It is hardly necessary here to argue the abstract question of democracy. All rational political systems that have ever been tolerated among men have been based ultimately on the expression of the popular will, and at the present time at any rate no party can be found that explicitly denies the doctrine of the people's sovereignty. During the last two elections the two parties were shouting against each other that “the Will of the People must prevail,” and the only point in dispute was whether the Will of the People was best represented by the Duke of Sussex or by his son-in-law, the Right Honourable James Blagg.

It may, however, be worth while to define exactly what democracy is. Votes and elections and representative assemblies are not democracy; they are at best machinery for carrying out democracy. Democracy is government by the general will. Wherever, under whatever forms, such laws as the mass of the people desire are passed, and such laws as they dislike are rejected, there is democracy. Wherever, under whatever forms, the laws passed and rejected have no relation to the desires of the mass, there is no democracy. That is to say, there is no democracy in England to-day.

Pure democracy is possible only in a small community. The only machinery which perfectly fulfils its idea is the meeting of the elders under the village tree to debate and decide their own concerns. The size of modern communities and the complexity of modern political and economic problems make such an arrangement impossible for us. But it is well to keep it in mind as a picture of real democracy. The idea of representation is to secure by an indirect method the same result as is secure directly in such communities. Since every man cannot, under modern conditions, vote on every question, it is thought that a number of men might combine to send a man to vote in their name. Men so selected may then meet and vote, and their decisions, if they are faithful representatives of the people, may be taken as the decision of the people.

Under no circumstances would such a system work perfectly. But that it may work tolerably, it is essential that the representatives should represent. The extraordinary capacity of politicians for tying themselves in inextricable knots of confused thinking was never better show than in the current saying that a representative should not be a mere delegate. Either the representative must vote as his constituents would vote if consulted, or he must vote in the opposite sense. In the latter case, he is not a representative at all, but merely an oligarch; for it is surely ridiculous to say that a man represents Bethnal Green if he is in the habit of saying “Aye” when the people of Bethnal Green would say “No.” If, on the other hand, he does vote as his constituents would vote, then he is merely the mouthpiece of his constituents and derives his authority from them. And this is the only democratic theory of representation.

In order that the practice may correspond to it, even approximately, three things are necessary. First, there must be absolute freedom in the selection of representatives; secondly, the representatives must be strictly responsible to their constituents and to no one else; thirdly, the representatives must deliberate in perfect freedom, and especially must be absolutely independent of the Executive.

In a true representative system the Executive would be responsible to the elected assembly and the elected assembly would be responsible to the people. From the people would come the impulse and the initiative. They would make certain demands; it would be the duty of their representatives to give expression to these demands, and of the Executive to carry them out.

It must be obvious to everyone that these conditions do not prevail in England to-day. Instead of the Executive being controlled by the representative assembly, it controls it. Instead of the demands of the people being expressed for them by their representatives, the matters discussed by the representatives are settled not by the people, not even by themselves, but by the “Ministry” - the very body which it is the business of the representative assembly to check and control.

It will be the main business of this book to inquire what is the force which not only obstructs but largely reverses the working of the representative machine, turning into an engine of oligarchy what was meant to be an organ of democracy.

The detailed causes of this reversal will require some careful analysis; but if the thing which makes representative institutions fail here must be expressed in a phrase, the two words which best sum it up are the “Party System.”

We have just attempted a sketch of representative government as it ought to be, and the English people long believed that they had got, if not quite that, at least a decent approximation to it. It was their boast that without bloodshed or violent severance with the past they had as much of the reality of self-government as the most perfectly planned Republic could have. In what degree this was ever true will form the matter of discussion later. But undoubtedly it was widely believed. Most Englishmen until very lately, if told that they were not self-governing, would have laughed in your face. But now a dim suspicion has begun to arise in the minds of at least a section of the people that this historic optimism is not quite as true as it looks, that the electors do not as a fact control the representatives, and that the representatives do not as a fact control the Government, that something alien has intervened between electors and elected, between legislature and Executive, something that deflects the working of representative institutions.

That thing is the Party System.

A method of government has grown up in our country under which the representatives of the people are divided into two camps which are supposed to represent certain broad divergences of opinion. Between these two the choice of the election lies, and the side which secures the largest measure of support form a Government, the minority undertaking the work of opposition.

How this system arose, how it has changed, and how it actually works, will be subjects of future consideration. At present we are concerned with the attitude of the public towards it.

First, it must be said emphatically that the body of public opinion upon which the Party System operates is in the main still honest and public-spirited. Not to admit this would be to nullify the effect of all criticism of the evil which we are trying to expose; for, as we are all aware, the theoretic differences at least between policies proposed is considerable, and often corresponds to the difference of schools of political thought; and even if we regard the politician as a mere advocate, the does hold a different brief according to the side of the House on which he sits, and though this brief may be unreal to him, and though, as it is the object of this book to show, he may have, and probably has, no intention of making it the basis of action, yet it is often real enough to those to whose support he appeals. Thus a Conservative leader must denounce the land taxes which the body of his followers in the country quite sincerely detest, and though, as they begin to suspect, he has no intention of repealing them, yet it would be childish to question the genuineness of the feelings which e is attempting to exploit.

The Party System, which is a game (and a source of profit) to the politicians, is often a matter of deadly earnest to their honest backers in the country.

There are still very many who believe implicitly and fervently in the reality of the conflict. There are Conservatives who are convinced that the Liberal Government is only prevented from dragging the nation through spoliation to destruction by the noble patriotism of the Conservative Opposition. There are Liberals who look on Mr Asquith and Mr Winston Churchill as the tribunes of a people rightly struggling to be free, confronting with undaunted courage the frowns of a haughty oligarchy. The old lady who, on Mr Gladstone being pointed out to her at the funeral of some public personage, remarked: - “Oh, I hope he hasn't come to make a disturbance!” is still with us, and so is the enthusiastic and credulous Radical who believes that Mr Churchill become an outcast from his order by bravely taking the side of the people.

There is another kind of enthusiast who helps to keep the Party System going. This is the man who earnestly desires some particular measure which one of the two parties has espoused, or (what comes to much the same thing) has an intense repugnance to some measure which the other party has espoused. Thus many men, more or less indifferent to politics generally, think that Tariff Reform will benefit their industry, and accordingly vote for the party that advocates it. Again, a man will often find his particular religion affected by legislation in regard to education or religious establishments, and will support the party identified with his views. To the same class belong the militant teetotalers, and the Irish, to whom nothing matters but the cause of their nationality. Men of this type do not form a very large section of the electorate, but they are of importance at elections, and the politicians have to take them into account.

