211

A.—4

9 June, 1911.] Reciprocity Destitute Persons Law. [6th Day. Dr. FINDLAY— cont. remedy. Is it, or is it not, desirable that an offence which is just as serious an offence as many in the criminal calendar should be protected by an obsolete machinery such as that at present existing ? The proposed improvement is simplicity itself—l submit it to Mr. Burns's consideration and it is this—that she should be permitted by virtue of Imperial legislation to obtain an order in New Zealand through our courts, that that order should be brought to England, that here in England where her husband is, and we will assume is doing well enough to maintain her, that order should be brought before one of your courts, and that the court here should call upon the deserting husband to show why he has deserted his wife and why that order should not have as much effect here in England as it would have in New Zealand were he there. He will then have the opportunity of saying : " That order was obtained in fraud " or " improperly " or any other effective material defence; but unless he can show a defence of that kind the order would have the same operation in England as it has in New Zealand. Where is the difficulty? We are trying it. We have it on our Statute Book, and it will be operative, I daresay, and working well between ourselves and the great Dominion of Australia quite shortly. Why should not it work in England ? It gives a deserted wife a ready and effective way of getting at her deserting husband in England. It is cheap; it would not cost very much. The application for an order would be to one of our primary courts in New Zealand, and if the order were made it would be transferred to one of your courts here. The defendant here would be called upon to say why that order should not be made effective against him, and unless he can show good grounds why it should not be made effective, it binds him here, and the money he pays here would be remitted to support his wife in New Zealand. Surely it is not too much to ask for an Imperial cooperation of that kind. No doubt those who compiled this memorandum were not in possession of the fuller explanation I have given of our purpose, and I feel quite sure that if they had known the purpose and intent of our existing legislation and that which I believe Australia is to pass, and the simplicity of it, we should have the co-operation of the Imperial Parliament. Mr. BATCHELOR : The deterrent effect is great Dr. FINDLAY : At present, as you know, Mr. Batchelor, a man leaves our shores and comes over here and in effect that is a complete escape. Under the law which we have passed and which you are going to pass he knows that he does not get away from the arm of the law, that the order made in New Zealand would be effective to follow him in Australia, and it would check this desertion, which, as you know, goes on pretty freely between your country and ours. Mr. FISHER : I am going to quote, if I may, the reply of the Edinburgh Local Government Board, which seems to me to be very good. They admit the weight of the contention of the Local Government Board here, but they say : " Although there is much to be said for this view, in our opinion it places undue weight on the question of profit and loss in individual cases. We are quite of opinion that, were th< s benefit of reciprocity limited to the actual cases in which the law might be put into operation, the expense would be prohibitive. We think, however, that considerations of public policy outweigh the question of expense. We are satisfied that when it becomes known that a man cannot escape his natural and legitimate liabilities by merely going to Canada, Australia, South Africa, or New Zealand, a great deterrent force will result. The real value of the change would lie in the fact that there existed an effective law which could at any moment be put into force. Our inspectors were unanimous on this point, and we entirely agree with them." The CHAIRMAN : Might I make a suggestion as to an alteration in the form of the resolution ? It might possibly run in this way—it is quite clear that we ought to have further inquiry into this matter : " That in order to secure justice and protection for wives and children who have been deserted by their legal guardians either in the United Kingdom or any of the Dominions, reciprocal legal provisions should be adopted in the constituent parts of the Empire in the interests of such destitute and deserted persons."