5025.
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
CO.
Reference :-
885.
12 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
MY LORD,
No. 18.
(BRITISH HONDURAS.)
DR. DEANE to COLONIAL OFFICE.
Temple, 4th May 1874. I AM honoured with your Lordship's commands, signified in Sir H. Holland's letter of the 21st April last, stating that he was directed by your Lordship to transmit to me, for my consideration and report, a copy of a draft Ordinance which it was proposed to submit to the Legislature of British Honduras to amend and declare the marriage law in that Colony, together with a report upon it by the Colonial Attorney- General.
That Sir H. Holland was also to annex a despatch enclosing a correspondence on the subject between the Governor and a Roman Catholic clergyman, and also copies of the local laws referred to in the draft Ordinance.
In obedience to your Lordship's commands, I have the honour to
Report
That I presume your Lordship does not wish me to make any observation upon the general principle of the Bill, and I have therefore confined my remarks entirely to the details in the several sections.
Section 2, line 1, the word "heretofore" is, I think, open to objection. The meaning of the enactment is to make certain marriages, had before the Ordinance comes into operation, valid. Section 4 provides for marriages on and after the let of January 1875. The marriages in Honduras taking place between the enactment of the Ordinance and the 1st of January 1875 will therefore be without law
If I am right
in this view, the word " heretofore" should be taken out, and the words "on or before the 31st day of December 1874" substituted.
Sections 4 and 5.-I do not see how these sections can be so altered that the suggestion of the Attorney-General that the civil ceremony should in all cases precede the religious ceremony can be carried out. Persons under the influence of religion or of their ministers will disregard the law, and either be satisfied with the religious ceremony alone, or resort to that ceremony first. All that legislation can do is to say that the marriage shall not be good to any legal purpose without the civil Sections 17 and 18.-There seems to me to be some confusion in the use of the word "forbidden" in these two sections.
ceremony.
If the word "forbidden means forbidden by the Chief Justice after inquiry, it may be quite right that the notice, and all proceedings thereupon, should be utterly void.
But if the marriage is forbidden upon frivolous grounds, a case contemplated by section 18, it does seem very hard that all that has been rightly, and properly done should be set aside and made entirely void.
It would be sufficient to provide that the notice and proceedings thereupon shall be suspended until the matter has been disposed of by the Chief Justice, or the forbidding withdrawn.
Section 31.-I submit to your Lordship's consideration that the words "casual intercourse" should be omitted, even if the remainder of the section were allowed to stand. If they mean intercourse between persons who have gone through a ceremony of marriage, they are useless, since the word marriage is in the section; if they mean intercourse without any ceremony of marriage, they have no place in a marriage Ordinance.
But the whole section is, in my opinion, objectionable, since it purports to make a marriage between, for instance, a man and his deceased wife's sister a criminal offence, and punishable as such.
Section 33, page 11, line 8 from the bottom, the word "other" before parent seems inadvertently introduced, and should be omitted.
Section 39, line 8.-After the word "place" it would, I think, be right to introduce the words "save as provided in section 22 of this Ordinance."
▲ 19916.-19. 25.-12/84.