Finally, there is the mass of ordinary voters, largely indifferent to political problems, yet at times keenly interested in politics. How shall we define their state of mind?

Perhaps the best parallel to the attitude of the general public towards politics is to be found in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. Of the crowds that line the towing path every year from Putney to Mortlake there are few that have ever been to either University, have ever known anyone who has been to either, have even the remotest or most shadowy connection with either. Yet the take sides enthusiastically, and would almost be prepared to shed blood for their “fancy.” Note that this is not a mere question of backing your judgement on the merits of the two crews. Not one man in ten knows anything about that, and many are proud of always sticking to the same side year after year, of being always “Oxford” or “Cambridge,” whether their favourite colour wins or loses. And just as they vehemently take sides with a University to which they have never been, so they take sides as vehemently with a party which they do not control and from which they can never hope for the smallest benefit.

Such are the mass of the supporters of either party. They derive their political opinions originally from some family tradition or some fanciful preference, but they back them with all the passion of sportsmen. In a vague subconscious way they know it is a game, but they happen to enjoy playing the game.

Neverthele3ss, there is a section of the public, not perhaps large, but certainly increasing, which is beginning to be uneasy about the Party System. It is natural to men to wish to have voice in the government of their native land, and many are beginning to feel that they have no such effective voice to-day. Laws which they detest are passed, passed easily by the consent of both parties, and they are powerless to defeat or even to protest against them. Measures which they ardently desire and which they know that most of their neighbours ardently desire are never even mentioned. Acts of the Government which seem at the very least proper subjects for criticism and inquiry are suffered without comment. Scandals and blunders of which they have caught a glimpse are suddenly covered over and buried in silence.

And along with the discontent engendered by these things goes an intangible suspicion that they are in some way the victims of a conspiracy. Why, asks such a man, does not his own side follow up its advantages? Why do his leaders unexpectedly spare their opponents at the very moment when these appear to be in their power? How many honest Radicals were bewildered when the Liberal leaders joined with their rivals to stifle the inquiry into the Jameson Raid! How many honest Unionists have been puzzled by Mr Balfour's hesitations and equivocations in the matter of Tariff Reform! How many on both sides have felt somehow fooled and betrayed when they saw the wild agitation and counter-agitation of last year end in a meaningless “Conference”!

It should be remarked, however, that those of whom we speak are generally very far from realising the full truth of their own suspicions. That something is wrong they instinctively feel. What is wrong they would find very great difficulty in defining. They lay the blame now on one leader, now on another. They hardly yet see that the evil is in the system itself. Thus Radicals will say that Mr Asquith is too Whiggish, that he does not fully enter into the feelings of his party in regard to the House of Lords. They do not realise that the whole Liberal Front Bench is as deeply interested as he in keeping the old game going in accordance with the old rules, and dreads as much as any Tory could dread any violent change which might suddenly alter the conditions and perhaps put a summary end to the contest. Thus, again, enthusiastic Tariff Reformers condemn Mr Balfour as weak. They fail to see that the real difficulty is not that he is weak, but that he is strong – strong in the traditions of party, the complex system of relationships and alliances that cover English politics like a net, much too strong to allow his hands to be forced by the Tory Democracy. Men of all opinions were puzzled, bewildered, and somewhat perturbed by the Conference, not knowing that it was but a more formal type of those thousand private Conferences between opposing leaders behind the Speaker's chair and at dinner parties and social clubs which give their real direction to the politics and to the destinies of modern England.

It is an error to suppose that the Party System was always the organised imposture which it is to-day. There was a time when it had a meaning – nay, even within times comparatively recent it meant more than it means now.

During the seventeenth century there was in England a definite conflict of political ideals. The old conception of kingship was at war with the theory of Parliamentary Government; and the vital reality of the struggle was proved by the one infallible test, the fact that men were willing to fight and kill and be killed for their own ideal. The war went on with varying fortunes until the Revolution of 1689, which marked the final triumph of one doctrine over the other.

It is a great though a not uncommon mistake to suppose that that triumph was a triumph of democracy. The Revolution took for its excuse indeed a democratic theory, simply because some excuse of the sort must be taken by anyone who attempts to put his political success upon a moral basis. There is not, and never has been, any moral theory of sovereignty conceivable that was not based upon the ultimate sovereignty of the community. But neither in motive nor in practice was there a democratic force behind the Revolution of 1689.

The Revolution of 1689 was not made by the people. The populace of London and of certain prosperous southern towns may have been in favour of it, but the mass of ancient and rural and the numerically preponderant England was certainly against it. The revolution was made not only by but for a group of wealthy intriguers with an object in the main financial. That group of men and their successors proceeded to enrich themselves at the public expense in every conceivable way. Perhaps the best commentary upon the Revolution of 1689 is to be found in the enclosure during the century and a half which followed the accession oft the House of Hanover of more than 6,000,000 acres of common land by the rich landowners and their satellites who had drawn the sword for “civil and religious liberty.” What triumphed in 1689 and again in 1715 and 1745 was not the people but the Parliament. The Parliament did not represent the people; indeed, it hardly professed to do so. It was jealous of any publicity given to its debates, it gloried in the private possession of seats in Parliament by particular magnates, and perhaps the most significant symptom of its character was the comparative effacement of the House of Lords.

The Parliament, then, represented a narrow class, which had for its base the great landowners, but for its buttresses the merchants, and for its recruitment wealth in any form however gotten. But it should be remembered that within this class there were real differences of opinion. The political conflicts of the eighteenth century were therefore, compared with our own, real conflicts. The Parliament might have little regard for the mass of the people, but it was powerful as against the mere Executive. The fact that strong Ministers were obliged to spend enormous sums in bribing the legislature proves that the legislature was able to control them, and, if not placated, to overthrow them. Such direct bribery has now ceased, but it may be questioned whether this cessation is not due rather to the growing impotence of the House of Commons than to any increase in public virtue. So again the conflicts of Pitt and Fox had this difference from the conflicts of rival politicians of the present day, that they extended to the sphere of private life. The two men did not speak to each other. They belonged to the same class, no doubt, for it was the only class possessed of any political power. But they did not, like Mr Asquith and Mr Balfour, belong to the same set.

The system of politics which lasted from the beginning to the end of the eighteenth century was finally disturbed by two forces: The material power created by the industrial revolution and the ideas generated by the Great Revolution of France. The two combined produced the Reform Bill of 1832. New wealth had been created by the new machinery, and this new wealth led to an extension in the class of the newly made rich, which gravely disturbed the old balance between the merchants and the mere landowners. The newly made rich continued to be rapidly and effectually digested into the governing class; indeed, it was Pitt's persistent policy to meet the new situation by a wholesale creation of plutocratic peers; but a sufficient margin of rich men remained outside the organism of the governing class to disturb the equilibrium, and hence the old representative system found itself in direct conflict with masses of the new wealth.

