COLONIAL MARRIAGES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 8 June 1901, Page 4

COLONIAL MARRIAGES.

.Shoftly before the close of the present awssion of Parliament tho House of Comffidhs i* again to be asked to consider the Bill to give legal recognition in tho Kingdom to marriage with a <?eceased Wife's sister contracted in the colonies'. The House has shown much adroitness year,.\fter year in so shelving this measure, as not to givo direct offence, but

tho practice and its motivo have become too obvious, and there is to bo a determined effort this time to force a decision. But the hostility of Lord Salisbury (more tacit than expressed) and other members of the Cecil family to the Bill render its acceptance very doubtful. The House of Lords, it will be remembered, has already twice passed it by large majorities in spite of the lords spiritual, who opposed it to a man. The Bill has some strong advocates in the English press. One journal in referring to it the other day,'pointed out that marriage with a deceased wife's sister is now legal in every self-governing colony in the Empire, with the exception of Newfoundland, and that tho English disability in regard to such marriages is alike irritating and unnecessary.