I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

This is a Bill which gives legitimation to illegitimate children by the subsequent marriage of the parents, and the new Clause I am proposing would restrict that as regard certain cases. The history of this legitimation by subsequent marriage is well known to the House. By Roman and Scottish laws, and various other laws, it has always been possible for single people who have had illegitimate offspring and afterwards marry to be able to legitimise their illegitimate children. With regard to the law of the Church it has never objected to the legitimation of children by subsequent marriage. We are not dealing with this Bill as a general matter, but I wish to point out that the law of the Church was different where two single people had illegitimate children, or an illegitimate child, if one of those parties married somebody else subsequently, and in such a case the power to legitimise children horn before marriage was never allowed.

I am simply seeking to say that when the child has been born as the result of the adulterous intercourse of one of the parties, then legitimation should not be allowed. That is the law in Scotland and in every civilised country in the world except one of our Colonies, and I think that is Southern Australia. I am not dealing with Turkey, because there the marriage laws are slightly different to ours on many points, but I am speaking of those countries where monogamy was recognised as being the basis of the social institutions of the time. The original idea was two single people, having illegitimate children, legitimise those children by subsequent marriage, and to that extent it has always been recognised by the law and also by the Church certainly in England as being a possible solution of the difficulty. It is, however, quite different where there is subsequent marriage, or marriage to somebody else, and this has never been recognised by the Church. That is the only history with which I will trouble the, House. What we have to deal with is the actual effect of the Bill going through as it is drafted without some such Clause as this.

Those in favour of this Bill have dwelt tremendously upon the terrible position of the illegitimate child, but there is no greater fault in life than for anybody who tries to be fair-minded, to look at this matter entirely from that point of view. If you are led away, as injuries are easily led away, by looking at this matter simply from the point of view of the injuries done to the plaintiff, justice is not always done. You have not to look merely at the unfortunate position of the illegitimate children, because those evils will continue to exist. May I also point out that this Bill will only touch with of our illegitimate children in England. It deals only with a very small portion of them, and unless you mean to say that you are going to abolish the whole difference between legitimate and illegitimate children the continual pressure of this upon illegitimate children is neither a judicial nor a fair way to look at it. You have not to look at this question from the point of view of the few you will be able to help, but from a much wider point of view. You have to look at it from the point of view of the social conditions of life, the marriage laws, and the whole of our social life in England.

I cannot emphasise too strongly the fact that the whole basis of society in England is the family and marriage. That is the basis of the whole of our society at the present time.

This House of Commons has weakened it on more than one occasion, and now that you have made divorce law more easy you have to move more carefully. If you want a reform, I should be very anxious to make marriage a little harder and divorce a great deal harder. At present, marriage is being run into without any previous calculation of its consequence and that possibly is an evil, but easy divorce is certainly a greater evil. What do you propose to do here? I am sorry to say that it has been said in another place that it is quite useless to deal with the question of any sanction when you are dealing with the case of people who have committed adultery, because you are dealing with people who commit adultery because they are carried away by passion or by want of restraint. That may be so in some cases, and especially so in the case of young people, but the argument comes strangely from people who are always pressing Criminal Law Amendment Bills and similar matters, the whole point of which is that passion can be restrained by fear of consequences. As a matter of fact; it is not true that adultery is never committed without thought as to its possible consequences. I have known cases where adultery has been a very calculated act and where every result has been thought out. If hon. Members have any doubt about that, let them take the number of cases in which women commit adultery in the full expectation that the husband will, when she commits adultery, be divorced, and that they will marry afterwards. It is a consideration which salves the conscience of the woman. You are going to add tremendously to that temptation. At present what does deter her is the risk of having illegitimate children. If you pass the Bill in its present form, they will first of all have the knowledge that all that will be put right if the wife can be persuaded to divorce the husband.

But leave out that argument and assume that people never calculate before they commit adultery and that people do it recklessly, and take the case where a woman is in love with a married man and has taken him away from his wife. What do you think will be the pressure brought to bear upon the man to get his wife to divorce him? They give the wife the evidence and press her that the least her husband can do is to legitimatise the child. We shall hear of the awful position of the illegitimate child if the wife does not give up her husband, and, that being so, if she cares for humanity or even for her husband there will be pressure upon her to give her husband the release which he requires. Take it a step further than that. After all, you must deal with human nature as it is and with people as you know them and see them. Take the case of a man who is married to a woman and is very anxious indeed that there should be issue of the marriage, it may be for property or any other reason you like. He has always been anxious to have a child and there is no child. He commits adultery and a child is born. Will there not be a tremendous temptation to him to legitimatise the child if he possibly can? He has an illegitimate child and the wife is fond of it and has no children of her own. Will there not be strong pressure on that woman and might she not be induced to give her husband his freedom so that his child might be legitimised and there might be a descendant to follow his father? Is it right that that should happen? Is that the reason for the introduction of the Bill? I submit that it is not. I submit that the real basis of this Bill is that you are to deal, perfectly rightly, with single people who have an illegitimate child. They should have the opportunity of marrying at a subsequent period and thus legitimitise the child. I do not think the promoters ever intended to apply the Bill to cases of this kind where at the time of the child's birth the parents could not be married. In that case you are simply dealing with the child which is the result of adulterous intercourse. You may think the last difficulty I am going to put is far-fetched. I have thus far spoken about cases which have come before me in the course of a great many years, I think forty years, that I have been practising in the Court which has primarily to deal with these matters. There is this case which might arise. You have a man and a woman who are married and have children born of the marriage. The wife has been friendly with another man. The husband dies, and she marries the other man.

On a point of Order. May I ask whether the Mover of this Bill is quite in order. The Bill was presented to the House by Lieut.-Colonel Campion, who is no longer a Member of the House. It was backed by Sir A. Shirley Benn, Captain Viscount Curzon, Colonel Court-hope, and Lieut. Colonel Windsor-Clive. During the whole introductory speech of the Mover he has used arguments against the Bill, and I want to know what exactly is the position.

The right hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson) is moving a new Clause; he is not moving the Bill. I understand that the hon. and gallant Member for Buckingham (Captain Bowyer) is in charge of the Bill, but the Bill is the property of the House.

I am always glad when some part of my speech is appreciated. I am not in favour of the Bill in its present form, and, if the hon. Member will look at the Order Paper, he will see my new Clause.

The introductory speech is usually much longer than 10 minutes.

The new Clause which I am moving is:

"Nothing in this Act shall operate to legitimate a person whose father or mother was married to a third person when the illegitimate person was born."

It is certainly a restriction of the Bill, and my argument has been that the Bill in its present form is objectionable, because it goes too far. I am seeking to restrict it to this extent to exclude any child who is born as the result of adulterous intercourse. I was going back, when I was interrupted, to a point which may or may not be too far fetched, to a case where you have a husband and wife with children born during their marriage. The wife is friendly at the same time with another man. The husband dies, and she marries the other man. Probably the man is well off, and some of the children which have been born during the time of wedlock are sought to be made children of the second husband. It could either be done by the second husband, or by the mother, or by proceedings taken on behalf of the children. This subject has been discussed before, and the question is how far parents can bastardise their offspring. The point has given rise to a considerable amount of trouble. If it is possible to prove that children born under these circumstances and thought to be legitimate are really illegitimate and can be made legitimate, then that is a case which might give rise to very objectionable inquiry and a great deal of trouble.

I have put quite broadly the reasons why I object to this Bill legitimising children who are the result of adulterous intercourse. I want to, put it broadly. You have here a Bill which is meant to assimilate the law of England to a certain extent with the law of Scotland. We have had many years' experience of the working of the Scottish law, and it has never been sought to extend it in this way in Scotland, by applying it to the case of children born in adultery. In the majority of cases, no doubt, that point does not arise, but this must lead to a considerable amount of danger. The number of children affected would probably be comparatively small, but the evil results of trying to pass a Bill in this form would very likely soon arouse public opinion against the Measure, and there would be a good many people who would far sooner that the Bill did not go through at all than allow it to pass without such a Clause as that which I am proposing. It would, indeed, be an extraordinarily mischievous thing to pass such a Bill, for it would make the Measure exceedingly dangerous to married life, instead of being a thoroughly useful and deserving piece of legislation. Hon. Members would be doing an enormous amount of harm by passing the Bill in its present form, and I hope very strongly that the House will support my proposal in the interests of national life and morality generally.

I also was a member of the Committee which dealt with this Bill and I rise to oppose this Amendment. I do not propose to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson) in the first part of his speech dealing with the ecclesiastical view of this question. I think that that was wholly irrelevant, for in whatever way one looks at it, even to the extent the right hon. and learned Gentleman is prepared to go, it is a departure from ecclesiastical law and also a departure from the logical rule that legality cannot spring out of an illegal union. The Bill has been introduced for this reason only, that to-day we concern ourselves less with the catchwords of the past than with the common sense of the present. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has also said that this Bill ought not to go further than he would carry it, because that is the Scottish law. No doubt a great number of good things come from Scotland, but I do not think this is one of them. At the time that Scotland introduced its view of the law it was far in advance of English thought, but I think both we in this country and the people of Scotland are now in advance even of Scottish opinion at that period. Scotland in fact ought now to go a little bit further still. The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of the hard lot of the illegitimate child, and suggested that we ought to be somewhat humanely illogical for the sake of that child and that we ought to condone fornication where it is followed by subsequent marriage, but, that we ought not to go so far as to condone adultery. The difference between adultery and fornication is, I take it, that adultery is a civil breach of duty on the part of one spouse to the other. The real objection to the Bill is that by giving recognition to an unmarried union you strike a blow at the marriage institution, and this is a proposal to strike that blow where the union has been one of fornication and not to strike it when the union has been one of a small superadded offence—a breach of duty, the real offence against society being the failure to recognise the marriage law. When that failure occurs, the offence is no greater as regards society where it is an adulterous union than where it is mere fornication. The difference in the case of adultery is that there is a breach of a particular duty of the wife to the husband or of the husband to the wife.

And to society generally.

I do not see that society is injured very much more, and I regard the distinction as really swallowing the camel and straining at the gnat.

Is the hon. and learned Member speaking entirely apart from his own theological views in this matter?

I am not speaking from a theological point of view at all. I know very little about theology.

Does the hon. and learned Member really suggest from his legal knowledge that there is no distinction between adultery in the case of a married woman and fornication in the case of an unmarried woman?

I never said anything of the kind. Of course, there is the greatest distinction in the world. What I was saying was this—and it touches neither law nor theology—that the reason why society insists so strongly upon persons being married before the birth of children is that the whole basis of the marriage law is maintained by penalising those who have children and are not married. Therefore, I say that, when you are going to remove that penalty from parents who have illegitimate children when they are free to marry, it is only going a very little way further to say that you will remove the penalty from children, equally innocent, of parents who are not in a position to marry. The hon. Member used a few special arguments which I confess I found it hard to follow, but I shall try and put them as they appear to me. The first was this: He says that without the proviso the effect of this Bill will be to encourage divorce, and, as I understood it, he put it in this way. Suppose, he said, a married couple, and the man has a mistress. At the present time he would say, "I remain faithful to my wife because there is no use"——

How can he be faithful if he has a mistress?

I am putting the case that the hon. Member put. The man would say, "I will remain with my wife. I will not break up the home, because, by going to my mistress and getting a divorce, my child, if I had one by her, would still be illegitimate. Therefore, I will not go." But as the Bill now stands, he says, the temptation would be to say, "I will now break up my home; I will now go to my mistress, because then, if there is offspring, it will be legitimate." Does the hon. Member, or do any hon. Members who know anything about the world at all, think that a man who stays with his wife now, though he has a mistress with an illegitimate child, would break up his home and go to that mistress merely because he thought that if there were a child it would be legitimate? He stays with his wife now probably because he likes her better, or because he is afraid of business or social stigma, and these considerations will be equally applicable whether the proviso is in the Bill or not.

