WE THOROUGHLY understand Canon Hicks’s discomfort when he sat in his church last Sunday morning, listening to Dr. Barnes’s sermon on birth-control, though, so far as we can judge from the reports, the Bishop of Birmingham did not defend the use of contraceptives. The question is again brought into public discussion by the publication this week of “The Ethics of Birth Control”, the report of a special committee, of which the Bishop of Winchester was chairman, appointed by the National Council of Public Morals. The report is colourless. It recognizes that the belief that “risk” can be avoided has led to a deplorable moral laxity among women who can certainly not be described as prostitutes. It urges self-control among the married, but the majority are fearful of condemning the use of contraceptives altogether. In his evidence before the committee, Dr. Gore describes the subject as “desperately difficult”, and we agree with the Times that it is not suitable for “dogmatic assertions”, particularly from doctors who are by no means all of one mind. Lord Dawson urges artificial methods. Lady Barrett deprecates them. And Catholic opinion is expressed in the minority report signed by Canon Lyttelton, Dr. Letitia Fairfield, Canon Simpson, and Mrs. Clay, the representative of the Mothers’ Union, who declare: “We believe that the use of contraceptives is a frustration of God’s design in nature and of the primary end of the marital act, and is, therefore, unjustifiable.”