sands of votes turn over,
and in goes this party or that with a big sham majority. This the
Webbites admit. But they applaud it. It gives us, they say, "a strong
Government." Public opinion, the intelligent man outside the House, is
ruled out of the game. He has no power of intervention at all. The
artful little Fabian politicians rub their hands and say, "_Now_ we can
get to work with the wires! No one can stop us." And when the public
complains of the results, there is always the repartee, "_You_ elected
them." But the Fabian psychology is the psychology of a very small group
of pedants who believe that fair ends may be reached by foul means. It
is much easier and more natural to serve foul ends by foul means. In
practice it is not tricky benevolence but tricky bargaining among the
interests that will secure control of the political wires. That is a bad
enough state of affairs in ordinary times, but in times of tragic
necessity like the present men will not be mocked in this way. Life is
going to be very intense in the years ahead of us. If we go right on to
another caricature Parliament, with perhaps half a hundred leading men
in it and the rest hacks and nobodies, the baffled and discontented
outsiders in the streets may presently be driven to rioting and the
throwing of bombs. Unless, indeed, the insurrection of the outsiders
takes a still graver form, and the Press, which has ceased entirely to
be a Party Press in Great Britain, helps some adventurous Prime Minister
to flout and set aside the lower House altogether. There is neither much
moral nor much physical force behind the House of Commons at the present
time.

The argument of the Fabian opponents to Proportional Representation is
frankly that the strongest Government is got in a House of half a
hundred or fewer leading men, with the rest of the Parliament driven
sheep. But the whole mischief of the present system is that the obscure
members of Parliament are not sheep; they are a crowd of little-minded,
second-rate men just as greedy and eager and self-seeking as any of us.
They vote straight indeed on all the main party questions, they obey
their Whips like sheep then; but there is a great bulk of business in
Parliament outside the main party questions, and obedience is not
without its price. These are matters vitally affecting our railways and
ships and communications generally, the food and health of the people,
armaments, every sort of employment, the ap