Another of the arguments used by the hon. Member that I did not quite under- stand was that it would add to immorality. His idea is that women at the present moment do not yield because they feel that if they did there might be an illegitimate child, and that it would remain illegitimate; and the hon. Member's argument is as to what would happen if they were told, as the Bill now tells them, "Even though you have an illegitimate child, the father of it may get a divorce, or his wife may die, and in the course of time he may marry you, and then your child will be legitimate." Does any person with a knowledge of human nature seriously believe that there is one woman in this world who, at a moment when passion was at its highest and judgment at its lowest, would go through that process of ratiocination?

Sometimes it is deliberate scheming.

I will not argue on that.

I can assure the hon. and learned Member that, from personal experience, I know of such cases.

I suggest that is far-fetched in the. last degree to say that any woman, finding herself tempted, would yield where she now abstains, because she knew the law and because she thought, "Oh, it is safe to yield because, although the man is married, there may be a divorce, or his wife may die, and he may in the future marry me, and then, if there is a child, it will be legitimate." To my mind it is perfectly ludicrous to suggest that any such thoughts would operate in a woman's mind at such a moment. The general view that I myself have formed on this subject is that, so far from the Bill, as the hon. Member would have it, being of any use if the proviso were put in, it would do more harm than good, and I will tell the House why. After all, there are three general methods by which an illegitimate child may come into the world. There is, first, promiscuous intercourse; there is, secondly, what, for want of a better name, I will call the "walking-out" intercourse; and, thirdly, there is the intercourse to which the hon. Member referred, where there is an impediment in the way of marriage. With reference to promiscuous intercourse, the Bill is useless. These people do not meet again, or very rarely; very often they do not know one another's names. When the event is over they have parted for ever——

And the woman pays.

The woman pays. Take the second case, the "walking-out" case. The young man and his girl go out, passion wins, and illegitimacy occurs. As the law now stands, what happens? The young man is probably in love with the girl; he recognises her condition; he means well he says, "Well, I want a rise in wages, I am waiting to fall into some money; I cannot do it now," but he intends to. There is an urgency at the present moment brought to bear upon him. The sentiment is present; the woman's growing condition puts immense pressure upon him; the period within which he can do the right thing and make her an honest woman is limited; and the effect of that urgency is that in many cases the desired result is brought about. But when the Bill—any form of Bill; I draw no distinction between my hon. Friend's Amendment and the Bill itself—says, as regards that class of persons. "There is no fixed period; you can do the right thing within months or years," all urgency goes; the Devil's advocate comes upon the scene, and says, "Give me a little more time." The urgent condition of the woman has passed away; love goes; familiarity breeds different thoughts; new men may come upon the scene; and the result of extending the period will be that there is a great addition to the tendency for marriages not to follow upon these illegitimate unions. Therefore, I say that in the first class of cases I have mentioned it would do no good; and in the second it would, if anything do more harm than good. The only class that renders this Bill worth having at all is the third class. Who are they? The third class are those people—men or women—where the husband is, perhaps, in goal, where the husband or wife is a lunatic or a drunkard, where there is incompatibility of temper such as renders it impossible for them to live together. Under these circumstances, illegal unions are contracted, children are born and brought up respectably, ignorant of the absence of the legal tie, cared for in all respects as if the tie was there, the parents waiting for the happening of the event which will enable them to give a legal bond to what is an actual bond. This is the class of case in which this Bill will do good. There you protect the very class that calls for all our sympathy, children brought up not knowing the secret stigma that is upon them, cared for by the man and woman as if they were their own, but unfortunately unable to take their place in society as recognised members of it. These are the class out of which nearly all the heart rending instances I have heard of illegitimate children are taken and why they should be excluded is to me wholly inexplicable—excluded not upon any utilitarian or expedient ground, not upon any common-sense ground but upon some twisting of ecclesiastical law, and the hon. and learned Gentleman probably knows better than I do that there was greater latitude in the early ecclesiastical days than there is now. In his Amendment the hon. and learned Gentleman says, unless the child was born at the time of the union. Why? If the objection is to recognising adulterous offspring, may not the child be born when the parents are free to marry and still be adulterously conceived? Why make the date the birth of the child?

The reason I am putting it as the birth of the child is that it is very easy to prove. The other is almost impossible. That is the reason I put it in the less extended form, which many people say is the law of Scotland, though there is some doubt on the point.

The hon. and learned Gentleman agrees with me, I take it, that it is wholly illogical, and I suppose he further agrees that it knocks the bottom out of his argument based upon adulterous intercourse.

I am afraid it does not in the least.

If the reason for not legitimising the child is that it was the offspring of an adulterous union he himself puts into his Amendment the date of the birth, which is perfectly consistent with the child being the child of adultery. For these reasons I certainly think the Bill ought to be as it now stands. We have long, I hope, got past the time when our views of what is humane and proper are to be affected by any precedent dug up from an archaic view of the relations of men and women. I am as strongly in favour of maintaining the sanctity of marriage as my hon. and learned Friend, not on any ecclesiastical grounds, but on purely practical grounds. Civil society could not be carried on without it. But if you wish to remove the stigma that attaches to a wholly innocent person, the child, I can see no reason in the world why the stigma should remain upon a child equally innocent, because the wrong done by its parents was fornication plus breach of union, and you do not attach the stigma because the wrong done by the parents was merely fornication without breach of union. If you go as far as the hon. and learned Gentleman you ought to go the whole way, particularly when he stops just short of the point which would render this a useful Bill. Give him all that his Amendment would cover and what do you get? You get the illegitimate children of these promiscuous unions where there is never marriage; you get the illegitimate children of the young man or girl making love, where, so far from the Bill encouraging these people to marry, it would say to them, "There is time enough." The terribly short time of a few months is gone and is extended for years. So far from bringing about marriages it would really work the other way. The only class to which it will be of real advantage is the class we have all come in contact with—couples living together, perhaps thought by society to be married, and who are prevented from making legitimate their children when they are only too willing and anxious to do it. For these reasons I oppose the Amendment.

May I say, first of all, how strongly I support the main provision of the Bill, the aim of which is to legitimise the children of parents who were free to marry at the time of their birth. Equally earnestly I wish to support the proposed additional Clause. But I wish to make clear how very much I regret that in taking this action I should unavoidably be doing something which will undoubtedly prejudice the interests in life of those children whom the Clause proposes to deprive of the benefits of the Bill. I would gladly see every illegitimate child given the benefits of legitimisation if it were possible to do so without destroying other things which I regard as absolutely indispensable to the welfare of the country. We can hardly have a clearer instance of how dangerous it is to pursue a sectional aim in legislation. If ever a sectional aim, that is to say an aim which seeks to benefit one section only of the community, is justifiable, such an aim unquestionably would be the welfare of children. One could not have an aim which would make a wider appeal. But I hold that it is never possible to pursue a sectional aim blindly or to the utmost possible without sooner or later finding oneself in conflict with some other interest that in equally vital to the welfare of the community or some indispensible institution, and in this case, if we pursue this sectional aim of a desire to help all illegitimate children regardless of the consequences, we find ourselves brought into conflict with the absolutely vital institution of marriage.

I am sure it will be common ground that there is no stronger motive in human nature, in men and women alike, than the love of children, and it seems to me that it is unquestionable that in many cases where a marriage has been childless the temptation to infidelity which this Bill, as it stands, would create, would in many cases be irresistible. Then, if the husband, say, has yielded to the temptation and has been unfaithful to his wife and has a child by another woman, under this Bill it is open to him to tell his wife that he has this child, and I ask the House to imagine the position in which the wife finds herself. I hope every wife, under these circumstances, would wish to see her husband make the most adequate and generous provision possible for the child and its mother, but the wife would be in the awful position of knowing that it will rest with her to say whether that child is to go through life under the handicap of illegitimacy, or whether it is to be legitimatised at the cost of breaking up her married life. I do not wish to suggest that I think marriages should never be brought to an end. When the marriage has clearly been proved a hopeless failure, I think it is right that the parties should be divorced, but I am certain that in the general opinion of this House we do not want to take any risk of multiplying divorces caused by infidelity. Surely we all recognise, or many of us recognise, that it is reasonable to release a man or a woman whose partner, as the hon. and learned Member for South Shields (Mr. Harney) said, is an incurable lunatic or an incorrigible drunkard, but we do not wish to add to the divorces that have been caused by infidelity. We want to see marriage made the greatest possible success; we want to see husbands and wives doing their utmost to pull together through difficult times as well as through easy times, giving and taking and forbearing, forgiving even infidelity, so long as the forgiving partner can feel sure that there is still real affection on the other side and that he or she still has an influence over the other partner that will help to lift that partner over similar temptations in the future, and that there is a real desire on the part of the other partner to be faithful in future.

Under the circumstances I have suggested, the husband, instead of going to his wife conscious that he has done her a great wrong and asking her forgiveness, determining that he will try to be faithful in future, will go with the strongest possible inducement to urge his wife to divorce him, and one can well imagine that in many cases the husband may be tempted to make his wife's life intolerable until she consents to do so. On the side of the wife, the more generous her nature the more difficult she will find it to resist her husband's wish. She might still feel that he really cares for her. She might be confident that her influence was still stronger than that of the other woman and that she has the power to help him to lead a stronger and better life in the future, but she will know that by refusing what he asks, she is leaving on his child the stain of illegitimacy. She will be put in an intolerable position.

In regard to the question of date raised by the hon. Member for South Shields, I concur with him so far that I would have preferred that the earner date should have been inserted, but I recognise what my right hon. Friend has said in regard to the difficulty of proof, and further, that it is always possible that the child may not be born alive. Therefore, I think the Clause as it stands is in the most practicable form. Otherwise, I can see that even under the Clause as it stands, many wives might be put in a very difficult position before the birth of the child.

Without this Clause I regard this Bill as dealing a deadly blow at marriage. It will, I fear, tend to break up many homes, and will tend to encourage a lower conception of marriage, to make people forget that marriage is not merely a social convenience for the perpetuation of the race, but also a spiritual partnership into which husband and wife enter for better or worse. I can hardly imagine anything more dangerous to the morality of this country, particularly of young men and young women who have not yet entered upon marriage, than that the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for South Shields should be accepted, that it is a small thing to break the marriage vow. Those were not exactly the words used by the hon. and learned Member—

I did not use those words, and I think the House will agree that I did not use them. I went so far as to say that I did not yield in my regard for the sanctity of marriage.

I was very relieved to hear the hon. and learned Member close in that way, but if he did not use this identical phrase, I think I am right in saying that he twice used the adjective "small" in referring to, this particular offence. If the hon. and learned Member admits that it is a sin against society, he must also take the point of view that it is a sin against the partner in marriage. There is no more solemn covenant that man and woman can enter into than the vows they take on their marriage day, and I hold that if this Bill passes into law without the Clause it will strike a deadly blow at marriage. I also feel that it will have a very degrading effect upon the status of women, because in too many cases there will be a tendency to regard the wife's value as depending mainly upon whether or not she has been blessed with children. Short of a declaration by Parliament in favour of a system of polygamy, I can imagine no Measure more calculated to degrade the status of woman than this Bill, if it passes into law without this additional Clause.

