flavour which 'takes on.' But there are other attractive
names of teas on the hoardings, with associations of babies, and
bull-dogs, and the Tower of London. If it is desired to develop a
permanent trade in competition with these it will probably be found
wisest to supply tea of a fairly uniform quality, and with a distinctive
flavour which may act as its 'meaning.' The great difficulty will then
come when there is a change of public taste, and when the sales fall
off because the chosen flavour no longer pleases. The directors may
think it safest to go on selling the old flavour to a diminishing number
of customers, or they may gradually substitute another flavour, taking
the risk that the number of housewives who say, 'This is not the real
Parramatta Tea,' may be balanced by the number of those who say,
'Parramatta Tea has improved.' If people will not buy the old flavour at
all, and prefer to buy the new flavour under a new name, the Parramatta
Tea Company must be content to disappear, like a religion which has made
an unsuccessful attempt to put new wine into old bottles.

All these conditions are as familiar to the party politician as they are
to the advertiser. The party candidate is, at his first appearance, to
most of his constituents merely a packet with the name of Liberal or
Conservative upon it. That name has associations of colour and music, of
traditional habit and affection, which, when once formed, exist
independently of the party policy. Unless he bears the party
label--unless he is, as the Americans say, a 'regular' candidate--not
only will those habits and affections be cut off from him, but he will
find it extraordinarily difficult to present himself as a tangible
entity to the electors at all. A proportion of the electors, varying
greatly at different times and at different places, will vote for the
'regular' nominee of their party without reference to his programme,
though to the rest of them, and always to the nominating committee, he
must also present a programme which can be identified with the party
policy. But, in any case, as long as he is a party candidate, he must
remember that it is in that character that he speaks and acts. The party
prepossessions and party expectations of his constituents alone make it
possible for them to think and feel with him. When he speaks there is
between him and his audience the party mask, larger and less mobile than
his own face, like the mask which enabled act