esigned to safeguard such marriages, was
rejected by the vote of the Irish Nationalist party. But even were
legislation affecting the marriage laws of the minority to be placed
outside the control of a Dublin Parliament, the effect would not be to
reassure the Protestant community. Mr. James Campbell mentions a case
which has profoundly stirred the Puritan feelings of Irish
Protestantism. A man charged with bigamy has been released without
punishment because the first marriage, although in conformity with the
law of the land, was not recognised by the Roman Catholic Church.
However justifiable that course may have been in the exceptional
circumstances of that particular case, the precedent obviously prepares
the way for a practical reversal of the law by executive or judicial
action. We must remember that, since the _Ne Temere_ decree has come
into force, the marriages of Protestants and Roman Catholics are held by
the Roman Catholic Church to be absolutely null and void unless they are
celebrated in a Roman Catholic Church. We have also to bear in mind that
these marriages will not be permitted by the priesthood except under
conditions which many Irish Protestants consider humiliating and
impossible. No more deadly attack upon the faith of the Protestant
minority in the three provinces in Ireland can be imagined than to make
a denial of their faith the essential condition to the enjoyment of the
highest happiness for which they may look upon this earth.

The second decree prohibits, under pain of excommunication, any Roman
Catholic from bringing an ecclesiastical officer before a Court of
Justice. Even under the Union Government this decree is a danger to the
liberty of the subject. Under an independent Irish Government, nothing
except that vast anti-clerical revolution which some people foresee
could possibly reassure the people as to the attitude of the Executive
Government in dealing with a large and privileged class. These
considerations make one more reason for refusing the Colonial analogy
which is so ingeniously pressed by such apologists for Home Rule as Mr.
Erskine Childers. Mr. Amery analyses the confusion of thought between
Home Rule as meaning responsible Government and Home Rule as meaning
separate government which underlies the arguments of Liberal Home
Rulers. Ireland has Home Rule in the sense of having free representative
institutions. She is prevented by geographical and economic conditions
from enjoy