I therefore appeal most earnestly to hon. Members opposite not to be carried away by the sympathy which I know they feel for the illegitimate child, the hard cases that they may know of children who may be affected by this Clause, cases which I think were more numerous during the War than in normal times. Unquestionably, more children were born in this way during the War than in ordinary times. We do not come here to legislate for the hard cases, cases which we all desire most whole-heartedly to help, but we are here to legislate on principle and to take into consideration motives that are fundamental and therefore almost universal in human nature, and, therefore, we must try to visualise how these motives will operate under the circumstances that will be created by this Bill. I do most earnestly appeal to the House not to ignore the great fundamental issues raised by this Bill and to refuse to let it become law without the addition of this Clause.

I have not only listened with the greatest respect to those hon. Members, and especially to my Noble Friend, who have spoken in favour of this proviso, but I go much further and say that I recognise that they have voiced their views feeling as they do on this subject with the very deepest conviction, and I beg of them the same courtesy when take exactly the opposite view. I would beg hon. Members not to confuse this debate, as at one period in another place in a Bill practically similar to this and on this very Amendment it was confused by bringing in such arguments as that this Bill Without that proviso would be tantamount to legalising free love and increasing divorce. I hope that, before I finish, I shall be able to show that this is not a matter which threatens the tie of marriage which I For one look upon as solemnly as anybody else as the very basis of our society but is a Measure which, if passed in the Form in which I want it passed, will do justice at long last to a section of the community who for 350 years never have had justice meted out to them.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson) said that it was fatal to look at this matter from one point of view only, the point of view of the child. I quite agree. I am not only going to make a plea on behalf of the child but I am going to meet all his arguments, to see whether there is anything in them. My right hon. Friend said that comparatively few children will benefit. That is a matter on which one can have an opinion but there can be no proof. But it is certain that if this proviso is inserted in the Bill many fewer children will get the benefit. The main consideration is the point of view of the child. The death-rate among illegitimate children in the country to-day is twice as high as it is among those born in wedlock, and if the country wishes a social stigma to be borne in this matter I submit that the social stigma should be borne, if at all, by the parents who alone are responsible and should not be borne by the one innocent party in the whole matter, that is the child. Is the parent, who after all has been responsible for the child coming into the world, stopped from legalising his or her position? Ex hypothesi no parents except those who did marry, and thereby have been able to regularise their position, come under the Bill at all. What the House will be doing by this proviso is that it will be saying." It is true that we have let the parents who have done the deed regularise their position but we are not going to let the child have its position regularised because of its parents' fault."

There is another aspect. What is it that the child has done who has been born as the result of an adulterous intercourse, which places him in a different category from the child which has been born out of wedlock by the irregular relations of unmarried people? I would never go as far as the hon. and learned Member for South Shields who seemed to try to draw a distinction and to measure that distinction between adultery and fornication. That is not my task. What I say is that the child in each case is equally innocent, and it is utterly false to suggest, as has been suggested, not only to-day, but in another place on the 6th of March, that unless this proviso is inserted this Bill will lead to more adultery and more divorce. Take the strongest argument that has yet been advanced against the Bill, and in favour of this provison. I repeat shortly the argument which was used by no less a person that the Right Reverend the Lord Primate, Archbishop of Canterbury, when talking on this Amendment in another place. He said that to say, when a man or a woman is led into adultery that it is because of the desire to produce children is not right. It is passion that governs them. He took the case of a man and woman who are married, and the man is unfaithful and has a mistress, and children are born by the mistress but the wife has no children. Now the argument of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of my Noble Friend behind, is that that places the wife in an impossible position. Relations will come to her and say "You must divorce your husband and let him marry the other woman and so legitimise the children." Surely that argument falls to the ground on two considerations. Has any hon. Member ever known of such a case?

Never!

Never! Nor did a single Noble Lord in another place when challenged rise in his place to say that he had. But there is a much better argument. If a man were in that position, and did have children, not by his wife, but by his mistress, is there a man living who would tell his wife? I cannot imagine the man living who could use the fact that he has got children by another woman to go to his wife himself, or to get anybody else to go and say, "You must let us be divorced in order that I may marry the other woman." If the case for this proviso rests on a fanciful structure like that then, I think, that the argument for the proviso being left out of the Bill cannot be answered. That is the strongest case which has been brought forward by what I may call the strongest advocate, not against the Bill, but against the Bill being passed without this proviso being inserted.

Surely the hon. Member will not deny that it will be an inducement, if this Bill pass without the proviso, for any unmarried woman, or any woman for than matter, to commit adultery with a married man and so to separate him from his wife and children.

I find it rather difficult to follow what my hon. Friend has just put to me. I propose to take two other things which were quoted by the right hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson). His second case was that of the married man with no heir and with an illegitimate child. I submit that so far from this conducing to divorce, as a matter of fact those of us who are in favour of the proviso being left out say that it will have no effect at all upon divorce. The wife of the man can stop, and ought to stop always, if she agrees with the views of many of us who are against increased facilities for divorce—she ought to stop always the divorcing of herself by her husband either for the sake of legitimating the children or the marrying of the other woman.

What self-respecting woman would do that?

Each woman is to judge for herself. Any woman who is against divorce, and loves her husband, it seems to me from my knowledge of women—I am not a woman, and, therefore, I must how to my hon. Friend in this matter—would be guided in her action, and I will state what I think would be the impulse of a woman. Take the case of a woman who finds that there is another woman in the picture. Does the experience of life show that there is the best of feelings between two such women? Is the one woman who loves her husband likely to make it easy for her husband to go off with the other woman? No. If is in the wife's hands to keep her marriage sanctified, at least as regards herself and her own share in the partnership, and to say, "I have been loyal to you; it is your fault that you have not been loyal to me, but at least I will see that you do not divorce me, and put me in the wrong too."

Then the hon. and gallant Gentleman says he believes it is right for any self-respecting wife to allow her husband to have children by another woman, and to sanction that. I would like to know what the hon. Gentleman's wife thinks of that?

That statement is such a travesty of what I either said or meant that I will not waste the time of the House by answering it. Let me sum up the arguments in favour of this proviso. There are seven arguments, and five of them have been mentioned. Let me put the case as black as possible against myself and in favour of the proviso, and remind the House of what the arguments are as they have been used, not only in this House, but in another place and elsewhere. First of all, it is said that it will bring the law of England and Scotland into line. That is not true. May I mention that in a Whip which was sent to me—I presume that others have received it—there are two statements, one of which is absolutely false and the other a grave representation. For instance, it says:

"An Amendment will be moved to restore words omitted in Committee."

These words were never in the Bill from the start. Then how can they have been omitted in Committee? The right hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University moved the insertion of this proviso in Committee. I do not know whether he wishes to explain.

I am not responsible in any way for that document.

I am surprised that those who are acting with my right hon. and learned Friend——

I am in no way responsible for that document. Its meaning is perfectly simple. The Clause was in the Bill last year, and I have no doubt that the person who drew up that petition was trying to put the Bill back into the position in which it was last year.

The responsibility is mine, and mine alone. I am sure that the hon. and gallant Member will not charge me with any deliberate perversion of the truth. [Interruption.] If hon. Members opposite do charge me with that, I had better reserve what. I have to say.

Of course I do not make any charge against the hon. and learned Gentleman. If the Bill had been brought in, with the proviso in it on Second Reading, and upstairs in Committee the proviso had been removed, the case for putting the proviso back again would be enormously strengthened. As a matter of fact, this Bill did not contain the proviso on Second Reading, or when the Bill reached the Committee stage, and, of course, it does not contain it to-day.

Last year the House of Commons passed it with that in.

Take the second statement in the Whip. It is to the effect that the Amendment would make English and Scottish law alike. My first statement is that there is no man alive to-day who will get up and say with certainty what the law of Scotland is. Already in this House we have had two versions of what it is. Let me go further. In this matter I am reinforced by the opinion of no less a person than the present Lord Chancellor, who, on 6th March, explained in another place that in fact the Statute Law of Scotland, which dates back to 1660, expressly contains the proviso that the guilty party shall never marry, and the Statute Law of Scotland in fact allows no legitimation by subsequent marriage because the guilty parties are not to marry. That is much the fairer way of looking at it. You say: "We are to punish the people guilty of adultery by not allowing them to marry." What have the Scottish judges done? They have got out of this proviso, which is still embodied in the Statute, by not naming in the proceedings "the guilty paramour." it is only by a subterfuge that in Scotland they have had this legitimation by subsequent marriage. For my hon. Friend to say that one of the strongest arguments in favour of the proviso is that it will assimilate the law of England to that of Scotland falls utterly to the ground when the true facts are known.

It still remains curious to me why either on this matter or any other matter the law North of the Tweed should necessarily be the same as the law South of the Tweed. In some cases we have a better law in England than in Scotland, and in many cases the reverse is the truth. It was said in another place that no other country, no other Dominion in the world, has a Bill without such a proviso as this. The Duke of Atholl in another place said that no other country in the world would have a Bill like this without the proviso. West Australia has an Act without any such proviso. So have Queensland, Tasmania, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and, last but not least, New Zealand. The case of New Zealand is particularly interesting, because in the year 1908 they passed a Legitimacy Act, Section 4 of which was as follows:

"Nothing in this Act shall have the effect of legitimating any child, if at the time of the birth of such child there existed any legal impediment to the inter-marriage of the parents of such child"

Those words are analogous to, even similar to the terms of the proposed new Clause, but what happened in 1921? After 13 years' experience of such a provision, Section 4 was repealed and in New Zealand since 1921 this provision, having been tried and found a failure, has been swept out of the Act and the remainder of the Act left intact. It cannot be put forward as an argument that we should assimilate the law of England with the law of Scotland, when the law of Scotland is precisely the reverse of what my hon. and learned Friend would have the House to believe and to say, in the second place, that there is no other place which has ever dared to pass a Bill like this without such a proviso, is its I have shown, grotesquely untrue. I am in this difficulty. At this time last year when the Bill went through the House I was forced to agree to the insertion of this Clause because my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Central Bristol (Sir T. Inskip), who was then Solicitor-General, held a pistol at my head and said, "Unless you accept this Clause, your Bill is dead."

This is a serious matter and those of us who are in favour of the Bill are serious. We do not want to make divorce easier and we do not think we are going to make divorce easier. We do not wish to lend ourselves to making adultery more attractive or more frequent but we believe we are acting justly in this matter, looking at it not only from the point of view of the child but from the point of view of Society as a whole. As a private Member, I have no advisers and am entirely dependant upon the House of Commons but I submit to those who think there is not much case for the proposed new Clause that they should help to give us to-day a good majority in favour of leaving out the Clause for this great reason. In Committee, upstairs it was left out by 30 votes to 4 which was a good enough majority. In another place, in Lord Buckmaster's Bill, a similar provision was inserted by 70 votes as against 15 or 17. I want the elected representatives of the people to pronounce upon the matter to-day. [Hon. MEMBERS: "Come over here."] I say so because I have in mind a sentence from the debate in another place which was to the effect that if the people of the country were asked, they would vote almost unanimously against the Bill without this addition. Let us test the matter. Here are the representatives of the people.

Only about three score of them.

I hope we are all going to look at this matter from the point of view of the child, first and foremost, in order to see that justice is done at long last. I beg to oppose this Amendment and I hope the House will refuse to accept it.

I feel I am only voicing the feelings of everyone in the House when I express our deep sense of gratitude to the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken, not only for his most admirable speech, but for the almost exceptionally high tone which he has imparted to the discussion. None of us can do better than to follow him in regard to the aspect of the case with which he has dealt because, after all, whether we speak by way of interruption or in considered contribution to the Debate, we should all keep in mind the interests of those who have never had a chance of speaking for themselves and who never will have that chance We should have regard to the children. We should have regard to the unborn children and to the children who in this country have always been stigmatised with the high-sounding expression "bastard." I take rather a different view from many Members with regard to that matter. Never in my life have I thought any the better or any the worse of a man or woman of a boy or girl because they were illegitimate. There is no greater insult that one man can use to another than to call him a bastard, and no man or woman who has ever suffered from the stigma in their childhood will fail to remember it. They will never fail to remember how even at school those children who knew it, pointed at them with scorn, and probably the mere fact of never having had a father at all is one of the greatest disadvantages any boy or girl could undergo.