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century there was something like a real struggle between the commercial and the territorial rich – a struggle that culminated in the fight over Free Trade. To-day, not only has the struggle ceased, but the line of demarcation can no longer be drawn. Nobles and gentlemen of the old territorial class are now deeply interested in commercial speculations of all kinds, not only as urban landlords but as speculators and directors. On the other hand the newly made rich buy landed estates, county seats, and – what is more important than all – permanent legislative power in the House of Lords. At the present day the purchase of legislative power, which is the normal and shameful method of recruitment in the House of Lords, is almost invariably effected by men who have made their fortunes either in commerce or by money-lending. It is rare to find a large landowner who is also a commoner entering the market and purchasing a peerage.

We have to-day to deal not with a divided but with a united plutocracy, a homogeneous mass of the rich, commercial and territorial, into whose hands practically all power, political as well as economic, has now passed.

During the whole course of the nineteenth century two processes have been going on side by side, the one patent to all the world and the foundation of much comment and speculation, the other almost entirely unobserved and unmentioned. The first is the extension of the franchise. Step by step since 1832, more and more citizens have been admitted to vote for members of Parliament. First the clerk or shopkeeper, then the urban workman, and finally the agricultural labourer become an elector. This process should clearly have meant an increase in the power of democracy, and it has been practically universally assumed that it did mean this. But in fact it is extremely dubious whether the mass of the people have as much political power to-day as they had before the process began. Had the enfranchisement of the people come suddenly there is little doubt that something like real democracy would have been achieved. But it came by slow degrees, and there was time for another process to go on side by side with the widening of the franchise.

That process was the transfer of effective power from the House of Commons to the Ministry, or, to speak more accurately, to the two Front Benches, Government and “Opposition.” There was no definite moment at which you could say that this was done, but it has been done very thoroughly by now. Anyone who doubts this will find it easy to convince himself of it by glancing at the relations of the House and the Executive at the beginning of the process and at the end. At the beginning the Government was dependent on the House; now the House is in a state of abject dependence on the Ministers and ex-Ministers, who arrange between them the details of all policies.

A very simple test will show this. One of the most important historic powers of the House of Commons is the power of driving a Minister or Government from office. That power was not only possessed by the early Parliaments of the nineteenth century, but was continually exercised; and Administrations, strong in reputation and in parliamentary support, were repeatedly overthrown by revolts of their own followers, and dismissed by the vote of the Commons. So Wellington was overthrown in 1830, and Grey in 1834. So Peel was driven from power by the Protectionist revolt in 1845. So Lord John Russell fell in 1852, and so in a few months afterwards fell the Ministry of Derby and Disraeli. So the Coalition Ministry of Lord Aberdeen was defeated in 1855 by a vote of censure on the conduct of the Crimean War. So in 1857 Palmerston was beaten on the Chinese War, and again in 1859 on the Conspiracy Bill. So in 1865 the strong Ministry of Russell and Gladstone was overthrown on its Reform Bill by the rebellion of the Adullamites. If we take the year 1970 as the pivot year, we shall find that in the forty years that preceded 19870, nine Administrations which could normally command a majority of the Commons were upset by the independent action of members of that House. In the forty years that have passed since 1870 only one instance of this happening can be mentioned – the defeat of Mr Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1866. There the circumstances were in many ways exceptional, and even that example is now nearly a quarter of a century old. In the last twenty-four years not a single case of such independent action on the part of the Commons has occurred.

Another illustration, if further illustration be needed, of the progressive emasculation of the House of Commons may be found by comparing its attitude in the matter of the Crimean War waged fifty years ago, and its attitude in the matter of the South African War waged only the other day. Both wars, whether wise of foolish, just or unjust, were undoubtedly supported by the bulk of public opinion both within and without Parliament. Both wars were scandalously mismanaged. But the Crimean War was sought when Parliament was comparatively free. As soon as the details of the mismanagement began to be known in England there was a fierce popular agitation, and the popular voice was immediately heard not only in the Press but also in Parliament. A Committee of Inquiry was demanded and refused. But in spite of the opposition of the men in power the demand was carried in the House of Commons by a huge majority. The result was that Lord Aberdeen had to resign and Lord Palmerston took his place. Palmerston wanted to get rid of the Committee, but the House insisted, and he, power and popular as he was, was obliged to bow to its will. All this was done, it must be remembered, not by the Opposition or the Peace Party, but by men returned to support the Government – men who thoroughly approved of the war and merely wished to see it efficiently conducted.

In the case of the South African War there was plenty of grumbling in the country, and not a few sensational exposures of the incompetence and corruption which weakened our arms. But within the walls of Parliament scarcely a voice was heard, and it certainly never entered the head of any Conservative member (or Liberal member either for that matter) to take the strong step of driving out the men in power and putting better administrators in their place. Indeed, the war was conducted invariably without consulting Parliament; and during the whole of its course financial scandals, quite openly talked of among the educated classes of this country, had no place in Parliamentary discussion. The House of Commons had ceased to be an instrument of government.

To whom, then, has the power of the House of Commons passed? It has passed to a political committee for which no official name exists (for it works in secret), but which may be roughly called “The Front Benches.” This committee is not elected by vote, or by acclamation, or even by general consent. Its members do not owe their position either to the will of the House or the will of the people. It is selected – mainly from among the rich politicians and their dependents – by a process of sheer and unchecked co-option. It froms in reality a single body, and acts, when its interests or its power are at stake, as one man. No difference of economic interest or of political principle any longer exists among its members to form the basis of a rational line of party division. Nevertheless, the party division continues. The governing group is divided arbitrarily into two teams, each of which is, by mutual understanding, entitled to its turn of office and emolument. And a number of unreal issues, defined neither by the people nor by the Parliament, but by the politicians themselves, are raised from time to time in order to give a semblance of reality to their empty competition.

That is the Party System as it exists to-day, and by it the House of Commons has been rendered null, and the people impotent and without a voice.

Since we have seen that, during the last century, power has been silently transferred from the House of Commons, it becomes a matter of vital importance to ask to whom it has been transferred. We have already said that it has been transferred to the Cabinet; but what is a Cabinet, and how is it constructed?

The theory of the Constitution is that Ministers are nominated by the Crown. Everyone knows that this has ceased to be the fact. Many people would tell you that now Ministers are in effect nominated by Parliament. But this is equally far from the truth. The plain truth is that Ministers nominate themselves. They form a self-elected body, filling up its vacancies by co-option.

