y from it. Already political
philosophers are shaking their heads and predicting the failure of
popular government. The cry everywhere is for a stronger executive.
Party organization is breaking down; small factions actuated by
self-interest hold the balance of power between the main parties, and
render government unstable and capricious. The main parties themselves
tend to degenerate into factions. Personality is declining--the demand
is for followers, not leaders. Compromise is supplanted by log-rolling
and lobbying. And, to crown all, the rumbling of class strife grows
ominously louder. The danger is that these tendencies may be allowed to
go too far before reform is attempted--that the confidence between
classes may be destroyed.

+Organization and Leadership.+--We have shown that the two great
principles underlying representation are organization and leadership.
Now, after all, there is nothing very profound in this conclusion. Is
there a single department of concerted human action in which these same
principles are not apparent? What would be thought of an army without
discipline and without generals; or of a musical production in which
every performer played his own tune? Even in the region of sport, can a
cricket or a football team dispense with its captain and its places? And
yet many people imagine that a disorganized collection of delegates of
various sections can rule a nation? Such an assembly would be as much a
mob as any primary assembly of the people, and would in no sense be a
representative assembly. The fact is that the growing intensity of the
evils which beset representative institutions throughout the civilized
world to-day is due to imperfect expression of these two principles.
Representative assemblies are not properly organized into two coherent
parties, nor is each party allowed free play to select its most popular
leaders. What is the remedy?

+A Change in Electoral Machinery the Key to Reform.+--The great mistake
made by all writers on electoral reform is that they have failed to
recognize that the character of public opinion depends upon the way it
is expressed. If the electoral machinery be adapted to give effect to
those principles of organization and leadership which lie at the root of
representation, then the character of public opinion will be improved.
Representation, in fact, is not only a means of expressing public
opinion, but also of guiding, informing, educating, and organizing i