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sessions the Royal Assent was refused, but finally, upon the 30th of March, 1871, the Royal Assent was given. That statute permitted marriages in the province between a man and the sister of his deceased wife, or the sister’s daughter. The next statute that was passed on this subject was the statute which was passed in the Colony of Victoria, and that was assented to on the 24th of March, 1873. That statute simply related to marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, and did not refer to the sister’s daughter. The Tasmania Act was assented to upon the 9th of August, 1873, and is substantially the same as the Victoria statute. The New South Wales statute was assented to upon the 27th November, 1875, and is the same in effect as the Victoria statute. The Queensland Act, in the same direction, was also passed in 1875, the only difference between the Queensland statute and the other statutes being, that whereas all the other statutes simply make lawful a marriage in the Colony between a man and the sister of his deceased wife, the Queensland statute provides that such marriages are valid if made in the Colony, though the parties are not domiciled there; that is what I take to be the construction of the statute, that marriages between a man and his deceased wife’s sister made in the Colony, though the persons are not domiciled in the Colony, will be good marriages; and secondly, that the marriages of persons within those prohibited degrees, domiciled in the Colony would be valid though solemnised elsewhere. That is the only difference between the Queensland statute and those of the other Colonies. It goes a little further than the other statutes, and is entirely in the same direction.
Now, Sir, as to the position of persons between whom marriages may be solemnised according to any of those
