s, but also that without the adoption of those means
there could not be the smallest prospect of the end being attained. The
difficulty in which Lord Milner has found himself is probably felt more
keenly by those who, like himself, have been behind the scenes of
government, and have thus been able fully to realise the difficulties of
dealing with public questions on their own merits to the exclusion of
all considerations based on party advantages or disadvantages, than by
others who have had no such experience. Nevertheless, the dilemma must
in one form or another have presented itself to every thinking man who
is not wholly carried away by prejudice. Most thinking men, however,
unless they are prepared to pass their political lives in a state of
dreamy idealism, come rapidly to the conclusion that to seek for any
thoroughly satisfactory practical solution of this dilemma is as
fruitless as to search for the philosopher's stone. They see that the
party system is the natural outcome of the system of representative
government, that it of necessity connotes a certain amount of party
discipline, and that if that discipline be altogether shattered,
political chaos would ensue. They, therefore, join that party with
which, on the whole, they are most in agreement, and they do so knowing
full well that they will almost certainly at times be associated with
measures which do not fully command their sympathies. What is it that
makes such men, for instance, as Lord Morley and Mr. Arthur Balfour not
merely strong political partisans, but also stern party disciplinarians?
It would be absurd to suppose that they consider a monopoly of political
wisdom to be possessed by the party to which each belongs, or that they
fail to see that every public question presents at least two sides. The
inference is that, recognising the necessity of association with others,
they are prepared to waive all minor objections in order to advance the
main lines of the policy to which each respectively adheres.

The plan which has always commended itself to those who see clearly the
evils of the party system, but fail to realise the even greater evils to
which its non-existence would open the door, has been to combine in one
administration a number of men possessed of sufficient patriotism and
disinterestedness to work together for the common good, in spite of the
fact that they differ widely, if not on the objects to be attained, at
all events on the method