CO885-(10-11) — Page 311

6868.

$18,

No. 257.

(HELIGOLAND.)

QUEEN'S ADVOCATE to COLONIAL OFFICE.

Doctors' Commons, July 7, 1864.

I AM honoured with your commands signified in Sir F. Rogers' letter of the 24th ultimo, stating that he was directed to transmit to me for my consideration and report

the copy

of a Despatch from the Governor of Heligoland, enclosing a draft of an Ordinance for the formation of a Matrimonal and Divorce Court in that Island. Sir Frederic Rogers was also pleased to forward extracts of the correspondence out of which it arose, and drafts of (1) an Order in Council to provide for the Government of Heligoland; (2) a Commission appointing Colonel Maxse to be Governor; (3) Instructions under the Sign Manual. "Sir F. Rogers was also pleased to state that you desired me to observe that having reference to the circumstances of Heligoland, it is necessary that the ordinance if allowed to be passed should be as simple as possible That you would suggest at the same time that the causes for which alone dissolution of marriage may be decreed should be specifically laid down. That those causes would, it is presumed, be adultery in the wife, or adultery coupled with cruelty in the husband, but that it would be for consideration whether adultery in the husband coupled with desertion for a fixed period should be allowed as a cause for divorce. And Sir F. Rogers was further to suggest that if the conditions of divorce are to differ from those of the English law, the 3rd clause of the Draft Ordinance should be more explicit, and should provide that no marriage shall be dissolved by a court in Heligoland unless one of the parties is domiciled in the island, or both had resided there for two years previous to contracting the marriage.

In obedience to your commands, I have taken these papers into consideration, and have the honour to

Report

That I presume that the Secretary of State for the Colonies is satisfied that there ought to be a court at Heligoland with authority to pronounce sentences of dissolution of the marriage bond, and that the more limited authority of pronouncing sentences of judicial separation or divorces a mensa et thoro alone would not be sufficient for the exigencies of the case. I have, therefore, appended to the Draft Ordinance certain alterations which it appears to me expedient to make. I have not included “desertion " among the causes either of judicial separation or dissolution of marriage. It seemed to me very doubtful whether such a provision would be expedient for Heligoland.

I have endeavoured to make the Ordinance as plain and simple as possible, and not to encumber it with a variety of provisions perhaps necessary in England. As the jurisdiction is confined to cases in which the marriage has been contracted in the Colony, I have not thought it expedient to make any length of residence a necessary condition of obtaining sentences of nullity of marriage or judicial separation, but for dissolution of marriage, I have required the two conditions of marriage and 10 years' residence in the Colony. I presume that the laws of evidence and (a very material point) that the legal grounds of nullity of marriage as distinguished from dissolution of marriage are tho same in Heligoland as in England.

I have, &c.

J

The Secretary of State for the Colonies.

(Signed) ROBERT PHILLIMORE.

16278.-205.

25.-2/86,

PUBLIC

RECORD

OFFICE

Reference :-

لسانيا

C.O.

88510 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

-