We must all realise that, in the main, this Bill is on behalf of those illegitimate children, and as far as I know only one point has been urged in favour of this new Clause. That is the argument which I may describe as the argument of the sanctity of the marriage tie. I am sine nobody is going to say a single word which would in the remotest degree seem to suggest that the sanctity of the marriage tie is not held sacred by everybody in the House. At the same time, we must realise what we mean. We know there are nations beyond the seas who frequently regard us as a nation of hypocrites. It is suggested that a Bill of this sort is going to impair the sanctity of the marriage tie. I confess I was shocked by the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend who moved the Amendment. Let me remind the House of the two cases which he put to us—and remember he was supporting the sanctity of the marriage tie. One was the case of a man who committed adultery and had a child. If such a man tries to do anything he could for that child, or for the woman, is it suggested that he is violating the sanctity of the marriage tie? If he does nothing but break his vows, which are supposed to be held so sacred, then are we to infer there is nothing to violate the sanctity of the marriage tie? Suppose he has a mistress in the next street with a family, but that he does not get his own wife to divorce him. The right hon. and learned Gentleman apparently said nothing against a case of that sort.

I ask the House what difference is there between a man who has a mistress with a family in another street, but who goes back and lives with his wife, and a man who has a mistress and who says, "I am devoted to this woman and I am devoted to my child, and want a chance of making the child a happy child and the woman a happy wife." What is the difference between them? Is the marriage tie held more sacred by the man who flaunts his mistresses openly as we all know people are doing to-day? We all know the names of people who are known to all of us who have mistresses and who have children suffering from those drawbacks which I have indicated and stigmatised as bastards. Are we to be told, forsooth, that these men have preserved the sanctity of the marriage tie? They are seen to go about with their wives and there is no open scandal. Will anyone say that the man who is doing that has preserved the sanctity of the marriage tie better than the other man whose case we are discussing?

The sanctity of the marriage tie, I am sure, everyone in the Rouse thinks and believes depends upon the affection of the husband for the wife and of the wife for the husband. There is nothing else in the sanctity of the marriage tie, that is really at the bottom of it. I see my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson) smile. Is he really going to tell the House that he considers that it is worth preserving the sanctity of a tie which is flaunted in the way I have described, to the whole world, as we know it is? I do not want to introduce any heat into the Debate. I know the hon. lady the Member for Berwick, who interrupted the previous speaker, believes——

I understood the hon. and gallant Gentleman to say that a wife married would condone her husband having children by another woman, living in another street, and would not divorce him. What I said was that no self-respecting woman would not divorce her husband if he was living with another woman, openly, and having children, and she knew it.

I should entirely agree with the hon. Lady. I do not believe any of the ladies in this House, married women, would get up in their places and say that they want to preserve the state of affairs which the hon. bachelor has introduced to our notice. I do not believe there is one who would get up and say that under circumstances of that sort "I want to sacrifice the children." Surely the only danger there is in this Bill is that something shall be put into it by pettifogging Amendments really to do a great deal to cut away the merits it is intended to preserve. Personally, I could never go back from my place in this House feeling that I had acted honestly to these unborn children if I had not registered a vote against an Amendment which was going for all time to cut them out of the benefit of this Bill, merely because of a suggestion that if a man who leaves his wife for a mistress, presumably without affection for the mistress, merely because he has got an unwanted, illegitimate child by her, it is going to wreck what is called, I presume, a happy home. Those cases in real life do not happen. I have practised in the same Courts as my right hon. and learned Friend.

Not so long as I.

Quite long enough, I can assure him, to have seen hundreds of homes broken up in the Divorce Court, and I can assure the House, from my experience, that the class of case which he has in mind has never existed, and has never come within my knowledge, and surely we are not going to ruin the lives of hundreds and thousands of children merely because, in some day to come, the right hon. and learned Member may be able to say, "At last I have found the one ease which I urged before the House of Commons." I sincerely hope there is not one single Member in this House who will go into the Lobby against what I believe to be the future happiness of all these children.

Nobody will dispute the high intentions of those who have brought in this Bill, but nobody, of course, will ever dispute the good intentions of those who endeavour to help any unlucky class, particularly a class of which it may be said that their unhappiness proceeds, not from any crime of their own, but from a crime of their parents. It appeals, of course, to all humanitarian instincts, but I am endeavouring to take the House a little away from the overpowering humanitarian instincts and towards the results that may sometimes accrue from the following of these great sweeping ideas of righting wrong. There are sometimes cases where an endeavour to right a wrong produces a very much larger wrong on the other side. I first wish to say that the hon. and learned Member for South Shields (Mr. Harney) spoke as if he were a French lawyer addressing a French jury, attributing all these happy cases to the results of over-powering passion. He said there were no deliberate cases where an illegitimate child has come into existence, not by mutual passion, but by deliberate, wicked, scheming endeavours on the part of one of the parents to compromise the other. It is not a question of mathematics, but of facts, and such cases do exist. The hon. and learned Member for South Shields may have certain experiences, but so have I. I happen, during one year of my life to be in moral charge of 4,000 young men, between 19 and 25 years of age, and I can assure him, from my personal knowledge, that there are clear cases where abandoned women have deliberately laid themselves out to catch and to seduce young men in order that they may lay at their feet an illegitimate child, and say, "You ought to marry me." That occurs in all ranks of life. Who does not know it, and who will dare to say that all illegitimate children come into existence by the mere passion of the two parents, as if one was saying to a French jury, "Le crime passionnel, c'est plus fort que moi." That is not by any means the case.

What about the man?

The man is entirely and hopelessly to be blamed; he is merely a young fool, but he should be punished. I wish to take away this plea of "le crime passionel." It is certain, in many cases where the woman is the seducer, that she will make a deliberate attempt to blackmail the man in order that he may legitimate the child, or, if she cannot get marriage, she will try to get some large pecuniary compensation. So it is not passion which is responsible for all the illegitimate children. The second point that I want to make is this: What is this stigma which has been talked of with a sob in the voice by several hon. Members, both by the Attorney-General and by the hon. and learned Member for South Shields? What is this stigma on the illegitimate child? In the ancient days we know that in New England people had to go about with large red letters on their breasts, as those who have read a well-known novel will remember, when they had been guilty of immoral conduct, but this was in the 17th century. The stigma now is not anything which can be publicly seen. It is the knowledge of certain facts by the neighbourhood. Can the right hon. Gentleman or the hon. and learned Member refuse to say that persons labouring under this supposed disability of illegitimacy have not risen to the very highest positions? A British Army has been commanded by one whose father and mother were never married, and never could be. There is no stigma to prevent a person of ability rising. In many cases of this unhappy class, it is because the child of an adulterer and prostitute is likely to be rather C3 than the highest class of child, that he or she fails to justify their existence. I do not see, therefore, this stigma as an external fact that can be removed. When resolved into a definite grievance, I find on reading this Bill, it is a wretched business of inheritance of money—not being permitted to those born out of wedlock, but going to legitimate next of kin.

The hon. Member's remarks so far refer to the Bill as a whole. That should come at a later stage. We are now dealing only with the proposed new Clause.

I bow to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, and I will now say that I regard the new Clause as an improvement in every way on the Bill for the following reasons. First of all, the Bill covers a very small number of people, and the smaller the number of people to which we can reduce it the less will be the social disturbance. At present it does not cover an illegitimate person one or both of whose parents are dead, for, clearly, dead people cannot marry. Secondly, it does not cover an illegitimate person, one of whose parents is still married to somebody else. Bigamy is not permitted by the British law. Thirdly, it does not cover persons one of whose parents has no intention of marrying the other. The object of this Amendment, therefore, is to reduce the number of persons coming under the operation of the Bill to the lowest possible figure. I do not say this may not produce great ill-feeling among a number of other people, but there is no doubt that the large majority of persons born not in wedlock whose case will not be met by this Bill—I suppose nine-tenths—will clearly resent, because one of their parents is married or dead, being prevented from being legitimated, and the supposed stigma taken away. But the stigma, as I was about to observe a moment ago, is not something definite that stands out on the character of the person. The stigma is the knowledge in the circle in which the person lives that there is something wrong about his birth. That will not be removed by this Bill, or any other Bill. Unfortunately, sin is easy, and the consequence of sin cannot be done away with by any legislation.

"Of all the ills that human breasts endure, How small the part that kings or laws can cure."

It is clearly the knowledge of other people, and not the entry in the register, that constitutes stigma. The next point I raise in favour of this Amendment is, that I can see it will make somewhat more difficult the fraud which this Bill leaves open to certain classes of people. As the Bill is drafted, there are enormous opportunities for fraud. It opens the chance to any old man of perverted temperament who dislikes his nearest relatives to foist upon them as many false children as he pleases, by marrying any woman with a large stock of illegitimate children. There are such cases. Do not hon. Members know nasty-tempered persons who endeavour to keep relatives from inheritance by various ways? And the most effective way of all will be to produce a false family. Under this Bill no form of proof is required. There is a Clause coming which says that you can get the register of birth altered by the Registrar-General, but that is only permissive. There is no necessity whatever for anybody who wishes to legitimate for some private purpose a lot of children belonging to somebody else, to take any steps of the kind whatever. If the register is altered the Registrar-General has to see that the thing seems plausible on the production of satisfactory evidence.

But without re-registration you can legitimate, if you wish to disoblige your relatives, as many children whom you call your own as you please. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent it. I suppose any man can declare that any woman was in London at the same time as he was 20 years ago and had a child by him, and can foist that child into the family in order to cause discomfort to a hated son or nephew. Hon. Members may say such tempers are not very common, but I have known cases. There is not the slightest doubt that there are such perverted temperaments, and in such a case this Bill would be utilised to discomfort the legitimate children, and there is nothing but the ipse dixit of a self-styled adulterer of 20 years back to vouch for the parentage of the child foisted in. There is one point more. I dislike a Bill which states what is obviously not true. There are Clauses in this Bill which say that, in spite of something not having happened, it shall be taken As having happened. I have a prejudice against general declarations which, notwithstanding——

I must ask the hon. Member once again to keep to the pro- posed new Clause. He is travelling over the whole Bill.

To recur to the main topic, I wish in every way to support the views of the right hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University, and those who support him, for the general reason that we regard the whole Bill with grave dislike, and think it may be made somewhat better by the introduction of this Clause. I must protest against the last speaker on the Treasury Bench having endeavoured to put in the mouth of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University the statement that he was ready to wink at adultery. It is a preposterous accusation, and one of the greatest misrepresentations I have ever heard from the Treasury Bench, and that, I must say, is saying a good deal. The right hon. Gentleman appears not to be listening. He recalls a text:

"They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely."

It is, perhaps, a very good thing to be as the deaf adder when one does not like to answer. May I ask him now whether he is prepared to say he seriously believes that the right hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University really wishes in his heart to encourage or wink at adultery? The rest is silence!

The somewhat strange speech of the last speaker makes us wonder exactly where ht is leading us to. I want, however, to make just a little personal explanation before I attempt for a few minutes to deal with the Amendment. A circular was sent out that arose from a rather whispered conversation in the House, and a hurried reading of a draft copy, and I consented to my name being attached to the circular. Later, in reading it and the Amendment, I was convinced that the two things were not exactly similar. There was a difference in the draft circular the Amendment which we are discussion now. Consequently, I want to dissociate myself from the circular which has been sent out. What I did was done under an entire misapprehension of the exact meaning of it. I do not blame anyone, nor find fault with anyone, because if anybody is to blame it is myself for dealing with a matter of this kind while a debate was going on in the House. However, it does not very much matter, but I thought I ought to say so much.

