A strong argument in favour of divorce is, in my judg ment, the danger resulting from legal or other separations without dissolution. The parties to such arrangements are practically neither married nor single. The man who leaves his wife under any circumstances, goes back to the world under a cloud, justly or unjustly, according to the facts. His future conduct in time becomes a matter of no great consequence. In many instances he leaves his country, goes elsewhere, gets an irregular divorce and marries again. So with the wife, who, neglected and forsaken, meets with so little sympathy or assistance even from her own sex, that she too degenerates owing to the want of a sustaining moral force. She may fall into straitened circumstances, temptation may become too strong, and the result is what might naturally be expected. One family legitimate, but deserted and handicapped through no fault of theirs, and two human derelicts, living irregular lives, and perhaps responsible for children who have neither name nor heritage, is the story told in most cases of the husband and wife, who ought to be absolutely and judicially separated, but who are compelled to drag along in chains which a professedly moral world says are not to be interfered with. The rich man knows nothing of the pangs of hunger and poverty. The good man knows little of the depth of degradation into which many of his fellow-men have fallen. The husband and father, whose life is one of peace and domestic happiness, cannot understand the terrible ordeal a frail, delicate and sensitive woman may have to undergo at the hands of a brutal husband, or what a husband suffers through the neglect and infidelities of a reckless wife. The evil results of such conditions are felt most keenly by those who have no means of indulging in pleasure of any kind. Engaged all day in labour or business drudgery, the return each evening to what is misnamed home, is accompanied by or is met with a repetition of violence, abuse and suspicions which have destroyed the sympathy and kindness of the earlier years of married life, if such feelings ever existed. Escape by legal means from this daily and hourly life of misery is practically impossible to people without money. Drink is indulged in as an antidote to the domestic poison, but this only aggravates the disease and often ends in crime. The rough outline of such lives is all that the world knows or sees. The sins of the erring wife or the brutality of the husband are never fully known to the public. A Divorce Court alone can shew

something of the facts following an unfortunate marriage, but the whole truth of domestic unhappiness cannot in any case be fully expressed.

I say, therefore, that there are many cases in which relief of a permanent character should be given. If this proposition. is granted it then becomes only a matter of prudence and wisdom as to how far and on what grounds relief may be open to those whose claims come within the general class of cases deserving remedial action. It is however argued that it is better that such things should be than that the door should be opened to divorce proceedings, and it is also contended that by opening the door, the general tone of morality and the standard of married life will be lowered. The result in the United States is pointed to as evidence of this, and it is said that in that country marriage has lost its significance, and the ideals of home life have been shattered.

In this connection I would like to deal with the statements so frequently made regarding the divorce laws and methods in the United States. One of the most common arguments used by those opposed to a Canadian Divorce Court is the one I have just mentioned, namely, that marriage is not only a failure in the United States, but is practically disregarded by a large proportion of the people, and that this condition has been brought about by loose divorce laws and procedure. Is this allegation correct? If so, it is entitled to great weight. What do the facts and statistics shew? We can arrive at no reasonable conclusion as to the proportion of divorces to marriages. It is assumed by some writers to be as one to fifteen. As to this, it is clear on examining the facts that no such proportion exists, having regard to the method of calculation adopted by such writers. In the first place, there is no record of marriages kept in at least one-half of the States, and no means of finding out the correct figures. There are hundreds of thousands of immigrants to that country every year, mostly married, of whose marriages there is no record, except in Europe, or some other continent. Under what is known as Census Reports, all judicial separations, conditional decrees, and all cases in which the marriage is declared a nullity from the beginning are included under the heading "Divorce." And I venture to say from facts which have come before me in the course of my practice, that the number of Canadians who acquire irregular and fraudulent divorce in the U. S. is ten times greater than the total number of divorces granted

in Canada. We should consider the important fact that the comparison is not sound, because in many of the States, divorces may be granted on very trivial grounds, which are not contemplated or advocated in this country. Even with this fact to aid us, it is a singular circumstance that in some States where the causes are both slight and numerous, the increase of divorces is not marked, and that in New York State, where adultery is the only cause, the increase is greater and steadily growing. The causes vary in the States from adultery to "causes deemed sufficient by the Court" as in Washington State, and we find the same want of uniformity in practice as we do in Canada. That is accounted for to some extent by the fact that each State deals independently with the subject.