The two Front Benches are close oligarchical corporations; or, to speak more accurately, one close oligarchical corporation, admission to which is only to be gained by the consent of those who have already secured places therein. The price which has to be paid for admission is, of course, a complete surrender of independence, and absolute submission to the will of the body as a whole.

The greater number of the members of this close corporation enter by right of their relationship, whether of blood or marriage, to other members of the group, no matter of what social rank. They may be called the Relations. This family arrangement must not be confused with what once was the old aristocratic privileges of the Great Houses.

There are still indeed certain wealthy political families whose members are regarded as having a prescriptive right to share in the government of the country. Their wealth is more and more important, their lineage less and less. The traditions of the English political system having been aristocratic in character, render the presence of the members of such families (in lessening degree) antecedently probably; but while the public realises this, it is not aware of the degree in which mere relationship, high or low born, enters into the making of Ministries, still less of the way in which family ties enter into the formation of the two closely connected Front Benches, where there is no question of aristocratic decent.

It is neither novel nor astonishing to discover a Duke of Norfolk acting as Postmaster-General under a Conservative Administration. As the Duke of Devonshire was a member of former governments, so one would imagine that the present Duke, his nephew, would naturally hold office in any future Unionist Administration. The public evenexpects that Mr Austen Chamberlain should inherit, as it were, Cabinet rank from his father; nor is it much scandalised to see the Prime Minister's brother-in-law, Mr Tennant, sitting by his side on the Treasury bench. Mr Churchill, of course, as a member of the family whose name he bears, and as heir to his father's career, has a double right.

But the list begins to grow long when we see Lord Selborne, the son-in-law of a former Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, governing South Africa at a moment when his first cousin, Mr Arthur Balfour, is the Prime Minister of the day (being retained there subsequently by Mr Balfour's “opponents”), while that Prime Minister's brother, Mr Gerald Balfour, not only enjoys long years of office through his family connection, but a considerable public pension into the bargain when office is no longer open to him. That lord Gladstone should inherit from his father may seem normal enough, though his name does swell this extended category. But to find Lord Portsmouth Under Secretary for War, while a cousin of his wife's, Sir John Pease, has yet another post under the present Government, and his cousin again, Mr Pike Pease, the reversion of a “Conservative” post; and to have to add to this that the Liberal Whip, Sir John Fuller, is actually the brother-in-law of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Hobhouse, both being grandchildren by blood or marriage of a Conservative Chancellor, Lord St Aldwyn (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), touches upon the comic when we remember how large a proportion of the paid offices available this list represents. Nor do the names here jotted down almost at random present more than a very small sample of the whole system.

It must be noted that these family ties are not confined to the separate sides of the House. They unite the Ministerial with the Opposition Front Bench as closely as they united Ministers and ex-Ministers to each other.

For instance, to quote again chance connections that occur to one, the present talented and versatile (“Liberal”) Under Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr Masterman, is the nephew by marriage of the late (“Conservative”) Colonial Secretary, Mr Lyttleton; who, in his turn, is closely connected with Mr Asquith, for they married sisters. The present (“Liberal”) President of the Council, Lord Beauchamp, is brother-in-law of a former Conservative Governor of Madras, Lord Ampthill; a “Liberal” and a “Unionist” Whip, the two Peases, are cousins (the latter of Ministerial rank, though not of course yet in enjoyment of office); and, as all the world knows, Mr Winston Churchill is not only the cousin of a former Conservative Minister, the Duke of Marlborough, but directly succeeded the head of his own family in the post he held, that of Under Secretary for the Colonies.

Points of this kind are of importance, for they show to how restricted a group of men the functions of government have come to be entrusted. They are effects, not causes, of its narrowness. None can deny that the phenomena are peculiar to a political condition exceedingly abnormal. Groups of this sort could not possible arise in a genuinely democratic society; and, what is more, are more closely and intricately bound together even than they were in the days when the government of this country was avowedly that of an oligarchy. The tendency to govern by clique is not decreasing; it is increasing.

But, it may be asked, is there anything wrong in men differing in politics yet remaining of friendly terms in private life? Is there any reason why a man should not marry a woman because her family belongs to the political party opposed to his? Not the least in the world. Such things would naturally happen in the most real and earnest political conflict. But they would happen as exceptions; there would be perhaps one or two such cases in every generation. When we find such things not exception, but universal, we may safely say that we are not considering a certain number of examples of personal sympathy or attraction over-riding political differences, but a general system of government by a small, friendly, and closely inter-related clique. We are not surprised at Romeo loving Juliet, though he is a Montague and she a Capulet. But if we found in addition that Lady Capulet was by birth a Montague, that Lady Montague was the first cousin of old Capulet, that Mercutio was at once the nephew of a Capulet and the brother-in-law of a Montague, that County Paris was related on his father's side to one house and on his mother's side to the other, that Tybalt was Romeo's uncle's stepson, and that the Friar who married Romeo and Juliet was Juliet's uncle and Romeo's first cousin once removed, we should probably conclude that the feud between the two houses was being kept up mainly for the dramatic entertainment of the people of Verona.

It should further be noted that the kindly tolerance on which politicians are so fond of congratulating themselves is extended only to those who play the game and not at all to those who spoil the game. It was not extended to Parnell. It was not extended to Mr Victor Grayson. It is the result not of magnanimity, but of indifference.

Finally, the mere fact that the electorate is never allowed to learn the full truth as to these relationships and intimacies is sound moral proof that their motive is a motive of imposture.

The second division, and reserve as it were of Cabinet material, may be called the Private Secretaries. Sons of good families, inadequately provided for, sons of the new rich with political ambitions, sons especially of persons who have helped to finance prominent politicians of have subscribed largely to the Party Funds, often obtain positions as private secretaries to the great men on the Front Benches. If they are fairly apt and industrious they have little difficulty in making themselves useful, in rising in the political world, and eventually (sometimes quickly) in obtaining Cabinet rank. Mr Montagu's career, like that of his cousin Mr Herbert Samuel, has been of this kind. These two related members also touch another part of our subject, for one is the son, the other the nephew, of the late Lord Swaythling, formerly Sir Samuel Montagu.

Finally, there are those whom we may roughly describe as the make-weights – persons having no direct family or financial connection with the ruling group, but co-opted by the Ministers, sometimes because they have made some sort of reputation in the House or in the country, sometimes because they are in possession of some other source of influence which it is thought may be useful to the two Front Benches, sometimes because they have given, and are still capable of giving, annoyance to the Professional Politicians when in an independent position. Clever lawyers are often taken into the service of the oligarchy in this way, and there is at least one well-known case of an ex-workman being so taken. Such men, not feeling sure of their footing, are generally especially pliant to the will of the oligarchy.