I oppose the Amendment to-day for various reasons. I have not at all been impressed by the speeches in support of it. I want to be clearly explained, too, that in anything I may say to-day I do not condone immorality or defend it. I do not intend to say one word to weaken the bonds of matrimony. I would not do anything to help, or approve of a Bill, or any Clause in a Bill, which makes it easier to do wrong, or more difficult to do right. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson) spoke about the fatal step of considering the interest of the child alone. I am afraid I am prepared to take that fatal step, because the people who have committed the offence did it of their own knowledge, deliberately, and with the full and conscious knowledge of all it involved. Therefore, if there are penalties or punishments to be attached to wrong doers, let those punishments be inflicted, if you like, but the child is the innocent cause, the effect, of the wrongdoing of guilty people. The burden of responsibility in illegitimacy rests upon the child, while wrongdoers can regularise their lives before the world and in a legal sense do so, and consequently can cover their wrongdoing by the garments of respectability. But the child, the effect of their wrongdoing, has to bear the burden all through life.

There are two or three reasons as to the three phases of wrongdoing as explained by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Harney). I am going to summarise them in a few words. No Act of Parliament that has ever been passed, or ever passed, remove wrong doing in the sense in which we are speaking of it to-day. When the passions reign supreme judgment goes, so that evil-doing, where there is a desire to do wrong, will continue no matter how stringent are the Regulations or Acts Parliament may pass. Since the world began so it will continue so long as human nature remains as it is. All my desire to-day therefore is to protect the interests of the off-spring. The child is born out of wedlock. Any law that is passed which gives the parents the opportunity of putting the wrong right in a legal, or even in a moral sense, ought to apply to the child no matter what the circumstances were.

1.0 P.M.

I am glad that the hon. and gallant Gentleman read out a statement with regard to the law in some of our Dominions. That saves me the trouble of doing so, and there is no need for me to repeat what he said. But I was pleased at his recital of how the thing stands in New Zealand, because it happened to come before me when I was there. I had very many interesting conversations with those who were responsible for the Act of 1921, and the experience they gave me of the circumstances that led to the amendment of the Act were most valuable and interesting. I do not want to repeat these things, but would only corroborate the statement made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman that that is the condition of the law there now, put forward as it was, in the interests of equity and justice. There have been some very extreme things said in regard to the position of married people. I have no defence to make for people who do wrong. I have no defence for the man who has a mistress, or a woman who has another man except him to whom she is legally bound. I look upon it all as a great mass of evil. But however much we condemn it we cannot remove it. It is there. We can condone it. We ought not even to defend it. The thing is wrong. I am not here to deal with causes. I am only here to speak of the effect of wrong-doing on the child who is born under circumstances that have been explained here to-day.

Some things have been said that we only read about in novels or only see in very sensational plays. They do not appear in actual life. Human nature is the same all the world over. It does not matter whether you bob up against in the palace or in the cottage. Human nature all round is much the same, and we have got to look at it in that light. I am very anxious to oppose this Amendment, because if it is carried to-day it, of necessity, differentiates and puts a line of demarkation, as it were, between the three classes that we have heard spoken of here to-clay, the third class being that where the child is born at a time, when it was impossible for the parents to marry. It does not matter, however, what the cause may be. It may be the case of a vile man or a vile woman. Personally, it does not matter in that sense to me. A child is born. That is the only thing that matters to me at the moment. If in the development of time and altered circumstances the parents are entitled to marry, although the child was born under the circumstances to which we have referred, I say the law ought to permit the child to be legalised by the marriage of its parents, just the same as it was in one of the other two categories of which we have been speaking. My sympathies all through life have been with the illegitimate child. As the Attorney-General has pointed out, the most offensive term in the English language is the word "bastard," and the most painful words that could be applied in any walk of life is to describe a person as a "bastard." Consequently I shall oppose the Amendment, because it curtails the full usefulness of the Bill and differentiates and draws this line between the parent on the one side against the parent on the other side. Of course, we must not speak about the whole Bill to-day, but I am speaking of this Clause, and I strongly oppose the Amendment. I hope the House will agree to reject this Amendment, and enable the Bill to go through in its entirety.

As am another member of this House who has at one time or another introduced a Bill dealing with this subject—I think I was the first—I hope the House will bear with me while I say a word or two upon this particular Amendment. In the Bill which I introduced in 1920 there was a proviso which had almost exactly the same consequence as the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. Friend behind me, but those in the House at that time may possibly remember that in moving the Second Reading of my Bill I made it quite clear that the insertion of that proviso was not in accordance with my own views, and that I put it in to conciliate opposition to a Bill which I very earnestly desired to see passed into law, even if it was not precisely in the form which commended itself to me at the time. Since that time we have had a succession of Bills dealing with this subject. It has been very thoroughly discussed in this House, and it is a satisfaction to me to think that there is a good chance to-day at last of the Bill passing into law.

This particular question as to whether the children of persons who could not have legitimately married at the time when they committed the fault should be legitimated is one which gives rise to very strong and bitter feelings. I was altogether amazed at the strength of the language used by my Noble Friend who sits behind me (the Duchess of Atholl), who spoke of the passing of this Bill without the Amendment as being comparable with a declaration by this House in favour of polygamy. I think that is a strong thing to say, and I cannot help thinking that it is a grave exaggeration of the facts as they are.

I did not say that the passing of the Bill as a whole was comparable to a declaration by this House in favour of polygamy, but what I did say was that it would be disastrous in its results on the status of women as a legalisation of polygamy.

What the Noble Lady said was that the effect of the Bill would be comparable with the effect of a declaration by this House in favour of polygamy. What is the great argument against the Bill? I find it stated fairly well in a pamphlet which has been circulated very widely, and which, I have no doubt, has had a good deal of effect upon people in this country. It is a pamphlet by Mrs. Wilson Fox, and her first statement is:

"If a married man keeps a mistress he is breaking his contract with his wife, and to legitimate the result of such an intercourse is to legalise an irregular connection, or, in other words, to legalise adultery."

I think that sums up the strength of the case which has made such a profound impression upon my Noble Friend behind me, and possibly other hon. Members of this House. Do not those who take that view see that really the only logical outcome of their argument is that a man should never be allowed to marry a woman with whom he has committed himself.

By putting this proviso in you are not doing anything to punish the parent, but you are simply putting the penalty on a perfectly innocent child who had nothing to do with the fault of the parent, and that see me to me to be a cruel and narrow view to declare that it is necessary to penalise the unfortunate child lest you should be weakening the marriage law.

My hon. Friend has pointed out the fact that in various parts of the British Dominions there is in force legislation enabling the legitimation of children to take place on the subsequent marriage of their parents without any such proviso as this at all. In the German and Swiss law there is no such proviso, and there is no proviso comparable to this in the French law, although there are certain checks in the French law upon the case where the marriage would not be legitimate. When you go to the United States of America out of over 40 of the States which have their own legitimation law there is only one State, Louisiana, which has such a proviso. Therefore there is nothing in the argument of my Noble Friend who thinks that the effect of omitting the proviso is going to upset the sanctity of married life, and destroy the homes of the people. If that had 'been the result in any of the countries which I have named, they would never have continued the legislation in the form in which it now exists. Surely if that has not happened there, it is not likely to happen here, for I do not believe human nature here is so different to human nature elsewhere. I hope the Bill before us will pass this House in its present form. I confess I would rather have it with the proviso in than not at all. We are prepared to make some sacrifice to see this very old blot upon our Statute Book removed, but I do not think it is necessary, and I hope if the Amendment is not withdrawn, that my hon. Friend will resist it and go to a Division. I trust that this House in its wisdom will reject this proposal, and bring our legislation into line with what I believe to be the feeling in the majority of civilised countries.

Inasmuch as it fell to my lot to move an Amendment to the Bill last year by which this particular proviso was included in that Bill, I should be very grateful if I could be allowed to detain the House for a minute or two. I was agreeably surprised to hear my hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Wignall) suggest that his name had been included in a certain Whip without his authority.

No. I hope my hon. and gallant Friend has no desire to misrepresent what I said. I clearly explained that it was in the hurried reading of the drafting that I agreed to my name being put in, but, after consideration, I saw that it was not what I thought it was.

I quite accept the hon. Member's explanation, but it is none the less surprising to find that in his own Bill this particular proviso is included.

It would come out.

The words in that Bill are almost identical with the words of the Clause of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson), and I think, therefore, those of us who regarded him as a supporter of the Clause were justified. Not only is this proviso in his present Legitimacy Bill, but it was also in a previous Legitimacy Bill. I have no intention of repeating the numerous arguments which we have heard, but after this matter was discussed in the House last year I received certain letters from persons who were obviously hurt by reason of the fact that the proviso was included in the Bill on that occasion. I received only six altogether. When one remembers that when a matter of this sort is discussed, those who feel themselves injured do make a practice of writing to hon. Members, it is rather surprising that I did not receive more than six letters. Undoubtedly, they disclosed cases of great hardship and cases that must evoke everyone's sympathy, but I submit that the fact that there are hard cases, and must be hard cases, and that children do and must suffer, is no argument in favour of passing a Bill without this proviso.

The main point in favour of the Bill as it stands without the proviso is the case of the children, and I yield to no one, not even to the hon. and learned Member on the Treasury Bench (Sir P. Hastings) in my interest in the children, but we shall not be doing the children any good by omitting this proviso, if by its omission we injure the ideal of the home which is the safeguard of all children. We may do good to a few hundreds or thousands of children by omitting this proviso, but how many children shall we injure if we lower even by a mere fraction the ideal of the home life of this country? What is the very basis of that home life? One home at a time—that is the basis—one man and one woman with one home, neither person producing or creating another home with another lot of children. In this Bill without this proviso you recognise two or three or even more homes at the same time, and you say that the children in the other home may eventually be legitimitised and that there shall be no distinction between them. I submit that we who desire this proviso are really acting in the interests even of the children to a greater extent than those who desire the Bill without the proviso. If that be the main argument which is used in favour of the Bill, I submit that it is not sufficient to justify the omission of this proviso.

The main point on our side is that we do by this omission lower the standard. The right hon. Gentleman alluded to the fact that foreigners regard us as a nation of hyprocrites. In many cases that may be true, but is that an argument against trying to maintain the standard even if the standard is not occasionally lived up to? I say that it is all important to maintain the standard even if it is continually broken, and I say that this Bill as it stands does tend to lower the ideal and the standard, in spite of the hard cases which are admitted, and with which we all sympathise. That is what is meant when, as has been said by my hon. Friend behind me, we say that it does introduce an element of polygamy into our system.

May I put this to my hon. and gallant Friend? Last year there was a Bill passed to enable a woman to get a divorce on the same terms as a man. I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend was in favour of that Bill.

I supported it.

So did the Archbishop of Canterbury in another place. That Bill made it easy under certain circumstances for there to be two homes just the same as my hon. and gallant Friend says that this Bill does, and, if he was in favour of that Bill, why not this Bill?

I fail to see the sequence of the argument. There is a danger of this particular point being overwhelmed by a general discussion of divorce, and I take it that would be out of order. Let me conclude my argument by enforcing it by what fell from the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr Harney). We say that this is lowering the ideal of married life, the ideal of one man living with one woman if this proviso be not carried. He proved that by saying:

"While fornication is wrong, adultery is but a small added offence."

