deal only with divorces a mensa et thoro and cases of nullity of marriage, and not with divorce a vinculo in the sense in which we use the expression, viz., dissolution of a valid marriage. Thus the 105th Canon enjoins great care as to the evidence in cases of separation and nullity, which it describes as among the weightiest causes, but gives no similar caution with regard to the still weightier matter of divorce a vinculo. Again, the 106th Canon requires sentences of separation and nullity to be given in open court, but makes no similar requirement with regard to sentences of divorce a vinculo. The inference seems irresistible that cases of dissolution of marriage were not provided for in these Canons, because there were no such cases. The 107th Canon requires that, before a sentence of separation a mensa et thoro is passed, a bond binding the applicant not to attempt remarriage should be given. The Divorce Commission of 1853 (Rep. p. 8) argued that the requirement of this bond showed that the marriage it was designed to prevent would have been valid. This is an astonishing result to have reached, because the bond is only required in cases of separation a mensa et thoro, and in those cases the sentence was always expressly made terminable on reconciliation'donec et quousque mutuo eorum consensu sese duxerint reconciliandos.' There were excellent reasons in the then state of morals and manners-and it must in fairness be added of divided opinion as to the effect of adultery in ipso facto dissolving marriage-why the bond should be required; but it is sufficiently obvious that the risk of a valid remarriage of a person already married, but temporarily separated from his or her spouse, could not have been one of them.

Thus the Canons of 1604, while they lay down no new law with regard to divorce, afford important evidence that the old law, as it stood before and immediately after the Reformation, was still maintained in its integrity. In other words, marriage was still treated as indissoluble, and divorce a vinculo of a valid marriage was unknown. As Church Law stood before the Reformation, so it stood notwithstanding the Reformatio Legum,' so it stood under the Canons of 1604, so it stood after the Divorce Act of 1857, and so it stands to-day.

6

Art. 12.-THE NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL.

1. National Insurance Bill. London: Wyman, 1911. 2. Further Replies to Letters, etc., with an Appendix containing Clauses 1-17 of the Insurance Bill, as amended in Committee. [Cd 5885.] London: Wyman, 1911.

SINCE the article on the Insurance Bill in the July number of this Review was written, the measure has been subjected to detailed scrutiny extending over a month in Committee of the House of Commons. The result fully justifies the comments we then made, and confirms the conclusion that the Bill was only a rough draft and far too crude to be passed into law in anything like its original shape. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been compelled to recognise so much. After what has happened in Committee-to say nothing of criticism and agitation outside Parliament-it is obvious to everyone that the original intention of forcing the Bill hurriedly through the House by means of the closure was based on a complete miscalculation. The attempt would have been fatal to the Bill and probably to the Government. Having abandoned this plan, Mr Lloyd George still hoped to get his Bill through before Parliament rose for the holidays by prolonging the session and bringing to bear those conciliatory arts of which he is a master when it suits him to exercise them. He did his best, but, as discussion proceeded, it became evident that he had again underrated the difficulties; and eventually the course of relegating the remaining stages of the Bill to an autumn session was reluctantly taken by the Government.

The present intention plainly is to pass it at all costs before Christmas. The autumn session is being held for that purpose, and must be taken to indicate the strongest determination on the part of the Government. It is an extremely unpopular course both in political circles and with the public, who are utterly weary of the interminable series of autumn sessions and elections inflicted on them since Mr Lloyd George began his legislative campaign. The Government would not have taken it without some reason which they consider im

perative; and that can only be Mr Lloyd George's insistence (recently backed by the Home Secretary) on the passage of his Bill this year, with a view to leaving the field clear for Home Rule in the following session.

The expedient of an autumn session has had the advantage of providing an interval in which the various interests affected could further consider their position in the light of amendments already adopted in Committee, and of others foreshadowed. Whether this will facilitate the further progress of the measure remains to be seen. The Bill has been substantially transformed in important respects, and some decided improvements have been effected; but a great deal remains to be discussed. Only seventeen clauses have nominally been disposed of out of eighty-seven (including the unemployment insurance). There remain seventy, as well as the schedules; and not many of them are of a purely formal character. Very few ought to be passed over without full consideration. It is not as though the questions with which they deal were virtually settled by the decisions arrived at on the clauses already discussed. The case is so far otherwise that the changes adopted in the first part of the Bill will entail not less but more careful examination of the remainder, and particularly of the financial provisions, which have never been clear or satisfactory, and are now much more involved than before. Moreover, though some points have been settled and progress has been made towards settling others, the worst difficulties hitherto discussed have not really been disposed of at all. They have rather been postponed and will come up again, probably in a more acute form.

