| | | | | practical men. Men are gregarious, and herd together | from mere instinct; they are eager, and will unite to push | the objects they have at heart; but the combinations into | which the generality naturally fall are after the type of | their own minds, small and narrow, and moulded on some | single speciality. Combinations there must be ~~ the | only question is, whether they shall be broad parties, | based on comprehensive ideas, and guided by men who | have a name to stake on the wisdom of their course, or | obscure cliques, with some narrow crotchet for a policy, | and some paltry yelping shibboleth for a cry. | The necessity of a party organization is usually argued as | if it was purely a House of Commons question. The evils | of the opposite state of things is indeed patent enough in | the proceedings of that body. Compare the traces left on | the statute-book by the first two years of Lord | Melbourne's Administration, or by Sir Robert Peel's, with | those which mark Lord Palmerston's rule up to this time. | Legislation, in the one case, is the work of powerful | minds ~~ of minds fallible, indeed, and often wrong, but | armed with mature experience and ample knowledge. In | the other, it is the result of a fortuitous concurrence of | ignorant crotchets. But the unstable and capricious action | of the House of Commons is the smallest part of the evil. | The extinction of party is demoralizing the constituencies. | The spirit of the constitution, indeed, assumes that every | ten-pound householder is competent to judge of the | complicated questions on which his representative is | summoned to decide; but in making that assumption, as | Mr. Bumble observed, in reference to a more domestic | fiction, . If they are fit to decide such | controversies in detail, it can only be by direct revelation; | for they have no possible means of reaching the facts | which, unhappily, the frailty of human intellect requires | as a basis for reasoning. Their life is not made a burden | to them by Blue-books ~~ no

"trade reports"

| garnish their waste-paper basket ~~ of statistics they | know nothing, except what comes to them in some | veracious summary of the Times, | refracted through the dingy medium of a local | paper. They cannot judge of particular questions. But | what those who possess the franchise are, or ought to be, | capable of judging, is the general character of leaders in | the state; and the question which their suffrages are | rightly held to decide is, whether the political need of the | moment is for movement or for pause. And when the | party system was in its fullest vigour, these were in effect | the only two questions presented to an elector's mind ~~ | for these determined whether he was Whig or Tory, | Conservative or Liberal. All this is now sadly changed. | The old watch-words remain, and are now and then used | apologetically in a hustings speech; but in the hands of | their present interpreters, they are as meaningless as the | blue and green of the Hippodrome. The electors have | therefore generally ceased to trust them; and they have | consequently lost the only criterion of political excellence | which really conveyed an idea to their minds. Their | material interests give them little time to study politics ~~ | their only clue to the mazes of the political labyrinth is | gone ~~ and in default of it, their votes are given for | selfish or sectional ends. Private gratitudes or grudges, | the promotion of some local interest, or the glorification | of some parochial notability, have replaced the old | fidelity to a party banner. Or if some of the more | enthusiastic spirits are above a job, they never rise higher | than a crotchet. The putrescence of old organizations | gives life and vigour to cliques and crotcheteers. Such | knots, if the form in the centre of a compact party, are | soon dispersed by the influences which surround them; | but among a mass of scattered, undecided stragglers, their | cohesion gives them enormous power, and, wavering and | colourless as most of the constituencies now are, these | cliques are in a position to dictate their own terms to | candidates. | The result may be seen in the narrow pledges and petty | hustings tests which have formed so dark a feature in the | few last elections. In Hampshire, the issue of a contest is | determined by a pledge to support a special mode of | administering the county rate ~~ at Bath, the Established | clergy vote enthusiastically for a man hostile to all | endowments, because in that hostility he includes | Maynooth ~~ and, at Dundee, it appears that a dance in a | drawing-room on a Sunday evening is held to be an | absolute and final disqualification for the House of | Commons. Indeed, Maynooth and the

"Sabbath" |

enjoy an evil pre-eminence among these husting | tests; for, on the principle that , a religious fool is | the greatest of all fools. But the political influence which | sectarian zealots have gained since 1846, and the mire | through which they have dragged the House of Commons, | must be imputed to keep them down. Party is the only | true antidote to clique. There are many highly | conscientious men who regard it as an act of positive | immorality for a man to vote ~~ as every party man must | often do ~~ in opposition to his convictions. If a vote | were an assertion of fact, and the House of Commons a | debating club, this would be a tenable doctrine. But a | vote is not an assertion ~~ it is, either actually or | inchoately, a command. The House of Commons does | not waste its time in propounding abstract truths; and, in | the rare cases where its votes seem to assume that form, it | is only a preliminary step of the process which ends in a | command. To a command, however, the terms

| "truth"

and

"falsehood"

are inapplicable. | It may be expedient, or the reverse; and its immediate | expediency may be outweighed by the evils which, on a | larger survey of its consequences, may be seen to flow | from its adoption. And the highest expediency of all ~~ | that before which all other interests, save those of | morality and religion, sink into insignificance ~~ is the | displacement of an incapable, or the reinstatement of a | trustworthy Minister. To give a party-vote, then, against | a conviction of the special merits of the actual matter | under discussion, may be merely to prefer the higher | expediency to the lower. The terms

"truth"

and |

"falsehood"

may well be employed with | reference to votes in the Sorbonne, but they are a misuse | of language when applied to the proceedings of any | assembly whose domain is not dogma, but action.