Commonly they become merged in it. Thus, when Mr Asquith entered the Gladstone Government of 1892, he was, we believe, unconnected by any direct tie with the governing group. Now he and his are connected by a dozen such ties.

It is clear, that the method by which Ministries are formed is the method of co-option. No man is made a Minister by election or acclamation either of the people or of the legislature. Office, unlike the kingdom of heaven, is not taken by storm. That man may enter its narrow gate, he must prove himself able and willing to be a serviceable tool of those who hold the keys. And this power of the oligarchy to admit or refuse Ministerial appointments is perhaps the most powerful means used by them to fetter the House of Commons. Their control over the bestowal of places has created in the House a large class of placemen and placemen-expectant, upon whose interested support the machinery of party discipline largely depends.

The Placeman is a historic figure in English politics. He is as prominent and important a figure as the present time as he was in Walpole's day. The publication of Parliamentary proceedings and the introduction of a democratic element into the House of Commons have made it necessary to cover his operations with a veil of somewhat greater decency, but his character and functions are in essence just what they always were.

The Placeman is the man who enters politics as a profession with the object of obtaining one of the well-paid offices in the gift of the Ministry. His mode of operation will necessarily vary according to his talents and temperament. Sometimes he will endeavour to earn the gratitude of the governing group by voting steadily according to the dictation of the Whips (a high record in divisions, when it is not a hobby or a method of duping a constituency, may generally be taken as the mark of an embryo or prospective Placeman), by coming to the rescue of the Ministers, and defending them when their followers prove restive, by always being ready to put down “blocking” motions to prevent the discussion of inconvenient topics, or to move “shelving” amendments or inconvenient motions. Sometimes he plays a bolder game, assumes the airs of an independent member, criticises the Government from time to time, asks inconvenient questions, and makes himself a mild nuisance to the Front Benches and the Whips. But by this sign the mere Placeman may always be known that, though he may ask questions or raise matters slightly inconvenient to his “leaders,” he will never hint at existence of things inconvenient to both Front Benches and awkward to the Party System as a whole, for on this system he proposes to fatten.

The change which office produces in men of this type is often extraordinary. Take the case of Mr C.F.G. Masterman. Mr Masterman entered Parliament as a Liberal of independent views. During his first two years in the House he distinguished himself as a critic of the Liberal Ministry. He criticised their Education Bill. He criticised with especial force the policy of Mr John Burns at the Local Government Board. His conduct attracted the notice of the leaders of the party. He was offered office, accepted it, and since then has been silent, except for an occasional rhetorical exercise in defence of the Government. One fact will be sufficient to emphasise the change. On March 13th, 1908, Mr Masterman voted for the Right to Work Bill of the Labour Party. In may of the same year he accepted a place with a salary of £1200 a year – it has since risen to £1500. On April 20th, 1909, he voted, at the bidding of the Party Whips, against the same Bill which he had voted for in the previous year. Yet this remarkable example of the “peril of change” does not apparently create any indignation or even astonishment in the political world which Mr Masterman adorns. On the contrary, he seems to be generally regarded as a politician of exceptionally high ideals. No better instance need be recorded of the peculiar atmosphere it is the business of these pages to describe.

In the same category we may include the mischief which accompanies the presence of so large a number of barristers in Parliament, where barristers abound, because they always have something to get from the Government. The prizes in this profession are high, and they are all at the disposal of the governing group. Therefore the fairly successful lawyer is always the most serviceable too of the Ministers. It was a lawyer, Mr Buckmaster, who moved the amendment which shelved the question of the secrecy of the Party Funds. It was a layer, or rather two or three lawyers, who were employed to damp down the Nationalist movement in Wales. Indeed, Wales presents a particularly strong case, for the consistent policy of the Government has been to buy off the Welsh by giving promotion to Welsh barristers.

A striking case of the way in which barristers are rewarded is that of Mr Horridge. Mr Horridge defeated Mr Balfour at North-east Manchester in 1906. It was generally understood that he was to have the first judgeship that fell vacant. When, however, the first vacancy occurred the Education Question was to the fore, and it was felt that a by-election in Manchester would be dangerous. Mr Horridge was therefore passed over, an the place was given to another political lawyer, Mr Hemmerde. When the General Election came, Mr Horridge did not stand again; immediately after it his fidelity was rewarded with the long-expected judgeship. Now Mr Horridge happens to be a good judge. O si sic omnes!

There are thus in every House of Commons a very large number of men who either have received or expect to receive places which are in the gift of the Government. On the other side of the House are an almost equally large number who expect to receive places from the next Government as soon as their own party is in power. Between them they make up an important section of the House, and they can be absolutely relied on by Government and Opposition to vote straight as the ruling group direct.

At the same time it must be remembered that the influence which the Front Benches can exert over members of Parliament is by no means confined to those who have places or to the much larger class of those who think they may some day get places. In a thousand ways the position of a man who renders himself obnoxious to the governing group can be made unpleasant; in at thousand ways submission to them can be rewarded by little favours. One member refrains from pressing some inconvenient inquiries on the Foreign Office or the India Office because he is about to take a trip to Egypt or India and wishes to have no obstacles thrown in his way. Another- perhaps a lawyer – will refrain from taking up a determinedly independent attitude because, if he gets the reputation of being “impracticable,” it may injure him professionally. Another wants some private Bill in which either he or his constituents are interested to pass smoothly and rapidly. None of these men want to make themselves unnecessarily unpopular with the group I whose hands is not only the disposal of places, but the Executive Government and the absolute control of the time of the House. Add to these considerations the pressure which the Party Caucus can (as we shall see hereafter) exercise upon elections, and it is not surprising that the ancient control of the House of Commons over the Ministry has been replaced by despotic authority of the Ministry over the House of Commons.

There is, of course, a large margin in any House of Commons to whom no direct or conscious pressure can be said to apply. They would themselves be quite genuinely and sincerely astonished if they were told that any pressure was exercised upon them, or that any advantage was held out to them by what they would call “loyalty to their party.” They are men for the most part wealthy, men who regard a seat in the House of Commons as a social honour which they have purchased with a certain expenditure of their money and their energy, men who take the duties of their position seriously, and who perform all that part of parliamentary work which his less touched by corruption adequately well. They do excellent work upon committees, they busy themselves with the minor details of their constituencies, they speak for hard cases, they try to obtain petty situations for their supporters, etc. These men are perfectly honest, and would be more astonished than any reader of this book, or any ordinary member of the electorate, to hear that pressure was put upon them by the cynical and happily outworn clique upon which the placemen openly depend for their livelihood.

