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perty in this country. If persons marrying in the Colonies acquire property in England, they acquire it subject to the existing laws of this country, and with full knowledge; and I do not think we can ask fairly that any change should be made in the law; but I do think it very hard that a slur should be cast upon these Colonial marriages in England, as I understand it is cast upon them. If the Queen sanctions an Act relating to marriage in a Colony, I think that marriage ought to be looked upon as a perfectly legal marriage in England, without affecting inheritance or anything of that sort.
Sir William Fitzherbert: I cannot concur in any proposal which by a side wind should have the effect of tending to alter the law of England in any respect. We are jealous of the privileges which have been granted to us by the Imperial Legislature, and I think we ought not to ask in consequence that the law of England should by any indirect procedure be altered.
Mr. Deakin: The Colony of Victoria, as Mr. Downer has stated in his summary, passed an Act legalising marriage with a deceased wife’s sister; and I am sure that the Colony would hail with pleasure any movement on the part of the Imperial Government to not only give sanction to the marriage, but to give all the consequences that follow from a legal marriage; I am quite certain that this would be hailed with the greatest satisfaction in the Colonies. I do not think that we are entitled to say any more at present. Although the marriage is legally sanctioned, it still lacks one very important element, it is not merely as a matter of property it lacks the fulness of sanction which we all desire to see given, but it places the marriages contracted in the Colonies on a different level from the marriages contracted in England, or
