The President: You must allow us to have our law[1] just as we have allowed the Colonies to have theirs. You know that there has been great feeling upon this matter, although there have been majorities in the debates upon this subject.
Mr. Downer: Of course I would not presume to express any opinion to the Imperial Government upon the question of her own laws. The view the Colonies take is this, they say to the English Government, we ask you to permit us to pass these laws as you yourself have given your sanction to these laws. They are laws which regulate the most sacred position in life, a position that required to be most sacredly protected for the well-being of the community generally, and now that you have enabled us to pass these laws, do us the justice to recognise these laws when they come to be acted upon. That is in effect what we say.
The President: But they are recognised, are they
- ↑ Lord Brougham, in a well-known case, said of this law:-"Nor can anything be more inconvenient or more inconsistent with principle than the inevitable consequence of taking the lex loci rei sitæ for the rule; because this makes a man legitimate or illegitimate according to the place where his property lies or rights come in question—legitimate when he sues for distribution of personal estate, a bastard when he sues for succession to real; nay, legitimate in one country where part of his land may lie, and bastard in some other where he has the residue." And again:—"One should say that nothing can be more pregnant with inconvenience; nay, that nothing can lead to consequences more strange in statement than a doctrine which sets out with assuming legitimacy to be not a personal status, but a relation to the several countries in which rights are claimed, and, indeed, to the nature of different rights. That a man may be bastard in one country and legitimate in another seems of itself a strong position to affirm, but more staggering when it is followed up by this other—that in one and the same country he is to be regarded as bastard when he comes into one Court to claim an estate in land, and legitimate when he resorts to another to obtain personal succession; nay, that the same Court of Equity (when the real estate happens to be impressed with a trust) must view him as both bastard and legitimate in respect of a succession to the same intestate."