Now, to the plain citizen the astonishment is not that pressure should be put upon such men, but that they do not recognise the pressure.

The plain citizen will never be persuaded that Mr Brown, young Lord Jenkinson, and Sir James Smith always think in the same way upon all matters. He cannot conceive why they should always vote the same way, unless they have motives as bad and as fraudulent as those of the regular placeman whom they support. It behoves us, therefore, to ask how the contradiction arises, and how perfectly honest men can be made to serve the system? The main pivot of the machine lies in the fixed custom of dissolving when a majority is expressed against the act of any Minister. True, this capital point of the whole parliamentary game has latterly, with the advent of groups, lost something of its force. But it still survives as a main instrument by which the ordinary and honest member is coerced.

The Government does now and then give way when it appreciates that a majority may possibly be formed against it; and there have been of late years two or three rare and minor instances in which the expression of the popular will through its representatives in Parliament has controlled the Executive – as, for instance, in Clause IV. Of the Trades Dispute Bill. But, as a rule, the working of the machine is as follows: - The Government after consultation with the other half of the clique who sit on the Opposition Front Bench, determine that such and such a proposal is their “policy.” If a majority of the House of Commons disapprove by their vote of such a “policy,” a General Election, with all its expense of time, energy, and money, is imposed upon every member of the House.

The situation is precisely as though a King (when the Crown had real power) had been able to say to the Commons: “I propose to spend so many millions on an addition to my standing army, and if you express disapproval of this I will find every man Jack of you a thousand pounds, and imperil his chance of ever coming back to oppose my will!” For it must be remembered that, though the party funds are lavishly used to support even the richest members of the party, they are despotically controlled, unaudited, and immediately withdrawn from any member who has voted against the directions of the Government, whose directions are never more emphatic than when they are issued after a consultation with their nominal opponents.

It is this necessity, the necessity of “keeping the Government in,” or paying a heavy penalty in money, time, energy, and the imperilling of one's place in Parliament, which controls the great body of men who cannot come under any of the categories we have yet mentioned, and in a later part of this book we will return to the subject when we consider what remedies there may be for the present impasse.

The popular defence of the elaborate system of indirect corruption described in the last section is that it is necessary for the maintenance of discipline.

Now, discipline is a military term, and implies the existence or prospect of a war. It is obviously inapplicable to matters of legislation, except under most extraordinary circumstances. It is the idea of a good soldier that he obeys the orders of his superior - “His not to reason why, etc.” But it is the very object of the legislator to “reason why.” His function is criticism; and discipline is fatal to criticism, and is meant to be so. Soldiers are not there to criticise their officers, but to follow them. Members of Parliament, on the other hand, are there (or ought to be there) to criticise the Ministers; and it is certain that they cannot effectively criticise so long as they obediently follow.

There is only one possible occasion upon which the word discipline could ever properly be applied to Parliamentary affairs, and that would be some momentous crisis (such as only occurs once in two of three centuries) when politics begin really to take on the aspect of civil war or revolution. No one will pretend that such a state of things exists at the present time. But there are still a good many people who believe the conflict between the two parties to be, as far as it goes, a real one. Young Liberals are told that they must drop minor differences that they may present a serried front to the forces of reaction. The Conservative rank and file have it impressed upon them with equal emphasis that their enforced unity is the only obstacle to a devastating flood of confiscatory revolution.

Now, if we were soldiers in an army subjected to a system of military law of unusual severity, we should perhaps submit cheerfully to our lot so long as we believed in the vital reality and value of the cause for which we were fighting. But, if we found that all the time that we were being flogged or shot for the smallest infraction of discipline, our chief officers were continually conferring with the officers of the enemy, were on the best of terms with them, concocted their plan of campaign in concert with them, always carefully avoided every occasion of decisive engagement between the two armies, and generally treated the whole war as a friendly game of mixed chance and skill between themselves and their friends and relations on the other side, - then I think our floggings and shootings would justly become a matter for complaint and even for mutiny.

That is, briefly, the political situation to-day. On the rank and file is imposed a rigid discipline which nothing but an extraordinary public crisis could justify, while at the same time the commanders treat the whole affair as the most frivolous of amusements, the keen enjoyment of which need in no way disturb the friendliness of their private relations. That is the situation, and it is becoming to most of us an intolerable one.

The recent “Conference” of eight members of the governing group to discuss the question of the House of Lords opened the eyes of a good many people who were previously blind to the unreality of the struggle. It was a little too impudent! Yet behind the irony of this silent compact coming after all the heroic rhetoric of the General Election there was a deeper irony. The ordinary journalistic picture of the conference suggests that Mr Asquith and Mr Balfour met for the first time, bowed to each other with cold civility, and proceeded to discuss terms of settlement with the polite hauteur of dignified enemies. As a matter of fact, of course, this Conference, trumpeted through the press as if it were a unique event, was only one of the hundred conferences which various members of the two Front Benches, and especially the two leaders, their secretaries, the two Chief Whips, the confidential hangers-on, and now and then the principal official paymasters habitually hold to settle the affairs of Parliament. Agreement between the two Front Benches is not a rare expedient suited to a special crisis. It is the normal method of governing the country.

We spoke just now of the generals as carefully avoiding the possibility of any decisive engagement between their followers. Anybody who recalls what has happened during the last twenty years can remember repeated cases where one side seemed on the point of achieving a decisive victory over the other, when a halt was suddenly called, the troops ordered back to quarters, and the battle abandoned. A subject is raised. It forms that topic of numerous and heated orations. The country is wildly excited about it. Then it is suddenly dropped; nobody knows why – except the Front Benches.

A very strong case may be found in the Committee of the House of Commons which inquired into the Jameson Raid. It will be remembered that that Committee seemed always on the very verge of some startling revelation, but that just at the sensational moment the inquiry – like a newspaper serial – abruptly stopped. Now, it is obvious that, if the fight between the parties were a genuine one, there was nothing more to be desired by the Liberal members of the Committee than an exposure which might have discredited the Ministers in power. Yet Sir William Harcourt and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and their henchman, Mr Ellis, were as eager as any Tory could be to hush up anything that might discredit the Colonial Office. Why was this?

Because they also were Front Benchers, and at all times of crisis the Front Benches hang together. Another case was that of Chinese Labour. If ever an election was one on a specific issue, the election of 1906 was won on Chinese Labour. This is not the place to express an opinion on the merits of the question; we simply state the facts. If the representatives of the people had acted according to their instructions, the repatriation of the Chinese would have begun at once and upon the largest possible scale. Everybody knows that this was not done; on the contrary anxious negotiations were entered into by the Ministry to propitiate the South African Jews, a common plan was agreed on between the two Front Benches and those magnates, and 1300 Chinese were admitted to the Rand after the change of Government. But this is not the important point. The important point is that the new House of Commons, elected mainly on that issue, was not allowed to divide on the question or to express any opinion upon the policy which should be adopted. But we shall return to this capital and decisive illustration in more detail upon a later page.

