Part 2
As regards the matrimonial offences for which divorce would be granted, cruelty and desertion will certainly be included among them, and probably imprisonment in the case of criminal lunatics. If the future development of the criminal law results in more permanent detention, then public sentiment will not be so much opposed as it is now to the possibility of divorcing a spouse condemned to a long sentence of imprisonment. The same attitude will obviously prevail in regard to the detention of criminal lunatics, and probably also all other lunatics where the disease has been continuous for five years and is pronounced by experts to be incurable. But presumably the lunacy laws will be thoroughly revised and safeguarded before any divorce for lunacy becomes possible.
In regard to the financial side of divorce, it is to be hoped that any alimony given to an innocent wife may at least be reducible if she marries a wealthy man, and that among the poor the innocent wife will be given a far better chance of enforcing her claim for alimony than she is given now. American practice may profitably be followed on this point. Whether public sentiment will continue to approve the award of damages to a husband for the loss of his wife remains to be seen. This may be justified in some cases, as, for instance, where the wife supports the husband or is a rich woman and her breach of the marriage contract involves him in pecuniary loss; or where the children, who in such circumstances are already prejudiced by losing the joint care of both parents, are also likely to lose financial advantages by reason of their mother marrying another man. In such a case it does not seem unfair that the co-respondent should make some provision for them if he is in a position to do so.
There remains the question of guardianship, whether in relation to marriage or divorce, and there seems little chance of this being altered, except that possibly a mother, and especially a mother guilty of adultery, may have more power in regard to her children than she has now. Modern opinion is certainly tending to the view that the act of adultery is not always incompatible with maternal love and efficiency and that an unchaste mother is at least preferable to a cruel or mentally deranged mother.
In regard to poor persons, I deal with the question generally in a later chapter. But while on the subject of divorce, I suggest that justice must one day be brought to the poor man’s door either through the county court or the police court or some other court. If police court separation orders are to mature into divorces, the police magistrate is obviously the best person to decree a divorce at the end of the period in question, and possibly he could even hear defended cases. But trustworthy observers state that the police magistrate is often quite unjust to a husband accused by a wife, either because he thinks that all wives are in the right or because the husband is sulky and verbose. The magistrate could, of course, do his work very much better if both parties were legally represented, and if police court solicitors ever form a rota to assist poor persons after the Scottish fashion, better justice may be done.
I fancy, however, that the problem may be solved as it is in the United States, by establishing courts of domestic relations. Apparently, these courts do their work at comparatively little expense; and this work is by no means confined to matrimonial disputes. The judges do, in fact, reconcile many husbands and wives and adjust disputes that might otherwise ruin many homes; but they also step in to regulate questions of guardianship in cases where regulation is required. The lay reader may possibly regard this as undue interference with the institution of the family; but any lawyer acquainted with the beneficent jurisdiction of the Chancery judges where minors are concerned, would naturally wish the poor to have the same advantages in this respect as the rich, and I, therefore, imagine that within fifty years courts of this description will not only have divorce jurisdiction but will also have the same powers as the Chancery judges now have over a ward of court. I shall deal with this question more fully in a later chapter.
VI
THE LAND LAWS
The abolition of the Statute of Uses by Lord Birkenhead will be an accomplished fact on the 1st January, 1926. Copyhold and other picturesque tenures of the middle ages are to be abolished, the law of real property is to be assimilated to the law of personal property, women are to be put on an equality with men as regards the laws of descent, and primogeniture is to be abolished. This is all, no doubt, very sensible, but also depressing for anyone who likes to feel a certain sense of continuity with the past. It also precipitates the coming conflict between the Collectivist confiscation of land and the ideal of small or peasant proprietorship. The land laws of the future will, of course, depend on which party gains the day.
The consistent hostility of all ministries to agriculture is due to the fact that Free Trade is now one of the regular ruts of British finance, and even the peasant proprietor of France or Denmark would not flourish without a certain amount of consideration from the State. Should the voters of Great Britain swallow all the nonsense preached by the followers of Henry George and Lloyd George in regard to land monopoly, the ruin of agricultural prosperity and of the lovely landscapes of Great Britain may confidently be anticipated; but should the wide distribution of land among smallholders continue under the _ægis_ of public favour, we may see the legal encouragement of freehold tenure on Canadian or American lines and even of the tenant being able to buy out his landlord on fair terms. It is curious that New Zealand, which adopted State Socialism on a large scale in the nineties, is now mainly governed by individualistic business men and land-owning farmers.
