The Bill for legalising marriage with a deceased wife's sister
passed through Committee in the House of Lords on Tuesday, after a discussion on the retrospective clause legalising marriages of this kind, the result of which appears to have been that if the- amendment accepted by Lord Dalhousie becomes law, it will legitimate children of parents who have gone through such in- valid marriages in the past, but will not make those marriages valid. Lord Dalhousie also introduced an amendment, of which we do not as yet really understand the scope, but which he- explained as intended to make it possible for clergymen who do not feel any conscientious objection to celebrating these mar- riages, to celebrate them, without depriving clergymen who do conscientiously object to them of their canonical ground of objection. If this is the real drift of the amendments proposed, Lord Dalhousie has been very wise in adopting them. On Lord! Salisbury's advice, Lord Beauchamp withdrew his amendment to the retrospective clause of the Bill, Lord Dalhousie, on his part, having promised not to make the Legislature eat its own words by now declaring marriages to be valid which were by statute previously invalid.
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