A third example may be found in the recent “Conference.” Who, listening to the torrents of eloquence poured out during the last General Election, to the Liberal fulminations against the tyranny of the Lords, to the Unionist fulminations against the “Socialism” of the Liberals, to Mr Balfour's denunciations of Mr Ure, and to Mr Ure's retorts on Mr Balfour, to the repeated appeals of both sides to the Voice of the People, would have believed that the whole tragic business was to be openly branded as a farce by its very authors, or that these gentlemen would indulge in sham secret meetings, which even had they pretended to reality, would have been a negation of all that had been said and done five months before?

But it, from a past which is known, we turn to a future which may be confidently predicted (for accurate prediction is the best of all tests that can be applied to theory), we have an immediate example before us.

The moment at which this book appears offers an opportunity for putting its thesis to the test.

It has been determined by the two Font Benches to alter both the Constitution and the powers of the House of Lords. In what way will those powers be altered, and what body will take the place of the present Second Chamber?

Without any reasonable doubt, the powers of the House of Lords, after the most ridiculous sham demagogy from the Treasury Bench, and equally ridiculous sham indignation from their relatives and private friends across the table, and after perhaps some sham resistance organised to give vitality to the show, will be modified in such a fashion that: -

(1)The House of Lords shall not be able to prevent the passage into law of measures concerted upon between the two Front Benches; and

(2)The House of Lords shall be able to prevent the passage of measures which, towards the end of a Parliament, are put up in order to secure the “swing of the pendulum.”

In other words, so far as its powers are concerned, the Second Chamber will be turned into a machine subservient to the bi-party system.

Now as to its Constitution: The House of Lords is at present composed of some hundreds of men, the mass of whom owe their seats to heredity. A smaller number owe their seats to the filling of posts within the gift of the professional politicians, such as Colonial Governorships, etc. Another batch owe their seats to purchase – this base method is increasingly common, and has become taken for granted in our modern social habits. A fourth (small) class consists in men promoted in order to permit the easy working of the Party game – they have been in the way or proved failures on one of the two Front Benches. A tiny fifth class, consisting of less than half a dozen, are men who appear simply because they have rendered great services to their country; in one case a man of letters received this distinction. The lawyers, who must be present in small numbers in order to preserve the fiction of the House of Lords as a Court of Appeal, are a class apart. Then there are the Bishops.

Now, when the House of Lords is reconstituted, after due consultation and agreement between the two Front Benches, which of these classes will disappear? Not the handful of professional politicians already represent; certainly not the peers who sit by right of purchase, for the sale of peerages is one of the most important aliments of the machine still less the Bishops. Those who will disappear are the country squires who are in one sense really representative of England, and who, though usually bamboozled to some extent by the intrigues at Westminster, vote either in their own private interests or as they think best for the nation. Those ware the men who will go. If new elements are added they will absolutely certainly include nominees of the machine, or, as the pretty phrase goes, “of the Crown.”

Here is a concrete instance, and it will be well worth the while of any reader of this book to watch whether it has not been well chosen and whether its fulfilment does not prove to what a pass the political system has come.

It is necessary, then, for the understanding of modern British politics to realise that the two Front Benches are not two but one. They are united not only by the close bonds of relationship, intermarriage, and personal friendship which exist between them, but also by a common interest. It is to the interest of both to keep the game going, and it is also to the interest of both to prevent the game from becoming too real. It is, of course, quite true that, within these limits, each side genuinely wants to win. Apart from the sporting interest of the conflict, there are very material prizes to be gained by the winning side. To many politicians it makes a considerable pecuniary difference whether they are in office or in opposition – a fact which has decided many a political crisis, though we are all too well-bred to take it into our calculations. This, however, remains a secondary object, subordinate to the essential aim of both Front Benches, the maintenance of the Party System.

With the two Front Benches must be reckoned the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees, officers chosen by them, and working with them. It is no derogation of the admitted impartiality of the Chair to say this. There has never been the smallest reason to suspect the Speaker or Chairman of leaning unfairly to one or other side of the House. Why, indeed, should he, seeing that he at any rate knows the fight between them to be a sham one?

But it is well known that they continually consult with the leaders of the House and the Opposition as to the conduct of business, and that when the Front Benches are agreed they can almost invariably rely upon the support of the Chair. Now, this governing group, as we may call it, comprising the two Front Benches and the Speaker, has attained absolute control over the procedure of the House of Commons.

First, it has the allotment of the time of the House. It can settle how much time shall be given to the discussion of any subject, and whether any time shall be given thereto. It can therefore in effect settle whether any particular measure shall have a chance of passing into law.

Secondly, it has control of the order of the House. It can settle what subjects may be discussed, and what may be said on those subjects.

To the consideration of these matter we shall now proceed.

Often embedded in the stiff and unreal ritual of our Parliamentary system you will find some fragment which seems peculiarly fantastic and unmeaning, because it is really, so to speak, the fossil of a forgotten reality. One such case is the rule which compels persons accepting office to submit themselves to their constituents for re-election – a rule dating from the time when the House of Commons was supposed to be retuned not to “support” the Government, but to oppose and criticise the Government. Another is the form gone through at every opening of Parliament of giving a first reading to a dummy bill before the King's Speech is delivered.

The object of this curious ceremony is to affirm the ancient privilege of the Commons to transact whatever business they chose without reference to the wishes of the Crown or its Ministers. It dates from the time when the Crown and the House were at war, and it emphasises the doctrine that the House can consider any subject it likes, and consider them in any order it likes, and is not bound to deal first with the matters brought before it by the Ministers. In other words, it affirms the absolute control of the House over its own time.

The symbol is still visible, but, alas! The fact it represented is gone. The House no longer controls its own time; the House no longer chooses its own subjects for discussion. These things are now done for it by the Ministers of the Crown.

Five-sixths or more of the time of the House is, under the present Standing Orders, at the absolute disposal of the Government. It is devoted to the discussion of Bills proposed by the Ministers, or to the voting of supplies demanded by the Ministers. A certain amount of time is assigned by the Ministers to each matter, and at the end of that time the closure automatically puts an end to discussion. It is true that it is a part of the game for the Opposition to protest against such procedure, but the protest is merely ceremonial; for when a change takes place, the new Government invariably forgets its past utterances and uses the precedent set by its predecessor to restrict even more closely the rights of private members. Indeed, the farce of the Opposition protest has begun to pall even on politicians, and Mr Balfour has shown a disposition to drop it.