I submit that his words prove that our standard is slackening, is loosening, is dissolving, and that is sufficient for our purpose to show that we are justified in trying to maintain this standard even if an hon. Member of this House has given voice to a lower ideal altogether. I do desire to support the Bill if only the promoters will accept this proviso. They did it last year. The right hon. Member for Ladywood (Mr. N. Chamberlain) said that he admitted it to his Bill, because he was anxious to obtain the Bill, and he thought public opinion, was in favour of the proviso at that time. It was also included in the Bill of the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean, probably for the same reason. The great mass of the people of this country do distinguish between the offence of one man and the woman who live together and who produce children in one home, intending it to be a permanent home, but who have not gone through the form of marriage, and men and women living together in a second or third home. I hope the promoters even at this eleventh hour will agree to accept the proviso, so that we may pass a Bill which will receive the almost unanimous support of Members of This House.

The main argument for the rejection of this Clause is the Title of the Bill itself. The Title of the Bill is

"to amend the law relating to children born out of wedlock"

and, despite all the complications which arise through lack of morality here and there, I want to submit that you defeat the main purpose of the Bill by admitting this new Clause. I want further to submit that no tightening of the law will in itself cure the tendency to immorality, but that rather justice to the children who come into the world as the result of this immorality is calculated to put us more nearly right than the acceptance of this proviso. It is too late and unnecessary to reinforce that statement, and I only rise because I want to associate myself, hip and thigh, lock, stock, and barrel, with the total and unreserved rejection of this Clause.

I rise to support this Amendment, because I think that to leave out this proviso will be to strike a most serious blow at our national family life. There have been too many attacks on the family life of our country, and as our national welfare depends greatly on the maintenance of that life and on its purity, I look with great misgiving on any Measure which seeks, directly or indirectly, to aim at its destruction. I think a most uncalled-for attack has been made on the one thing in which the majority of men and women believe, for they still reverence the sanctity of marriage. If people in the country could only realise what is now taking place, I think protests would be coming in from every direction. I have already received several protests from mothers on this subject. The Bill may, in the first place, be due to well-meaning and thoughtful people who desire to do some good, but surely everyone in this House can detect at the back of the Measure the hand that seeks to destroy family life.

I feel just as sorry for these unfortunate children as other hon. Members, and I agree we should do what we can for them, consistently with the accepted morality of our people, especially in cases where the parents were free to marry when the child was born and were, indeed, subsequently married. In those cases the children should be made legitimate. But the Bill, without this proviso, will simply act as an inducement for the breaking up of homes. It will interfere with the family life on which this country has been built up. If we encourage adultery in this way, it will be a statutory acknowledgment of immorality. It is another attempt to interfere with family home life in this country, and I hope that hon. Members will accept the proviso. I am anxious to do all I can to help this Bill to pass into law, but without the proviso I say it will inflict a serious blow on the national life of the country. Let hon. Members accept the proviso, and thus get something done to help the unfortunate children. The proviso is absolutely reasonable, and will help these chidren instead of breaking up home life. I hope that all hon. Members who really believe in the family home life of the people of our country, and who agree that this country has been built up on the maintenance of that home life and on the purity and sanctity of married life, will accept the proviso and let the Bill go through.

I should not have risen on this occasion, seeing that the speeches of the promoters of the Bill have put the whole case for the Measure very fairly, had it not been for the reason that I feel I do represent the opinions of a very large body of women who are anxious to see the Bill as it stands pass into law. No one can refrain from sympathising with the evident earnestness of the hon. Member for Berwick (Mrs. Philipson) and of the Noble Lady who represents a portion of Kinross (the Duchess of Atholl), but, if I may say so, I think the opinions I represent are more safe and more balanced than are those of my two lady colleagues who have allowed their imaginations and their hearts to run away with their heads. Everyone who has listened to this Debate must have been struck with the contrast between the flimsiness of the arguments advanced and the obvious sincerity of the speakers. The argument of the hon. Member who moved the proviso with regard to the well-known Scottish law has been already exposed as fantastic. I think there is something more behind the case than is to be found in the arguments advanced. There are two theories as to marriage. One is the theory of the Roman Catholic Church and of the Anglican Church. This is that the marriage tie is absolutely in dissoluble. That is a theory which is held with affection and respect by many people. It is further a completely logical theory. There are no logical difficulties connected with it. There is no question of remarriage, and it is worthy of respect both from the point of view of morality and of strict logic. But that is not the law of England. The law of England does not assert the absolute indissolubility of marriage in all circumstances. The truth of the matter is that whenever any attempt is made to make the marriage law a little more reasonable we have imported into this matter the convictions of those who feel that the marriage law of England is wrong, that everything is based on a wrong motive; and feelings, which every Member must respect, are violently raised whenever the subject is introduced.

As other Members have said, we do not live in a society where marriage is absolutely indissoluble, but in a society where people—even people who have behaved exceedingly ill, not merely according to every custom of Christian society, but according to the ordinary dictates of the unguided human heart—are allowed to marry again and make their position regular. Is it right, is it reasonable, that the one person who is always innocent in all this, the little creature who had no fault of its own, should bear through life the very heavy stigma of illegitimacy? I believe that that claim is felt even more strongly, if it be possible, by working women than by other classes, because in other classes of society people are more protected from direct attack. It hurts the child of the worker more than it hurts the child of the richer classes to be labelled through life with that stigma, and the working-class mothers with whom I am associated, and many very highly respected women's societies, do desire to see that, whoever suffers in this matter, the innocent child shall not. I should not have troubled the House by repeating what has already been better said by hon. Members opposite, but for this, that I think it would be unfortunate if, through this Debate, the impression prevailed that the women's feeling generally was contrary to this Bill. I rise to put that point of view because working women, and also those non-working women with whom it is a pleasure to act and with whom I have acted in many cases, are, as far as I know their opinion, heartily in favour of this Bill.

I should have been reluctant to intervene in this Debate but for the last speech to which we have listened—a speech which, if the hon. Member will allow me to say so, was one of the most reasonable as well as one of the most eloquent speeches in this Debate; and, if I may respectfully do so, I congratulate the hon. Member on put- ting her views in such a moderate and sympathetic way. I do not suppose that there is anyone here—if there be, it is certainly not myself—who is without the deepest sympathy for a child that finds itself in the unfortunate position of being stigmatised for life as an illegitimate; but we who have to deal with many of these problems in the Courts know a certain saying that "Hard cases make bad law," and that even Judges, trained as they are to decide cases upon evidence and upon legal principles, are sometimes led away by particular hard cases which come before them, and so give judgments which form precedents that are very often extremely unfortunate.

I am bound to say I feel that this is a choice of two evils, because the whole thing with which we are dealing starts on a bad foundation. The whole thing is bad—I mean that the very fact that there should be an illegitimate child born to anyone is bad; and we are, therefore, dealing with something that is not right from the very foundation. It seems to me, therefore, that we are faced simply with a choice between two evils; and may I tell the hon. Lady who spoke last that, although, of course, I cannot deal with the women in my constituency so intimately as she can deal with the women in hers, I have been approached by women in my constituency—and they are practically all working-class married women in my constituency—who are strongly in favour of this proviso being inserted? The way in which they put it, quite freely and frankly, is this: that the husband of, shall I say, a roving disposition, the husband who is not bound by any principle to remain faithful to his wife, might induce another woman to cohabit with him, either altogether or occasionally, if he could say to her, "Well, you know, anything may happen to my wife, and if anything does happen to her, then I will marry you and the children will become legitimate." If there be anything in that, I suggest to the hon. Member for East Ham North (Miss Lawrence), and to the supporters of this Bill minus the proviso, that that would be a much greater evil than to stigmatise the children who are born of an adulterous connection. It would be a much greater evil, and I will tell the House why.

I am sure the hon. Member, who has made such a study of social questions, and knows the habits of men and women of all classes, will agree with me that it is one thing for a woman to have an illegitimate association with a man who is not married, but it is very much less probable that she will have such an association with a man who is married; and one of the reasons that would hold her back would be this: "If I have a connection with a man who is married, and offspring should result from that connection, then in no circumstances could that offspring be legitimated; but if I have a connection with an unmarried man, very likely under promise of marriage"—and I suppose the greater number of the illegitimate children in the country are born, or, at any rate, conceived, under promise of marriage—"if the man fulfils his promise to marry me, that is all right, and any child could be legitimated." The women know now, and I say it is common knowledge to both men and women who choose to face facts rather than merely look at words, that women who are not, perhaps, restrained by principle, would hesitate much longer to form a connection with a married man than with a single man to whom the woman might get married if he fulfilled his promise.

It seems to me therefore, that here we have a choice of two evils. I feel as certain of this as of anything, that you will have unscrupulous, roving married men who will use the kind of argument which I am told by women will be likely to be used by them if this Bill becomes law, "If anything happens to my wife I will marry you, and it will be all right for the children," and so there will be an additional inducement—I put it no higher—to the woman whom the man is trying to lead astray to be led astray by him. Further, there will be the absence of what lawyers call a sanction—there will be the absence of one sanction against this sort of connection, namely, the sanction that any unfortunate offspring of such a union could be in no possible circumstances legitimised. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ladywood (Mr. N. Chamberlain) has told us that in certain other countries, even in some of our own Colonies, and in a large number—in fact, I think, in almost all—of the States of the United States, there is in force a law which is equivalent to this Bill without the proviso which we seek to add I want to know has that state of things conduced to a higher morality in those countries. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] I think not. Has that state of thing conduced to a higher standard of married life? Has it conduced, for instance, to fewer divorces? I think not, and I think you may very well test the morality of a country by the number and the frequency of the divorces that take place. I am saying that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ladywood ought to have gone a step further and said that, thanks to the laws of those countries, something had happened to the good, but he has not asserted anything of the kind. The choice before us is indeed a difficult one. I hesitated a very long time before I made up my mind and I tried to weigh the arguments as well as I could, but upon weighing the evils for and the evils against I have come to the conclusion that the balance is in favour of inserting this proviso, because you will at any rate leave one fewer temptation open to women who are led astray by unscrupulous men and you will at any rate attempt to uphold the sanctity of the marriage tie as far as it can be upheld in these days.

I think it is of great importance that this Bill should be passed. It is a Bill the country as a whole wants and one which I have worked for for a long time. I have given a good deal of thought to the Amendment. I am looking at it solely from the point of view of the child. What is the greatest heritage a child could have? It is to be born into a society with a very high moral standard. If the Amendment makes it a little easier for people to do immoral things, then from the point of view of the child it is a bad Amendment. The last speaker asked whether countries where divorces are more frequent are as, moral. I think it is the point of view. A great many people think it is better to get a divorce and marry another man than live with another man without getting a divorce. That, to me, is a moral point. It is a complicated and a difficult question, but on the whole I hope the House will let us have the Amendment, simply from the point of view of the child. After all, laws are made to protect the weak more than to punish the criminal. I quite agree that the law cannot make people moral, yet the more moral the people the higher their laws This is evidence of our morality. Of course we slip. A nation slips as a whole. Foreigners call us immoral because they do not understand our moral standards. They do not understand the things we are aiming for. The Anglo-Saxon people must seem very hypocritical to some foreigners who take quite a different point of view. But I do not think, on the whole, we are hypocritical, because we have an ideal ahead of us and the nation as a whole is working up to it. I do not agree that this is going to encourage a man to go off and live with another woman and have children. I do not believe that is the reason the average man goes off with another woman. Yet this will make it a little easier for a person to do wrong, and I think that is bad for the country as a whole. Let us remember the difficulty of the unhappily married man or woman to do what is right, but will not this make it easier for him to do what is wrong?