The big landlords play into the hands of Collectivists by allowing their agents to do as they like. I, for instance, twenty years ago bought a long lease of a house in St. John’s Wood, which will expire just when I do not want to leave my happy home. I have a delightful garden shaded by poplars and beeches which will probably be covered one day by a block of untenanted flats. I want if possible to secure my position and am quite ready to pay any fair price for the freehold or for an extension of the lease. The Eyre Estate (my landlord) will not even condescend to answer a letter of inquiry, and my experience is by no means unique. No one is more disposed to be friendly with big landlords than I am, for some of them are profitable clients; but my own experience of the Eyre Estate impels me and many others to welcome any law which will make the tenant less of a worm in the eyes of his landlord.
The old system of entail and strict settlement will presumably continue for some years with the aid of money derived from industrial magnates and American heiresses. The conveyancers of Lincoln’s Inn may be trusted to preserve institutions in defiance of legislation just as they abolished, for all practical purposes, the right of dower in the eighteenth century. The principal question is whether there will be sufficient money or inclination to support the old system in order to prevent places like Chatsworth and Warwick Castle from being converted into public schools or lunatic asylums. If there is, then the lawyers will be equal to the occasion, and already many big estates are preserved from destruction by being turned into limited or (preferably) unlimited companies.
Legal change depends on financial upheavals and human desires. The desire to found a family and to buy a big estate is deeply ingrained in Great Britain. The old aristocracy may go and a new aristocracy may arise. But it may well be doubted if any new race of landowners will, under the new conditions of being mulcted at every turn during life and after death, be able to do for the countryside what the old type of Squire did for his tenants――especially in times of agricultural depression――or show anything like the same personal interest in the cultivation of the land.
The best development which is at all likely to occur is the growth of an agricultural system on Danish lines, and this would certainly simplify the land laws.
VII
COSTS AND FUSION
A friend of mine once remarked to me that the rich never legislate for the poor but always for the rich, to which I retorted that the poor never legislate for the poor but always for the rich. The Labour Party is ready enough to attack any wealth which no longer exists, such as the so-called wealth of rural land-owners, but will never attack a really bloated Trust such as an international industrial company; nor are they ever likely to make such an attack. (I took care to satisfy myself on this point before buying shares in one such company.) It is therefore improbable that even should the Labour Party obtain permanent power it will ever try to make law cheap for the poor; and the only men and women who have ever taken any steps in this direction are the few who realize that the pillars of society repose upon a belief in equal justice for all.
I fear that I can see no prospect for at least fifty years of law costs being reduced either for the rich or for the poor. So far as the rich are concerned, one might suppose that they would insist upon the law being codified into some degree of simplicity so that two citizens might be able to arrive at their legal rights by successive postcards referring to different sections of the code. That is the Utopian ideal once expounded to me by Mr. H. G. Wells; but as years go on it becomes more and more remote. Popular government leads to the endless complication of statutes; and even if these statutes were intelligible, the increasing power of bureaucrats to make rules for themselves becomes more and more profitable for the lawyers.
I presume that one day the poor man will be allowed to obtain justice within reasonable distance of his home. It is remarkable that a large number of muddle-headed persons who wish to subsidize not only the poor man but also his childless widow and any number of children whom he may wish to procreate, have never understood that he might like also to obtain justice, especially in the matter of domestic relations. Poor persons ought certainly to have as good a chance of obtaining a divorce as they have of being married, and also to have a chance of defending vexatious proceedings on the part of either spouse. It is monstrous that husbands should be treated as they are now in the police courts, and arrested for arrears of maintenance as soon as they have finished a term of imprisonment which in most cases they would never have incurred but for a deep conviction of injustice.