The private member has two and only two opportunities (apart from Supply, which we shall discuss later) of bringing any question in which he or his constituents may be specially interested before the House. In the ordinary way one afternoon a week is set aside for the discussion of business not brought forward by the two Front Benches. Even this privilege is held on a very insecure tenure. The Government can at any time demand all the time which this nominally representative and legislative assembly can give, and towards the end of a busy session it usually does so; but during the early part of the session a private member who is fortunate enough to secure a day may bring any question he likes before the House. The order of procedure for such questions is settled by balloting among the members.

The mode of bringing forward such a question may take the form either of a Bill or a resolution, but no opposed Bill has the smallest chance of passing into law unless the Ministers are prepared to grant special facilities. If this is not the case, the Bill, even if it passes its second reading by a large majority, is indefinitely shelved. We do not believe that there has been within recent years a single case of a private member's Bill, to which any opposition was offered, passing into law without special facilities from the Government. There have been innumerable cases of such Bills passed by large majorities in successive sessions, and even in successive Parliaments, yet never getting any further.

If the member confines himself to a resolution, desiring only to test the opinion of the opinion of the House, it is by no means certain that he will be able to do so. It rests entirely with the Speaker to decide whether he will accept the closure at the end of the debate, so that a division may be taken before the House automatically adjourns, and very frequently he refuses to do so.

Moreover, it is nearly always possible for the Government to prevent a division on an inconvenient resolution by putting up one of its henchmen to move a shelving amendments. No better example of this could be chosen, nor any better test of the breakdown of representative institutions, as we now have them, that the lack of all machinery for the bringing forward of public questions. This is sufficiently proved when we say that so contemptuous a method as the above must, under the present procedure of the House, be necessarily successful. A good illustration of this method was afforded when one of the authors of this book raised the question of the secrecy of the Party Funds. A “Liberal” barrister, Mr Buckmaster, was approached by the officials of the Executive, after full consultation with the Opposition Front Bench, asking whether he would undertake to nullify the debate. The matter was a ticklish one; when the motion was first tabled, many “experts in procedure” gravely hinted that it would be “out of order” - and it should be noted that whether a motion is declared out of order or not may not be known until the very moment before it is supposed to come on for discussion. Other hints were dropped as to the “pressure” - that is the promise of advantage or the refusal of advantage – that would be brought to bear; that is, that would be offered or threatened. The task of nullifying the debate was refused by more than one man; but at last the legal gentleman in question, presumably under some definite arrangement agreeable to himself, tabled an amendment to the effect that this secrecy was particularly bad in the case of the Tariff Reform League. This, of course, successfully put a stop to the discussion. The Unionists moved a similar amendment referring to the Free Trade Union; and the division, instead of being upon the secrecy of the Party Funds, was an ordinary party division between Liberals and Tories.

It is satisfactory to know that the reprisal threatened by one strong Radical among the many who desired the original discussion, to wit, going down to Cambridge and fighting Mr Buckmaster at the next election, was unnecessary. Mr Buckmaster lost his seat, and the two Front Benches were no doubt relieved to discover that they had thus escaped from their bargain. Another expedient for preventing the raising of inconvenient questions by men acting in the interests of their constituents is the “blocking motion.”

There is an absurd rule by which, if a member has given notice of a motion dealing with a certain question, no other member can discuss that question till the first member's motion is disposed of. As there is no obligation on the first member to move his motion, the Government finds it easy to burke discussion whenever it has a mind to do so. It has only to induce some obedient supporter to give notice of a motion that he has not the faintest intention of moving, and by keeping that motion indefinitely on the notice paper it can successfully prevent any other member from raising the question it desires to evade. In this way Mr Rees, now a knight or baronet in some order or other, distinguished himself during the Parliament of 1906. The most conspicuous example of an order proceeding from the two Front Benches to prevent discussion, by means of this fraudulent artifice in the hands of a subservient placeman, was the blocking of discussion on India, a matter of the most active and grave concern to everyone in these islands.

The method of raising questions by a motion for the adjournment of the House is hedged round with restrictions. It can only be done in the case of “a matter of urgent public importance,” and the Speaker is the sole judge of what constitutes such a matter. The position and reputation of the Chair depend in this matter, perhaps more than in any other, upon a technical impartiality, and it should be recognised that in no matter is this impartiality more really or constantly exercised.

The adjournment of the House is a grave matter interfering with the convenience and desires of many; it is exceedingly important to prevent its being frivolously moved. It may justly be said that if the matter really is or urgent public importance, the Chair still allows it to be an excuse for moving the adjournment. But – and this is essential – the mover must find forty members to support him, and if the Front Benches are united in desiring to prevent discussion, this is generally very difficult; for outside the Irish party, which will probably have no concern in the matter, it is not easy to find forty members present in the House at one time (the House of Commons is usually attended by a dozen or twenty members at the most) who can afford to sacrifice the advantages in honour and money which the two Front Benches have to offer.

The general truth, then, is that the time of the House has passed absolutely into the hands of the little group that governs. The House cannot discuss what questions it pleases, or pass what laws it pleases. It can only wait obediently for the questions raised by the Government, and vote blindly for the laws which the Government chooses to introduce.

The vital importance of this phrase, “the time of the House,” may escape the general reader. It lies in the fact that the Government (or, as our ancestors would have called it, “the Crown”) can not only automatically fix how the time of the House shall be used, but can also decide how much time there shall be.That is the vital point. It is as though at a company meeting the directors had the power not only of saying what might be and what might not be raised by shareholders, not only the power of apportioning the time in which discussion should take place on each point, but also the power of saying whether such and such a question or all questions should be debated in meetings of so many hours' duration, and of fixing the number of meetings. Thus foreign affairs are not discussed at all in the English Parliament; a few hours a year are perfunctorily allotted to them; and the same is true of all those departments in which it is desired to avoid discussion. If the process continues we shall have in a few years no matter of vital and real interest open to discussion at a sufficiently length for public opinion to be expressed, or for criticism to be allowed any weight.

There remains only a third method besides motions and bills, and that is the direct asking of a “question” in “question time.” No speech is permitted, of course, on such an occasion, nor any characterisation of Ministerial action (though the Minister may make a speech in reply, and say what he likes about the questioner): nothing but a bare answer can be expected, and even that may be refused. But, such as it is, this method of keeping a subject alive by questions is the only – though paltry – procedure left to a member of the House of Commons who desires to act in that assembly in any representative character.

With its efficiency and action we will deal in the next section.