But I think there is a broader ground than mere statistics on which the question can be put. We have not as yet the dense commercial centres we find south of our boundary. There is not that restless and changing spirit which actuates so many American citizens. The substitution of business rush for home ideals, the desire to make money quickly, the mode of living in hotels and rooms, the growing tendency towards travel and variety, impatience of restraint, and perhaps more than we are aware of, the absolute individual independence of the man and woman, and the freedom of both married and unmarried life, all these must be important factors in considering the present state of divorce laws and their effect in the United States. Except in the case of very large cities, and looking at the country as a whole, there is no ground for saying that the general morality of the American citizen, farmer, artisan or business man is lower than it is in any other country. We have only to look at such places as Italy or Spain where no divorces are permitted, and where morality is at any rate no higher than it is in America, to realize that divorces are not the cause of the low moral tone of any country.

The want of uniformity in Canadian divorce law is one of the strangest features in an otherwise reasonable Constitution. In British Columbia there is a Divorce Court based somewhat on the principles of the English law, under the Act of 1857. Courts for granting absolute divorces were established in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island before Confederation, and these were continued by sec. 129 of the B. N. A. Act, 1867. Ontario, Quebec, and

the remaining Provinces of the Dominion are without Courts of Divorce, and the application for relief must be made to Parliament, both bodies having to pronounce the dissolution of the marriage obligation, which is done by a hearing of witnesses before a Senate Committee, and if a proper case is made out, this is followed by a private Act of the House of Commons. It is certainly one of the most remarkable anomalies in the history of Constitutions. The exclusive right to legislate on marriage and divorce is given by the British. North America Act, 1867, to the Parliament of Canada, and yet notwithstanding the B. N. A. Act, there is no uniformity of the law, and the right is, as I have stated, exercised under a saving clause by several of the Provinces to the exclusion of Dominion authority. Quebec, then Lower Canada, a Province opposed to divorce laws, was the cause of this anomalous condition of things, although I have no doubt Upper Canada was as a whole disinclined at that time to deal with the question of establishing Courts of Divorce in this country. Owing to the state of the law now in force here, a grave injustice is experienced. There is in respect of divorce, one law for the rich and another for the poor. This may be said to be inaccurate. It is so, theoretically, but in practice, it is undoubtedly true. In ordinary litigation, care has been taken to bring the place of trial of both civil and criminal cases to the doors of the litigants. Judges travel from one end of each Province to the other, twice a year and more often in some localities, in order that the poor man may have justice on the same terms as his richer neighbour enjoys. A ten dollar Division Court case takes a County Judge thirty miles from the County town in order that a trumpery dispute may be settled according to law. Actions within the jurisdiction of the County Court, and larger issues requiring the aid of High Court Judges, are disposed of at the County towns in almost every County in the Dominion. Magistrates are provided in every school section to dispose of troubles of a petty character. And yet with all this expense and care in matters largely of a momentary and temporary nature, the unfortunate woman who is grossly wronged, and is being slowly yet surely battered to death, or the equally unfortunate man who is bound to an adulterous wife, has to travel perhaps thousands of miles to get relief, and can get it only by a slow, tedious, and expensive process. This state of affairs is a blot on the administration of justice in a civilized country.

If the party is poor, justice cannot be had. Only the rich can avail themselves of our present system of granting divorces. And let me remark in this connection that the remedy is practically denied by force of circumstances to those upon whom the burden lies most heavily, and in respect of whom the most dangerous and immoral results are most likely to follow. Money, under the circumstances which give rise to divorce, affords relief in the way of travel, change of residence and other means of escape, but poverty drives both the man and woman to desperate deeds, and to a still more desperate condition of immorality and degradation.

Having thus briefly touched on some of the conditions with which we have to deal in this discussion, I wish to call your attention for a few moments to the subject of divorce in its legal aspect, and the remedies which in my opinion ought to be provided to meet present conditions. It may be useful to see what has been done in the past history of England towards a solution of the problem which confronts and has for centuries confronted thinking men and women. I do not hope to say anything original in this connection, but if I can direct your minds to some new line of thought, or create a new phase of reflection, and analysis, I shall be fully satisfied that my work has not been in vain.

First, let me take up the record. It has always been admitted that the wrongs suffered by the innocent partner in matrimony are entitled to some remedy. The Ecclesiastical Courts had the earliest jurisdiction. In the very early days in England, these Courts took upon themselves, or acquired the power to grant a divorce, a mensa et thoro. Although marriage was looked upon as indissoluble, there grew up various schemes for declaring the marriage a nullity ab initio on the ground that an impediment of relationship existed. This is described by a well-known writer as a "relationship which might consist in some remote or fanciful connection between the parties or their god-parents." Later on, and particularly after the Reformation, resort was had to Parliament for private acts authorizing divorce and permitting re-marriage owing to the fact that there were no Courts having jurisdiction to decree a divorce a vinculo. This remedy was adopted by no less a person than Royalty, in the case of Henry VIII. The first Private Divorce Act related to the Marquess of Northampton, whose re-marriage after a decree of separation by the Ecclesiastical Court was declared.