to make the best arrangements we could for succession to the undisposed of property.

§ LORD BRAMWELL
said, that, as in the present case the infant or lunatic could not make a will, he thought the Amendment of the noble Earl was a most reasonable one.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HALSBURY)
said, he was very much in their Lordships' hands in this matter. The only objection he saw to the Amendment was, that if it passed, there would be a class of persons to whom the new law would not apply. It seemed to him that to accept the noble Earl's Amendment would be to retain the Law of Inheritance in the cases of lunatics and infants, and that, he thought, scarcely consistent with the object of the Bill. He recognized the difficulty with which the noble Earl sought to deal; but he must say that it differed from what the Bill proposed to do in the case of intestates, and might be found to be inconvenient in practice. He should not, however, oppose it.

§ LORD HERSCHELL
said, he did not think that this was a matter of very great importance. It dealt with exceptional cases, and the only recommendation which such a provision had was that the ingenuity of conveyancers was inexhaustible; and if a provision was made such as people very strongly desired to walk round for the sake of meeting these exceptional cases, he was not at all sure that they would not find means to do so, and walk round it not only in these cases, but also in others which did not fall within these particular exceptions. In that case there was something to be said for dealing with exceptional cases.