CAB129-45 — Page 346

Printed for the Cabinet. April 1951

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271

CONFIDENTIAL

C.P. (51) 119

27th April, 1951

CABINET

Copy No.31

ROYAL COMMISSION ON DIVORCE

MEMORANDUM BY THE LORD CHANCELLOR

At the Prime Minister's request, I have had preliminary discussions with the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the English and Scottish Law Officers about the Royal Commission on Divorce. It has been agreed that there should be one Commission for England and Scotland but that Northern Ireland should not be included, both because of the large Roman Catholic minority in that country and because the proportion of the Protestant population which is opposed to divorce is probably much higher there than it is either in England or in Scotland.

2. A matter on which Ministers have so far been unable to reach agreement is whether the Royal Commission should include Bishops and other representatives of the Churches, or whether the Churches should be left to give evidence as witnesses before the Commission. The Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland think that the Churches should be directly represented on the Commis- sion, and that, if they were not, the Commission would not command a full measure of public respect. The Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, on the other hand, thought that in view of the well-known and strongly held views of the Churches on the subject of divorce it would be a mistake for them to be represented, and that in fact their representation would not increase the respect which it is necessary that the Commission should command in the eyes of the public. On the whole, I find myself disposed to agree with the view expressed by the English Law Officers.

3. The argument in favour of direct representation of the Churches on the Commission is, of course, that the subject of marriage and divorce is of pre-eminent concern to all the Christian Churches, and one on which it is inevitable that their views should be heard with respect. The then Archbishop of York was a member of the Royal Commission of 1912, although it is true that there were no other Church representatives on that Commission unless the Dean of the Arches be counted as one it is more probable that he was selected because of his expert knowledge of ecclesiastical law. Those who think that the Churches should be represented on the Commission argue that not only would it be regarded as a strange omission by the general public were they not to be included, but that failure to do so would be looked upon as one further step towards the separation between the Christian and the secular conception of marriage.

4. The objection to having representatives of the Churches on the Commission is, first, that this would necessarily involve a considerable increase in the size of the Commission, as not only would the Church of England and the Free Churches require to be represented but there would also have to be one and possibly two representatives of the Scottish Churches, and the Roman Catholic Church would no doubt also have to be invited to nominate a representative, although it would probably decline to do so. Secondly, it is argued with some force that the Churches, or at any rate the majority of the Churches, have already expressed such clear views as to thepindissolubility of marriage that their representatives could hardly be

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