§ [SECOND READING.]
§ Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
§ * LORD MACNAGHTENMy Lords, at the instance of several persons of great eminence in Ireland, including four very distinguished judges, chancellors of seven dioceses, and including also His Grace the Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of all Ireland, and, I believe, with the full approval of the Irish Lord Chancellor, I venture to submit this Bill to your Lordships. I am not quite sure that I am in a position to do complete justice to the difficulty which has led to the introduction of this measure, because I am not an ecclesiastical lawyer, but I will explain to your Lordships in a sentence what the difficulty is. When two persons marry, one of whom resides in Ireland and the other in England, and they are married by banns, and the banns are published in the two countries to which they respectively belong, it has been suggested that the marriage is or may be invalid. That is a very startling suggestion. I am not altogether certain that I appreciate the point myself. I am informed, however, that it is quite visible to the eye of an ecclesiastical lawyer. But herein is a divergence of opinion. Ecclesiastical lawyers in Ireland say there is nothing in the point. Ecclesiastical lawyers in England of considerable eminence think that the point is a serious one, and that it is quite possible that a marriage of the sort to which I have referred might be 290 declared invalid. I do not think I need pursue the subject further, because I am sure your Lordships will agree with me that on such a point doubts ought not to be permitted to exist. When parties marry in good faith, believing that they are complying with the law in every particular, it is intolerable that there should. be any unnecessary doubt as to the validity of the marriage. I am happy to say there is an exact precedent for this Bill. The same doubt occurred in the case of marriages solemnized under similar circumstances, where one of the parties to the marriage resided in Scotland and the other in England. An Act was passed in 1886 to remove any doubt in such a, case—it is the 49 Victoria, Cap. 3. I need not trouble your Lordships with reading that Statute, because it is, mutatis mutandis, absolutely the same as the Bill which I now beg to move be read a second, time.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be read 2a."—(Lord Macnaghten.)
§ * THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The EARL of HALSBURY)I confess that I do not share the doubt which has been raised, as to the validity of marriages such as those to which the noble Lord has referred, but as some objection may be raised I think the noble Lord has done wisely in bringing forward this Bill, to which I hope your Lordships will give a Second Reading.
§ On Question, agreed to.
§ Bill read 2a (according to order); and committed to a Committee of the whole House to-morrow.