If the community ever becomes sufficiently enlightened to provide justice for the poor, I think that they will probably adopt the American example of what are called Courts of Domestic Relations. The Secretary of the Divorce Law Reform Union has received some interesting communications on these courts from Judge Lindsey in Denver and Judge Hoffman in Cincinnati. Judge Lindsey’s testimony is as follows:
“I am confident, after twenty-three years as a Judge of a Domestic Relations Court in America――where I granted thousands of divorces and heard other thousands of separation and non-support cases and controversies between parents over their children――that a liberal divorce law contributes to morality, decency, and, in the end, the strength of the home; but I shall probably have to write a book, based on my experiences, to prove it. A short article or interview is capable of so many misunderstandings and misinterpretations, even though it be not wilfully done.
“The fact that in some western cities we have a great many divorces does not mean an increase in immorality, or even an increase in the breaking up of homes. It is often the very best thing that could happen. Of course, it is our policy in this Court to get discordant couples together where we can; but there are some cases where we would consider it nothing short of a crime to try to get them together, and on the contrary try to get them apart, but all in the interest of morality and decency.
“I am judge at this time of what is known as a separate, special Court, in a city of nearly 300,000 people in one of our western cities (Denver, Colorado). The State has a population of about a million people; but my jurisdiction is limited to its capital city, which has nearly one-third of the population of the entire State. The western part of the State is very mountainous and sparsely settled; the eastern part is mostly arid country and at present without irrigation, being also sparsely settled; but there are certain sections of the State which are very good for agriculture and others rich in mineral resources; and as a commercial centre, Denver is a delightful and beautiful city, made up of the best people in the world.
“Last year we had in this city about 3,000 marriage licenses, and about 1,500 applications for divorce, with perhaps not over 1,000 of them granted. We have a city of excellent homes and exceptional laws for the protection of children, and the morality of our people is equal to that of the very best.
“I am sorry that we have not as yet completed the contemplated report of this Court, which we expect to have printed. I am hoping to have it ready in about six or eight months, and I think it will be a volume that will greatly interest your readers.
“This Court has jurisdiction over all children’s cases, and all youths under twenty-one, all cases of non-support or desertion of wives or children, and of controversies of parents over their children, and practically all criminal cases where the accused has committed an offense against a child. Thus, it is a special tribunal for the _correction_ and _protection_ of children and some cases of domestic relations. We do not now have the divorce cases proper, although I tried them for seven or eight years exclusively. The reason for this is that happily most of those cases are between couples who have no children, and the divorce cases take up too much time from the more important work dealing with children’s cases. However, in a divorce case where there is a controversy between husband and wife over the custody of a child, it may be heard, and frequently is heard, in this Court. A Bill is now before the Legislature which will practically require the hearing of most of these cases in this Court.
“We have visitation and probation officers, medical clinics, physical and psychological, which aid and assist us. The work of this Court, in a word, is more that of a place of human adjustment――adjustment of human difficulties growing out of the relation of the sexes, married or unmarried. To my mind this is the most important kind of a tribunal and ought to exist in, say, ten or fifteen districts in London instead of the system you have of dividing the work into many courts where none of them are equipped as experts. An address which I delivered nearly ten years ago still covers a great deal of my ideas on the ideal tribunal of this kind.
“The budget of this Court for all its work in its various divisions, last year, was about $30,000. I believe with you that would be about £5,000 or £6,000. This includes the salaries of the judge, the clerks, probation officers, stenographers, visitation agents, specialists, etc. We heard and disposed of about 3,000 cases last year at an expense of about $10.00 per case (about £2). Perhaps in half of the cases of domestic difficulties we were able to bring about an amicable settlement and restore the relations in the home. In perhaps twenty-five per cent. of them we were quite agreed that no effort should be made to restore such relations unless we wished to contribute to crime and immorality. Of course, in most of such cases the old church view would be to persuade the people to live together in a state of what to us is sin and crime, but with the church is considered perfectly proper.
“When we have to send a youth to the State prison, jail or reformatory, we send him by himself on trust and honour, without an officer and without official restraint. Out of some eight hundred thus committed in the last twenty years, we have never lost a prisoner.
