liable as co-respondents. There are improved provisions as to the custody and maintenance of the children and for preventing the parties from getting rid of their property during the proceedings. A British subject domiciled in England or Wales but resident in any other British possession who has obtained a divorce there may apply to the High Court in England to register the decree as a decree nisi. The wife whose husband has deserted her or been deported and whose domicile was at the time of desertion or deportation in England or Wales shall be considered so domiciled for the purposes of matrimo- nial causes. In cases where the wife so domiciled has married a foreigner and the marriage has been declared null and void by the Court of the husband s domicile, the High Court may pronounce the marriage null notwithstanding that the marriage was valid according to the law of the place where it was celebrated. This is to meet the very hard cases of French and other laws. In France the want of the parents' consent makes an otherwise valid marriage which has taken place in England void, so that the English subject so married re- mained tied in England though unmarried in France. The rule that refusal to comply with a decree for restitution of conjugal rights is " desertion " it is proposed to abolish, but on the other hand refusal of marital intercourse without reasonable cause is to be deemed desertion, and if one party has in good faith requested the other to return to cohabitation the refusal so to do within "a reasonable time " is to be deemed desertion. Neither desertion nor cruelty without adultery was to be a good ground for divorce (see below). The bill further proposes to regulate separation and maintenance orders by Courts of Summary Jurisdiction to be granted for cruelty, habitual drunkenness, or venereal disease. The bill provides for the orders to last two years only unless converted into decrees for judicial separation in the High Court. The applicant who obtains one of these summary orders is to have police protection against the defendant, and maintenance is to be collected by a court official. An important proposal of the bill is to make it contempt of court to publish any report or pictorial representation of the matrimonial proceedings until the conclusion of the case, and to exclude the public but not the reporters in the discretion of the judge.
This bill was almost uncontroversial as originally introduced but the advocates of divorce insisted on desertion being made a sole ground, and the bill (May 1921) was so printed in the House of Commons. This produced a reaction and the increase of di- vorce cases in 1920-1 accentuated the differences of opinion.
The reasons for the recommendations of the Commission on other points also demand more notice. The most serious problem raised is the question of allowing adultery by the husband to be the sole ground for divorce. This was treated by the majority very superficially as a question of the equality of the two sexes before the law; but in reality it is a much more serious problem. The idea of divorce by mutual consent is rejected by the majority, not so much on principle as on the ground that there is no demand for it. But divorce by mutual consent is already de facto in exist- ence, and if the husband's adultery is made a sole cause it will be greatly extended. This is a point on which, among those well acquainted with the facts, there is no great difference of opinion (see Minority Report p. 180: evidence Mr. Justice Bargrave Deane, p. 848). It has been recognized law in England for a generation past that refusal by the husband to obey a decree to return to his wife, coupled with proof of adultery, entitles the wife to an immediate divorce. It has therefore become the common practice, where both parties desire a divorce, for the husband to leave the wife, who writes him a letter asking him to return. He refuses. She brings her suit. An order is made on the husband to return in 14 days, which he disobeys. He lets the wife know where proof of adultery can be found and a divorce is the result. This is not " collusion " in law, but it is what the public mean by collusion, and the number of these cases was even in 1918 nearly as great as the whole number of divorces in 1857 and has been greater since. If there were any desire to decrease the number of divorces this should be stopped. But the 1921 bill on the con- trary proposes following the Majority Report that the husband's adultery alone should be a sufficient ground for divorce. No wife will ever commit adultery in order to get a divorce; because her adultery, if acknowledged, makes her a social outcast; but there is no such ostracism of the husband. At present the husband is deterred from seeking a divorce if he is obliged to admit cruelty. Desertion for three years, as proposed in both the bills, is not quick enough to be any temptation to collusion. But there could be no doubt that if the husband's adultery alone is made a suf- ficient ground it would greatly increase the number of divorces.
The increase in number was already enormous, as will be seen by the figures given below, taken from the official " Civil Judicial Statistics " (Part II, up to 1919).
The average number of petitions of divorce (apart altogether from suits for nullity and judicial separations, as to which there was no increase) for the years 1885 to 1900 was:
1885-90
1891-5
1896-1900
Petitions
541
543
650
Decrees Nisi
378
391
504
Restitution Orders ....
21
18
21
The number of petitions seems as important in considering the disturbance in married life as the number of divorces.
The annual number of cases between 1900 and 1919 was:
Petitions
(Divorce)
Decrees Nisi
Decrees Absolute
Restitution Ordered
1901
750
60 1
477
30
1902
889
608
601
33
1903
825
614
606
31
1904
720
634
528
35
1905
752
623
604
45
1906
767
650
546
54
1907
734
598
644
49
1908
846
672
638
65
1909
787
685
694
72
1910
755
588
59
69
1911
859
655
530
90
1912
920
690
587
125
1913
998
870
577
135
1914
1-075
693
833
158
1915
I-H3
1, 060
668
136
1916
1,163
686
972
159
1917
1,423
946
683
159
1918
2,323
1,407
1,082
236
1919
5,085
2,610
1,629
310
It will be seen from the table that the number of petitions for divorce (apart from those for judicial separation) increased from 750 in 1901 to 2,323 in 1918, that is at a rate of over 224 % in 18 years. An even larger number was shown in 1919-21. The population of Eng- land and Wales in the same years increased by regular increments from 32,612,022 in 1901 to 36,800,000 in 1919. The latter year is taken to avoid complication as to demobilization. The increase is a little over 12 %, so that if the increase of population were the only cause the number of petitions would in 1918 have been about 840 instead of 2.323.
The rate of marriage is rather more variable. The number of marriages in England and Wales was:
1901
259,400
1902
261,750
1903
261,103
1904 257,856
1905 260,742
1906
270,038
1907 276,421
1908 264,940
1909 260,544
1910 .267,721
1911
274,943
1912
283,834
1913 286,583
1914 294,401
1915 360,885
1916 279,846
1917
258,853
1918 287,163
1919 369,411
The years 1915 and 1919 were abnormal years, and in both the
number of marriages was much higher than in any previous year.
This is accounted for by mobilization in 1914-5 and demobilization
in 1919. If the rate be taken on the figures 1901-19 the increase
was only a little over J8%. The increase of petitions in 1913 is
almost exactly at the same rate as the increase in marriages. But
the rate of increase in petitions in 1919 was more than double the
increase in the marriage rate. If the petitions continue to increase
at the same rate for another 18 years there will be 5,152 of them in
1936. The proportion of petitions to marriages in 1901 was less
than one-third of I %. It was nearly two-thirds of I % in 1919.
The registrar-general of births, deaths and marriages in his Report
for 1919 (Cmd. 1017) says " the number of divorces obtained in
1919 was about 50% greater than in 1918, which was itself the
highest up to that date, and with the increase in divorces there
has been a corresponding increase in the number of persons who on
remarriage described themselves as divorced." He adds that the
war is " largely responsible for the sudden increase of the last two
years, but as the frequency of divorce as recorded in the table has
been increasing for many years it can hardly be expected that the
pre-war level will be restored." The warning of the Minority Re-
port is illustrated by these figures. In 1918 the number of divorce
petitions exceeded the number in 1917 by 900, and in 1919 rose to
a total of 4,317, or an increase of 1,994. Petitions by husbands have
largely increased since 1910. Petitions by wives have fallen off since
1914. The figures as to " poor persons' " suits under the system ini-
tiated in 1914 show that nearly five-sixths of these cases were for
divorce. There were no fewer than 10,108 applications in the five
