Mr. Herbert's Divorce Bill Mr. A. P. Herbert's Marriage Bill,
the text of which is now published, turns out to be as much concerned with the protection of marriage as the increase of divorce. Indeed, one clause in the Bill, stipulating that no divorce be granted until after five years of marriage, is clearly designed to prevent the assimilation of our own divorce law to that of Reno, but it allows for judicial separation or other relief in the interval. The new grounds for divorce included in the Bill are : three years' desertion, cruelty, incurable insanity, habitual drunkenness and life imprisonment ; but, while adding these new -grounds, the Bill provides for introducing the machinery of conciliation before the final decision of the High Court. Mr. Herbert has fought long and tirelessly for reasonable relaxation of the more oppressive provisions of the existing divorce- laws, and all his proposals deserve open-minded examina- tion—which is not to say that all should be accepted as they stand. His Bill will no doubt share the fate of most Private Members' measures, but it is to be hoped that it will at least stimulate the Government to take some action on the almost-forgotten Divorce Law Commission's report —if hope deferred• for twenty-four years can still survive.
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