CO885-(11-13) — Page 398

938.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

༄། 「 །

CO.

• 885

MY LORD,

No. 161.

(SOUTH AUSTRALIA.)

The LORD CHANCELLOR to COLONIAL OFFICE.

THE Lord Chancellor desires me to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship's

23rd January 1878. letter of the 16th instant, enclosing a copy of a Despatch from the Governor of South Australia, and other papers relative to marriages contracted in that Colony between a man and his deceased wife's sister, and the draft of a Despatch which your Lordship proposes to address to the Governor of South Australia.

The Lord Chancellor desires me to express his concurrence with the substance of the answer which it is proposed to give to the Despatch of the Governor.

The Lord Chancellor thinks that it would be well to point out that no doubt is now entertained by the Courts of this country as to the status in this country of children of parents who, having an English domicile, enter into a marriage of the kind mentioned in the addresses of the South Australian Legislature in a Colony where such marriages are legal. The English law upon that subject could not be changed except by an Act of the Imperial Parliament; and Her Majesty's Government, so long as these marriages continue to be illegal in England, have no intention of proposing to Parliament such a

measure.

The Right Hon. the Earl of Carnarvon,

&c.

&c.

&c.

I have, &c., (Signed) HENRY J. L. GRAHAM,

Principal Secretary.

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▲ 10016,—167. 25.-19/04,

12 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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