abolish
itself, materially alter its way of life, or drastically reconstruct
itself, albeit no class is indisposed to co-operate in the unlimited
socialisation of any other class. In that capacity for aggression upon
other classes lies the essential driving force of modern affairs. The
instincts, the persons, the parties, and vanities sway and struggle.
The ideas and understandings march on and achieve themselves for all--in
spite of every one....

The methods and traditions of British politics maintain the form of two
great parties, with rider groups seeking to gain specific ends in the
event of a small Government majority. These two main parties are more or
less heterogeneous in composition. Each, however, has certain necessary
characteristics. The Conservative Party has always stood quite
definitely for the established propertied interests. The land-owner,
the big lawyer, the Established Church, and latterly the huge private
monopoly of the liquor trade which has been created by temperance
legislation, are the essential Conservatives. Interwoven now with the
native wealthy are the families of the great international usurers, and
a vast miscellaneous mass of financial enterprise. Outside the range of
resistance implied by these interests, the Conservative Party has always
shown itself just as constructive and collectivist as any other party.
The great landowners have been as well-disposed towards the endowment
of higher education, and as willing to co-operate with the Church in
protective and mildly educational legislation for children and the
working class, as any political section. The financiers, too, are
adventurous-spirited and eager for mechanical progress and technical
efficiency. They are prepared to spend public money upon research,
upon ports and harbours and public communications, upon sanitation and
hygienic organisation. A certain rude benevolence of public intention is
equally characteristic of the liquor trade. Provided his comfort leads
to no excesses of temperance, the liquor trade is quite eager to see
the common man prosperous, happy, and with money to spend in a bar. All
sections of the party are aggressively patriotic and favourably inclined
to the idea of an upstanding, well-fed, and well-exercised population
in uniform. Of course there are reactionary landowners and old-fashioned
country clergy, full of localised self-importance, jealous even of the
cottager who can read, but they have neither