“We very seldom swear a witness in the Court, and seldom take testimony. The cases are tried by what we call the administrative method. For example, the wife will consult with me one day, the husband the next, and then both together. I could see a witness for either side at any time. We listen to anyone who wants to talk, so long as they do not all talk at once. We have no rules of evidence and no Court costs, and, as a rule, no lawyers’ or counsel or solicitors’ fees. The judge of this Court is a human adjuster of human difficulties without cost or expense to the parties involved.
“Most of the people involved in sex cases come here voluntarily, even though the cases may involve criminal offences. People never lie to us, although it is very rare that they are ever sworn to tell the truth. In most cases their own papers are prepared by the clerks of the Court for both sides, without the need or aid of lawyers or solicitors. I should say that in not over one case in fifty does any lawyer ever appear. Of course, if they wish to appear they have a right to, but, as a rule, litigants do not want them because they do not need them. In the saving of counsel, solicitors’, and Court fees for litigants, many thousands of dollars have been saved, and other financial savings during my administration have amounted to millions of dollars, as can be shown by the records. There is, perhaps, not an “exception” or an appeal――though that right is allowed――in one case out of five thousand in this Court. In other words, it is a Court of justice without any of the hampering hobbles that make for perjury and crime in other courts, as we have found from actual experience.”
Judge Hoffman writes as follows:――
“It being fairly well conceded by scientific social workers that delinquency of children, divorce, desertion, and adult criminality are inter-related and in great measure originate in the family, it was determined in 1914 in the City of Cincinnati to organize a court that might deal with the family situation as a whole; consequently, in that year the Legislature of the State of Ohio provided such a court for Hamilton County, in which the City of Cincinnati is located.
“Hamilton County has nine Nisi Prius Judges, designated in our State as the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas. The law stipulated that at the next election of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas one should be designated on the ballot as Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Division of Domestic Relations, and to the judge so elected, the judges in joint session should assign all divorce and alimony cases, all cases of desertion and all cases arising under the Juvenile Court Act, which includes contributing to delinquency and dependency. As the Juvenile Court administers mothers’ pensions, this also comes under the jurisdiction of the so-called Court of Domestic Relations or, as it is termed in this city, Family Court.
“The purpose of the Court was that of securing more efficient handling of the problems of an anti-social character that arise in the family, and also of ascertaining, if possible, the causes of family dissension and disruption. While the law does not so provide, yet we have been able to organize a psychological and psychiatric clinic in connection with the court. The clinic now has three psychologists and a psychiatrist; in addition thereto, a physician for the purpose of making physical examinations of girls.
“The Juvenile Court procedure has all but disappeared. We do not believe that a court procedure has any therapeutic value in the handling of children afflicted with that which we term the disease of delinquency. It has been found possible for us to prevent the sending of children to the industrial schools, reformatories, or correctional institutes of any character.
“In this State we have an industrial school that now has a population of 1,200 boys. Cincinnati has a population of 500,000 and is the second largest city in the State. Notwithstanding this fact we have but two boys in the industrial school at this time and these two have been committed to that institution only because we have found them to be incurable and there is no other institution in the State that is equipped to handle cases of this kind. We hope to remedy this defect at an early date. We have sent no girls to the State industrial school for three years last past.
“It is a well-established fact that the anti-social behaviour at the basis of divorce is exceedingly injurious to children; therefore we use our probation force in the divorce division and attempt to care for the children involved.
“We have a central record system in which the history of the whole family is recorded. We find that in 30 per cent. of the divorce cases the family has previously appeared in some way in the Juvenile Division. The significance of this fact is apparent.
“We have found, too, that the grounds for divorce mentioned in the petition or complaint are but descriptive of the symptoms of the real causes that are seldom, if ever, mentioned in the petition or appear in the evidence. In fact, so far as the court procedure is concerned, the real causes would never be revealed. We made an intensive pathological investigation and examination in about 1,400 cases. The facts revealed in these examinations are of such a nature as to utterly refute the doctrine that in no instance ought a divorce to be granted or that a party should be prevented from obtaining a legal relief by a restricted divorce law or by making the divorce procedure so costly as to prevent the party from obtaining any relief under it.”