I found myself fighting in three Parliaments and nearly always against the hon. Member who moved this Amendment. I agree that his point of view is entirely different from ours. I am really trying to take it solely from the point of view of the child. The child who has got immoral parents starts life with a terrible handicap. The law is not going to stop there. Better the child born in a slum with moral parents than the child who inherits the wealth of the world with a low moral outlook. We cannot do anything in this House to change that, but I feel that it is our duty to see whether we are weakening or strengthening, and I think if the House passes this Amendment it will make it a little more difficult to do wrong. The Attorney-General said that people are apt to stigmatise a child who is born out of wedlock. I do not think that. The whole sympathies really are with that unfortunate child. This is what the Bill was promoted for; I want the Bill with or without the Amendment. On the whole I do not believe the Amendment will hurt the Bill. The man or woman is unfortunate who wants to do wrong. It is not the State that is unfortunate. The very people who want to do an evil thing are unfortunate, and it is an evil thing to bring children into the world out of wedlock. I hope hon. Members will try to look at it from this point of view, that the worst thing the House can do is to lower the moral heritage of children. I think we should be wise to stick to that part of our laws which are good, and this part is good, that a married woman and her child should have a slight advantage over a woman who deliberately lives with a married man and brings up a family. The woman who lives with an unmarried man knows that there is a chance of marriage, but it is a very serious thing to make it easier for a woman to live with a married man. That is not really helping the country as a whole. There are desperately hard cases, but laws are never made for hard cases; they are made for the general public. I hope, therefore, that the House will understand at least my point of view. [An HON. MEMBERS: "Is the Noble Lady in favour or against the Amendment?"] I am trying to put my point of view, and it is a difficult thing for me to do. I usually entirely disagree on most of these questions from the point of view of the right hon. Gentleman who has moved the Amendment, but I do feel strongly that for once he is right. I do not say that his motive is right, but his Amendment is right. I am not one of those people who want to hurt children. The whole point of view of my public life has been to help children. The greatest thing we can give to our children is a state where the moral are encouraged and the immoral are discouraged.

Anyone who has had the advantage of hearing, as I have had, every word that has been uttered in this debate will recognise that hon. Members on all sides feel deeply and almost passionately upon this question. The Attorney-General congratulated, and rightly congratulated, the hon. and gallant Member for Buckingham (Major Bowyer) upon the tone, the temper and the substance of his speech, and he then proceeded to introduce a little more heat and violence, may I say, into the debate than perhaps he intended. I shall not imitate the Attorney-General in that respect, because I recognise as much as any hon. Member recognises that this is a question upon which people are not only entitled to have strong opinions but to express them. I must speak with due regard to the convictions of hon. Members, and I would ask them to speak with regard for my convictions and the convictions of those who agree with me.

2.0 P.M.

I do not approach this question as one which depends upon any particular religious grounds or upon any doctrinal beliefs of any church, the Roman or the Anglican Church or any church. The hon. Member for East Ham North (Miss Lawrence) referred to the opinions of the Roman Catholic Church, but if she had been a little more familiar with the almost interminable discussions that took place in the reign of Henry VIII as to the principles upon which the Roman Catholic Church could allow certain marriages to be dissolved and the legitimacy of the issue of those marriages established she would be aware of the difficulty even of the Roman Church, with all its sincerity and deepness of conviction upon this question, in preventing under certain circumstances marriages from being dissolved. Doctrines and religious beliefs may shape one's convictions on this question, but I am not conscious of it. I look at it from a different point of view from the doctrinal point of view. It is a question upon which hon. Members may hold different opinions at different times. The hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Wignall), as the hon. Member for North-East Leeds (Major Birchall) pointed out, introduced a Bill which contained this proviso in terms, and my hon. and gallant Friend who has brought forward this Bill himself put his name at the back of a Bill which contained this proviso. Therefore, when he speaks with just a little contempt, perhaps, of those who think differently from him——

Not with contempt.

When my hon. and gallant Friend speaks as he did of those who think differently from him, he will remember that in 1923 he put his name to a Bill which contained the proviso which we are discussing to-day. My own opinions have fluctuated on this question. I spoke in Committee upstairs on the Bill in favour of omitting the proviso, but further and fuller consideration of the question has altered my opinion, and having reviewed the arguments and considerations, I am not in the least likely to alter my opinion again. The hon. and learned Member for South Shields (Mr. Harney) said that we must progress in this matter, and that our ideas of what is human and proper have altered. What does progress mean in this matter? Does it mean that when we have passed the Bill with this proviso that we shall progress so as to abolish altogether the status of illegitimacy? Is that the ideal at which hon. Members aim? With almost everything that has been said on behalf of the child, pity for the child who is stigmatised as a bastard, I agree. But does that lead to the conclusion that the status of the illegitimate child is to be abolished altogether, and that there is to be no difference between the legitimate and the illegitimate child? Everything that has been said as to the pity of the case where the child is to go through life with the stigma and disadvantages attaching to the status of the illegitimate child will apply to the illegitimate child in future. There will be illegitimate children who will remain illegitimate even if this proviso is not included. Unless you go to these lengths of abolishing illegitimacy you are bound to have these hard cases. Hon. Members may say, let us reduce them to the lowest possible number. We have to consider this question as to whether we are suppressing something which is worth retaining when we are seeking to promote the happiness of these children.

Upon this matter the opinion of women is worth considering. The hon. Member for East Ham, N., spoke, without any particulars, of the opinions of some women's societies. I have not received any communication from women's societies, nor did the hon. and gallant Member quote any to-day.

Would you like some?

I am going to quote two. One is from the Mothers' Union, and I am informed by communications which, doubtless, hon. Members have also received, that the Mothers' Union, a large organisation which includes vast numbers of women of the working classes both in England and in Scotland, are firmly opposed to the exclusion of this proviso from the Bill. The opinion of the Mothers' Union is worth a great deal more than the opinion of any political women's society. In their proper sphere the women's societies, which are chiefly concerned with the securing of political advantages or privileges, are powerful and entitled to respect. But in a matter pertaining to the whole life of the nation, and the status of women in the home, and the upbringing of children, I think there is hardly a Member of this House who will not give first place to the opinion formed by the Mothers' Union, which is not political in its connections, and has no axe to grind, and no privileges to claim except in relation to the promotion of women.

is the hon. Member going to tell the House that all the branches of the Mothers' Union through-out the country have ever considered this question?

The branches of the Mothers' Union throughout the country are far too numerous for me to be able to say that every branch has considered this question. All I am able to say is that the Mothers' Union as an organisation has put forth efforts to secure the inclusion of this proviso in the Bill.

They have never reached me.

It may be that the efforts were made too late. Many hon. Members are aware that the Mothers' Union is in favour of the proviso. I do not say that that ought to decide any Member's vote, but it certainly ought to influence his vote. The last thing I want to do is to involve the Mothers' Union in any political controversy. They are not political, they are not connected with political parties, and they have no political interests to serve, but so far as their opinion goes I understand that the opinion of the union is in favour of the proviso.

Does not that represent the opinion of Members who belong to one particular religion?

In Scotland, where I am mostly acquainted indirectly with the activities of the Mothers' Union, the great bulk of the members belong to one or other branch of the Presbyterian Church. I hope that that is an answer to the hon. Member. I only know that it is a union that concerns itself with the interests of the mothers of the land. For what it is worth their opinion commands respect. I only mention it because of the way in which the hon. Member for East Ham (Miss Lawrence) vouched for the opinion of women's societies. I give as another illustration the Women's Joint Advisory Council, a council composed of members of all political parties, including many active workers in connection with the Labour party. Again I am right in saying that by an overwhelming majority, where this matter was considered, at opinion was expressly strongly in favour of this proviso.

It is impossible in face of facts of this sort to disregard this proviso and suggest that there cannot be strong reasons for thinking that it ought to be included in the Bill. It is not a matter of mere Tory or reactionary prejudice. Fortunately nobody in this Debate is concerned with exercising the rights of property or succession to title, because questions of property and title are by the terms of the Bill entirely excluded. It may be that some people would like children who will be legitimised made entitled to succeed to property, but that is not the question which we are considering to-day. The only question which we are considering is whether it is desirable to give children a better status of legitimacy without securing to them the advantages connected with succession to property or titles. I think that the advantages to the children have been a little exaggerated. Even an Act of Parliament cannot alter the facts of life. A child that is born out of wedlock will be as exposed to the insults of those who have a low opinion of human life after the Bill has passed as before. An Act of Parliament may give a child legitimacy, but no Act if Parliament can alter the cruel temper that would stigmatise a child born out of wedlock as a bastard, and it would be no answer to that cruel taunt to say that an Act of Parliament has made the child legitimate.

Therefore what you are conferring on the child is merely a legal status. [HON. MEMBERS: "A name."] What you are giving the child is the name of the father and not of the mother. That, I recognise, is something as far as it goes, but I am not sure that that is giving the child any real advantage. That may be—I do not want to exclude even the very smallest consideration—a small point, generally speaking. I suppose that in the humble ranks of life in this country the illegitimate child bears the name of the mother, who is generally known as, say, Mrs. Smith. Unfortunately I am afraid that in most rural counties with which I am familiar there is more illegitimacy than one likes to see. I only know that in the rural districts the child very generally bears the name of the mother who passes as a married woman, and if that woman marries, as they often do, somebody who does not happen to be the father of the child, the mother takes the name of the man, and almost invariably, when the child goes to school, among its comrades it takes the name of the man whom the mother has married. Therefore I think I am right, generally speaking, in saying that if this Bill becomes an Act it would be giving the child merely a fair legal status. That, as far as it goes, is something for which the child might be grateful.

A great complaint at the present day is that there is a weakening in the basis of family life. May I point out that if this proviso is included this Bill will give an inducement to a man and woman to make a home, for this reason. A man and woman who are in a position to marry have young children. That is a strong motive which will inevitably affect any humane person, especially if the two are at all attached to each other, to make a home in order that the child may be made legitimate. That is what the Bill with this proviso is doing. That is why hon. Members in all parts of the House are in favour of the broad general principles of the Bill. Put in that proviso, and the Bill will help to make a home and family life. Leave out the proviso, and you will he longer have that inducement to a man and woman to make a home.

They will have a home in practice.

I do not follow my hon. and learned Friend. You have a man and woman, one of whom is not in a position to marry, as distinct from the case I have been imagining, where they are both in a position to marry, and, where this Bill will provide them with an inducement to' marry, and therefore will create an inducement to make another home—every home that we can make in this country is a blessing to the nation—so far from offering an inducement to a man and woman to make a home, by this Bill you are offering an inducement—it may be strong or it may be weak in some cases—to a man and woman to break a home. There are many men attached to cheerless wives, as there are women attached to sour and disagreeable husbands, who would welcome the dissolution of the life of the partner that prevents them from securing what they think is their happiness. Is it not human nature that the man who thinks that under this Bill his children may be legitimated if he can marry the woman with whom he has had relations, will devoutly desire, and it may be under temptation in a few cases would actually take steps, to secure dissolution of the marriage which alone stands in the way of the legitimation of his children? I do not say that he will commit murder or that he will poison—I will not be so melodramatic as that. Hon. Members will agree that family life is impossible where one of the partners is desiring the death of the other.

