The clause, as it
emerged in 1893, not only forbade any new establishment or endowment of
religion, but seemed to leave the claims of all denominations precisely
as they stand at present.
This safeguarding clause reappears in the Bill of 1912, but it has been
shortened and redrafted by the Government. It contains very important
additional safeguards to prevent the adoption by the Irish civil power
of the principles contained in the recent Papal Decrees against mixed
marriages, and in regard to the right of Catholic clergy to claim
exclusion from the courts of justice. The Irish Parliament will be
debarred from acting on these decrees, and thus the whole agitation
against "Ne Temere" falls to the ground.
THE TWO CHAMBERS
The 1886 Bill established, as we have seen, an arrangement by which
Ireland should be governed by one legislative body consisting of two
orders, a first and a second. These orders were to deliberate and vote
together, except in regard to matters which should come directly under
the Home Rule Act, amendments of the Act, or Standing Orders in
pursuance of the Act. In such cases the first order possessed the right
of voting separately, and seemed to possess an absolute veto.
Pages:
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78