was prohibited and absolutely void. What said the right reverend prelate who just now so ably addressed your Lordships?[1] He could see no difficulty whatever in the question which appeared so distressing to his right reverend brother[2]—"What answer am I to give to any woman who, after this Bill is passed, wishes to marry her deceased husband's brother, or to any man who desires to marry his deceased wife's niece?" "Oh," says the right reverend prelate (the Bishop of Ripon), "there can be no difficulty about the answer. Tell them to obey the law as it stands while it is the law." And yet the same right rev. prelate is going to vote in favour of a clause which says that no marriage heretofore contracted in violation of the law shall be, or be deemed to have been, void. What will be the value of such admonitions from right rev. prelates to persons troubled in their consciences, if such persons are told in one breath "you must respect the law while it is the law," and in the next breath the same right rev. prelate comes here and says, "I am prepared to vote in favour of those who have not respected the law, so that every one of these illegal marriages shall be declared good from the beginning." Will not persons be encouraged by such legislation to disobey the law, and get up societies in order to induce the Legislature to sanction further disobedience? Are we to say that a certain amount of perseverance in systematic disobedience to the law will not merely induce Parliament to alter a law, which might in some instances be right, but to pass an Act, not of indemnity, but of ex post facto justification, in favour of the whole body of law-breakers for many years past? To pass such an Act, repealing the law retrospectively in favour of all law-breakers, is really to tell the people "you are under no obligation to obey the laws." But the matter does not stop there. Every clause of the Bill is more and more monstrous as we go forward. What is the next clause? It is felt that, if you simply passed an ex post facto law legalising all these marriages, you might be marrying over again people who had contracted such unions, but who had since repented and married somebody else. It is provided, therefore, that the Bill shall not invalidate any legally subsisting marriage in order to restore the former illegal one. But everybody else who, having repented of breaking the law, and having treated the marriage as void, has separated front the person who never was his wife, shall be married compulsorily by the Bill to that person. Is that the sort of legislation of which your Lordships will approve? You not only give to the law-breakers themselves everything they ask, but you say that persons