Therefore, as this Bill is going to offer the prospect to a man of the legitimation of his child if he can marry another woman whom at present he is unable to marry, it is almost inevitable that he will look upon his wife with the bitter and jaundiced feelings which will make him an impossible father and husband, and the home will be broken up beyond any prospect of rescuing it from destruction. This Bill, without the proviso, will break homes instead of making homes. I am not going to be so foolish or so extravagant as to say that there are no homes which would be made by this Bill if the proviso is not included. Of course there will be. We must all weigh the arguments as best we can. Broadly speaking, I think that we shall be paying too high a price, even for the advantage of the children who will have a legal status conferred upon them, if in passing this Bill to-day we do anything to break down the sanctity of family life or of marriage. I am thinking more of family life than of marriage in this connection. Family life is the most lovely picture in the gallery of human life. Anything that tends to dignify it ought to secure our support, just as anything that tends to weaken or disparage it we ought to avoid. Who can be blind to the influences that to-day are tending to destroy family life, and perhaps to weaken the marriage tie, at any rate, to prevent that whole- some, that characteristically British institution of family life? Sometimes an Act of Parliament does it; sometimes an administrative order does it; sometimes passion does it. We ought to be all the more careful lest in this Bill, which is really designed to promote, and I hope will have the effect of promoting, the happiness of children and of some fathers and mothers who otherwise would be deprived of happiness, we do anything which will prevent the strengthening of that family life which I think is even more precious to this country than the child lives of which hon. Members are thinking. Just as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Buckingham {Captain Bowyer) has deep convictions, so have many of us. If hon. Members opposite, who have an interest, which does credit to their hearts and their generosity, in this question, will make inquiries amongst the women who, perhaps, have little acquaintance with the problems that this question creates, they will find that on the whole, although the children have a pull on our hearts, family life is something which ought to be preserved.

I have preferred in what I have said to look on this matter purely from the point of view that I have tried to express. I might have said a great deal about the advantages of assimilating the English law to the law of Scotland. My hon. and gallant Friend twitted me

rose in his place, and claimed to more, "That the Question he now put."

I beg to move, in page 1, line 26, to leave out the words "first day of September," and to insert instead thereof the words "thirty-first day of December."

This Amendment and also the last Amendment on the Paper seek to effect what are really drafting alternations. I am informed by the Home Office that on account of the Law of Property Act, which is not to come into operation before 1st January, 1925, it is more convenient that the 1st January or 31st December should be the dates instead of the dates in the Bill.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 3, to leave out the words "or she."

This Amendment is desirable because, as I am informed, these words are not necessary under the Interpretation Act.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 20, to leave out from the word "same" to the end of the Clause and to insert instead thereof the words

"rights, and shall be under the same obligations in respect of the maintenance and support of himself or of any other person as if he had been born legitimate, and subject to the provisions of this Act, the provisions of any Act relating to claims for damages, compensation, benefit, or otherwise by or in respect of a legitimate child shall apply in like manner in the case of a legitimated person."

Whereas the Bill as it now stands gives the legitimated person certain rights to maintenance and support, if the Clause in amended as I propose, it will make those rights reciprocal, not only giving the legitimated person the right of obtaining maintenance, but casting upon him the obligation and the duty of giving maintenance and support.

When I addressed the House earlier this afternoon, you, Mr. Speaker, prevented me from introducing certain reasons why I opposed this Bill on general grounds, restricting me to speaking only on the particular Amendment that was then before the House. I believe I am now in order if I introduce one or two points which were regarded as not being in order on that Amendment, and the first is that, in addition to my general dislike of the Bill altogether, I particularly dislike Bills which produce statements to the effect that certain things shall be regarded as having taken place, although they have not, in fact, taken place. The action, or diction, is essentially false in itself. I refer to Clause 4, where it seems to me to be a most peculiar arrangement that it should be provided that, if an illegitimate person dies many years before his parents are married, and yet has lived long enough to leave issue behind him, that issue, though obviously horn of a person who was born and died illegitimate, are to be regarded as legitimate. That is a contradiction in terms. To legitimatise a dead person seems to me rather like the sort of legislation that went on at the time of the Houses of York and Lancaster, rather than the legislation of the present day.

The second point which I wished to bring forward was one which I am sure will appeal to the hon. and gallant Member for Buckingham (Captain Bowyer). In Clause 9—and I can quite understand the propriety of the view according to the hon. and gallant Member—it states that where, after the commencement of the Act, the mother of an illegitimate child dies intestate, her property goes to that child, and similarly, after the death of an illegitimate child who dies intestate, the property of that child goes to the mother. From the point of view of the hon. and gallant Member, that is quite natural, but why has he left out what seems to me an absolutely necessary corollary from his point of view? Take the case of several illegitimate children, brothers and sisters, whose mother dies intestate, and one of them acquires property and dies intestate. According to this Bill as it stands, that property will revert to the State, because, although property can go to the mother, you have not secured that the property of the illegitimate child can go to the brothers and sisters in the event of that child's intestacy. It would, I suppose, revert to the State, which, I am sure, was not the intention of the hon. and gallant Member, who has not secured the rights of the brothers and sisters when the mother is already deceased, and it seems to me that that is, from his own point of view, rather an omission from the Bill. That, from my point of view, is not so important as it is from his. In asking or the rejection of the Bill, I am only acting according to my lights. I object to the Bill thoroughly, and I object to it very much more now that the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson) has been removed.

I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Sir C. Oman) has simply suggested opposing the Third Reading of the Bill rather than moving its rejection. I did not have an opportunity of replying to the discussion in regard to the Amendment that I moved, out I venture to say that the Bill, without that new Clause in, is a far more dangerous Bill than it would be if that were inserted. Further, I had put down a new Clause which, as those who were in the Committee will know, was first accepted by the promoters of the Bill, but, in the form in which I had drawn it, it was impossible to go through, and so I redrafted it, but it has not been selected for discussion by the House today, and, therefore, we are in the position that we are going to pass a Bill without that very elementary safeguard, because, as my Amendment has not been discussed and the promoters have not put forward any other in its place, you have no safe- guard against this very elementary danger that exists under the Bill as it stands. The point is this: When a man and a woman marryȔand by this Bill you are legitimating their offspring—there is power in the Bill that they should register the illegitimate children who become legitimate by the marriage. That is a perfectly right and proper provision, but it is not compulsory, and all that I was anxious to do was to secure that no Bill should pass without something in it providing that there should be some acknowledgment by the parents of the child that it is the child of that father and mother, and that, therefore, it becomes legitimated by their marriage.

If we pass the, Bill in its present form, without any such safeguard as that, we are in this position, that a man and a woman marry, and they may or may not have offspring at that time, legitimate or otherwise, as the case may be, and the mart dies. There is nothing to prevent the woman, on behalf of her own children, pressing forward their claims and fathering them upon the man who is deceased at that time. It is an endless vista of litigation that is opened up in such cases. In the case of ordinary persons, the date of the marriage is important, and there is no such difficulty arising, but here you have a couple marrying, and by the law you are to legitimise any illegitimate children that they had before that time, and it is essential that there should be some acknowledgment by the parents of those children during their lifetime. Either it should be done, as it can be done, under the Bill at the time of the marriage, or they should register the children as children whom they seek to legitimise, but, at all events, there should be some written acknowledgment by both parents that the children are their children at that time. If you do not put in that precaution, difficulties must arise in every single case, and the difficulties which would arise in the best form of these Bills, namely, one which applies only to the marriage of single people, will be twenty times greater under this Bill, because here you are allowing legitimation of children who are born when the husband and wife could not possibly be together.

Take such a case as this of a man and woman when young living together, and the man possibly provides for the woman, and marries another woman altogether, and has a family by that marriage. The wife dies, and then he marries the woman who had been his mistress before marriage, and, as the phrase goes, he makes an honest woman of her before her death. In that case he dies, and no reference is made to any children by the first intercourse. Afterwards, the children of the marriage suddenly find various claims made upon the estate by the mistress of the man, on behalf of her children. If the children come forward and swear positively that they were born at a particular time, it will raise difficult points. There is no reason why the promoters of the Bill should not put in some such paragraph as I want put in the Bill. Without such protection in the Bill, it must, from a legal point of view, lead to endless trouble, and open the door to fraud upon the death of the man. I had hoped the promoters, from what they said before, would be willing to insert something of the kind, but to pass a Bill in this form is the greatest possible mistake.

With regard to the Bill as a whole, I agree that once I was willing to support it, but without these safeguards, and in the absence of new Clauses which have been brought forward, I shall certainly vote against the Third Reading. We have heard a great deal of the sufferings of the illegitimate child. Where are you being led? Does it mean that you wish definitely to abolish the difference between legitimate and illegitimate children? Let us come out into the open one way or the other. One or two Members on the other side have been much more direct than the promoters of the Bill on this point, All this talk about the terrible position of the child who is not in any way responsible for the guilt—if that be the proper word—of his parents and in no way responsible for being brought into the world, applies equally to every illegitimate child. Is it intended to legitimatise the whole? If hon. Members say so, I shall respect their honesty, but if they do not, then they have no right to be influenced by arguments of this kind in favour of such a Bill as this. There are a very large number of illegitimate children in the country at the present time.

And they will make as good citizens as the legitimate.

Very likely; I am not in the least denying that.

Then what is the complaint against them?

There is a large number of illegitimate children, many of whom are every bit as good as the legitimate. By this Bill you are legitimatising a certain number of them, but the number that would have been legitimatised by this Bill in its most extended form would be infinitesimal compared with the illegitimate children who remain. The number of people marrying subsequently to the birth of the children would be infinitesimal, compared with the number of other illegitimate children, who are probably just as good as the others. If it is not proposed to abolish the whole difference between legitimate and illegitimate children, I would point out that the ones it is not proposed to legitimatise are just as good citizens as those whom it is proposed to legitimatise under this Bill. An extraordinary amount of harm will be done by passing legislation such as this, without putting in ordinary safeguards. The learned Attorney-General afforded me a broadside, if I wished to take advantage of it, which I do not. He gave, however, one illustration which shows the difference between the promoters of this Bill and those who are opposed to its present form. He talked about the sanctity of marriage. He said, What is the basis of the sanctity of marriage, and what is there in it? Nothing more than an affection, and what is the use of marriage where there is no affection? That is exactly the difference. It is a very pretty sentimental phrase, and this Bill is founded on that sentiment.

Let us take the point for a moment. The example has been given before of a married couple who were once very fond of each other, and, possibly, have ceased to be fond of each other. Is it for the benefit of the State, or is it not, that the marriage should be dissolved? Our view is that it is to the great disadvantage of the State, even if these people may have lost affection, to a certain extent, and may wish to have their marriage dissolved. That is the view we hold very strongly. I believe the vast majority of women hold that view. I know a very large number of unmarried women do not, but married women between 35 and 45, we will say, who know something about life, I think are pretty strongly in favour of not having what may be called a leasehold interest in marriage, but would rather have the freehold, even if the affection may have gone. From the point of view of the State, and, I think, from the point of view of the parties as well, but, certainly, from the point of view of the State, it is vital that a contract once entered into should be continued until there is some real cause for putting an end to it. I am not condoning for one moment the position of a man who marries and who has got an illegitimate child during the marriage. But the wife may or may not forgive, or may or may not condone it. If you are going to give a man and his mistress a chance of legitimatising the issue, when married, I Say that anybody who has the slightest experience of that class of case must know that the pressure brought to bear upon the wife to take divorce proceedings would be immense. If a man is anxious, then, to legitimatise son by his mistress whom he may be anxious to take his name and occupy the place where he is, particularly with a knowledge of the claims upon him in the ease of a legitimate child, there is a temptation to men to put an end to marriage. Once you have got one party anxious to put an end to marriage, even though it was one where the affection may have ceased to be so strong as earlier, then that is certainly an evil to the State, and an evil to the two parties concerned—though the latter is not so absolutely material to the State. I should hope that the Bill in this form, whatever a Bill in another form might be, constitutes a gray e danger from similar points of view to the legal points which I have given. You open the door. At the present time there is no sort of attempt to get the father and mother to see the offspring or the alleged offspring legitimatised. The thing is to acknowledge the interest of the offspring during lifetime; and unless you have some Clause of that kind you are passing a Bill which in a legal sense is a great danger. We are passing a Bill which is a great danger to the social life of England in the form in which it is being passed, and I trust that many will oppose the Third Reading.