s of attaining them. Experience has shown that
this plan is wholly impracticable. It does not take sufficient account
of the fact that, as the immortal Mr. Squeers or some other of Dickens's
characters said, there is a great deal of human nature in man,[79] and
that one of man's most cherished characteristics--notably if he is an
Englishman--is combativeness. In the early days of the party system even
so hardened and positive a parliamentarian as Walpole thought that
effect might be given to some such project, but when it came to the
actual formation of a hybrid Ministry, Mr. Grant Robertson, the
historian of the Hanoverian period, says that it "vanished into thin
air," and that, as Pulteney remarked about the celebrated Sinking Fund
plan, the "proposal to make England patriotic, pure and independent of
Crown and Ministerial corruption, ended in some little thing for curing
the itch." Neither have somewhat similar attempts which have been made
since Walpole's time succeeded in abating the rancour of party strife.
Moreover, it cannot be said that the attempt to treat female suffrage as
a non-party question has so far yielded any very satisfactory or
encouraging results.

Lord Milner, however, does not live in Utopia. He does not look forward
to the possibility of abolishing the party system. "It is not," he says,
"a new party that is wanted." But he thinks--and he is unquestionably
right in thinking--"that the number of men profoundly interested in
public affairs, and anxious to discharge their full duty of citizens who
are in revolt against the rigidity and insincerity of our present party
system, is very considerable and steadily increasing." He wishes people
in this category to be organised with a view to encouraging a national
as opposed to a party spirit, and he holds that "with a little
organisation they could play the umpire between the two parties and make
the unscrupulous pursuit of mere party advantage an unprofitable game."

The idea is not novel, but it is certainly statesmanlike. The general
principle which Lord Milner advocates will probably commend itself to
thousands of his countrymen, and most of all to those whose education
and experience are a warrant for the value of their political opinions.
But how far is the scheme practicable? The answer to this question is
that there is one essential preliminary condition necessary to bring it
within the domain of practical politics; that condition is that a
suf