ity could get its share of representation
the parties would compete on even terms for the support of the people,
and good feeling would tend to be restored.

To return to Mr. Lilly. The present position of party government in
England is not due to defects in the institution itself, still less to
the extension of the suffrage, but to imperfect organization. The true
remedy is, therefore, to improve organization, not to restrict the
suffrage. By this means such a condition will be brought about that if
either party favours a faction it will lose in general favour; then,
indeed, we may hope that the main parties themselves will cease to
degenerate into factions.

The same number of the _Fortnightly_ contains an unsigned article on
"Lord Rosebery and a National Cabinet," in which the party system is
alluded to as defunct, and in which the suggestion is thrown out that on
the retirement of Lord Salisbury a national cabinet should be formed,
comprising both Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Rosebery. Impending foreign
complications are given as the excuse for terminating party action. Now,
it is not to be denied that party government is more suitable for what
Mr. Herbert Spencer calls the industrial type of society than for the
militant type. Quite recently Lord Salisbury blamed the British
Constitution for the state of unpreparedness for the present war. But it
is equally true that in foreign affairs party action is generally
suspended: in the control of India, for instance, it is so. The real
question, then, is this: Is the danger of foreign aggression so serious
that all questions of internal policy can be permanently set aside? If
we have reached this stage, the end of modern civilization is in sight.
In effect, the proposal is a return to the first stage of
representation, with the difference that all sections of the people are
expected to be held together by the fear of foreign aggression, instead
of the fear of the aggression of the monarchy.

Mr. David Syme is a censor of a very different type. So far from wishing
to take control from the people, he would give the people absolute
control over everything, and at all times. Seldom has the case against
party government been more powerfully presented than in his work on
"Representative Government in England." But Mr. Syme founds his proposed
remedies on a theory of representation which is based on the literal
meaning of the word. No one has put the delegation theory more clearly