These difficulties have nothing to do with party politics; they arise from conflicting interests and are inseparable from the subject. The debates in Committee have made that perfectly plain. In the review of the progress made, which Mr Lloyd George offered to the House of Commons on August 4, he acknowledged that the invitation he had given to members to assist him in fashioning the measure had been very fairly and generously accepted by all parties in the House.' Radical journals, which would read a party intonation into the doxology, have been less candid, and have persistently hinted that the Opposition were making party attacks

on the Bill. But it is the fact, attested by the record, that the severest attacks which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has had to encounter have come from Radical and Labour members, and that he would have suffered defeat but for the support of the Opposition. From the first he underrated the difficulties before him, and he underrates them still, though he has learnt something from experience. In the conduct of his Bill through the House, in which he has for the most part been left severely alone by his Ministerial colleagues, he has displayed no less patience, ingenuity, resource and readiness to meet fair criticism, combined with firmness in resisting wrecking amendments, than he did courage and initiative in the conception of the scheme. If any one can carry it through, he is the man; but a review of the Committee stage so far, and a glance at the signs ahead, suggest more doubts than hopes that an acceptable measure can be framed in the remainder of the present Session.

The House has devoted thirteen days to the Bill and has got through seventeen clauses. Those clauses deal with the following subjects: (1) insured persons, (2) contributions, (3) benefits, (4) administration of benefits. Before they were reached, however, the important question of dividing the Bill and dealing separately with the unemployment insurance (part ii) was discussed on a proposed instruction to the Committee. On this point certain considerations arise which are worth noting before we pass on to the amendments.

The two parts of the Bill are quite distinct; but Mr Lloyd George was determined to take them together, and he successfully resisted the proposal to divide them. The argument that insurance against unemployment ought to be started in a period of good trade is perfectly sound and cannot be gainsaid; but there is no substance in the plea that the two parts of the Bill are financially interdependent. It only means that each involves a new charge on the Exchequer and on employers and employed, and that some regard must be had to the aggregate amount. That is rather an argument for postponing the second part altogether. Mr Lloyd George said that the House of Commons ought to be in a

position to know what the commitments would be on the first part of the Bill before they came to the second part. They certainly ought; and for that reason the proposal to refer the second part to a Grand Committee while the first was in Committee of the whole House was properly resisted by the Government. But the drastic changes already effected in the Bill, and others in prospect make it impossible to say what the commitments will be without actual trial; consequently Mr Lloyd George's own argument tells in favour of postponing the second part until the first has got to work and some idea can be formed of its real financial results. Yet the impression now prevails that, after all, the Government will send the second part to a Grand Committee, which they have power to do under the ruling given by the Speaker. this impression turns out to be correct, the Government will stultify in the autumn the position they took up in July; and the only reason can be the pressure of time involved in getting the whole Bill through this year.

If

From a review of all the circumstances, it is clear that Mr Lloyd George anticipates the recurrence of depression as soon as the present wave of good trade is spent, and that he knows the insurance scheme will be unpopular at first. Hence at least one reason for the hurry. He hopes to get over the first stages and derive some political benefit from the measure before the depression becomes acute, and also before the next appeal is made to the country. Meanwhile, by throwing the Bill frankly upon the House, he is relieving himself of responsibility. It is a shrewd calculation, but it will fail if the Bill is driven through in an undigested state. The anticipations of a coming bad time and of unpopularity for the Bill are well founded. The depression brought by the inevitable oscillation of trade will be greatly accentuated by the effects of the present labour movement, which is neutralising the normal expansion of enterprise during the upward swing. There is every prospect that the disturbance from unemployment will be more general and acute than ever, and that resistance to any reduction of wages will be more determined. Against the formidable troubles which any observant eye must see on the horizon, such devices as labour exchanges and insurance will