he next presidential election, which may
result in the entire dethronement of the party from power.

Wherefore it is obviously necessary that the party as a whole--in the
nation and in Congress--should do all that it can to help and strengthen
the party leaders in the County. This it does in contests believed to be
critical, and particularly just in advance of a national election, by
contributing to the local campaign funds when a purely County (State)
election is in progress (with which, of course, the national party ought
theoretically to have nothing to do) and in divers other ways; but
especially by judicious use of the national patronage in making
appointments to office when the party is in power.

The President--or let us say the Prime Minister--would rarely presume to
appoint a postmaster at Winchester or Petersfield, or a collector of the
port of Portsmouth or Southampton, without the advice and consent of the
Hampshire Peers or Senators. And the advice of the Hampshire Peers, we
may be sure, would be shaped in accordance with their personal political
interests or by considerations of the welfare of the party in the
County. They would not be likely to recommend for preferment either a
member of the opposite party or a member of their own party who was a
personal opponent. Moreover, besides the appointments in the County
itself, there are many posts in the government offices in Whitehall, as
well as a number of consulates and other more remote positions, to be
filled. In spite of much that has been done to make the United States
civil service independent of party politics, it remains that the bulk of
these posts are necessarily still filled on recommendations made by the
Congressmen or party leaders from the respective Counties, and again it
is the good of the party inside those Counties which inspires those
recommendations.

Thus we see how the national party when in power is able to fatten and
strengthen the hands of the party organisations within the several
Counties; and strengthen them it must, for if they lose control of the
voters within their territory then is the national party itself ruined
and dethroned.

And below the County party organisations, the County governments, are
the organisations and governments in the cities, which again are split
on precisely the same lines of cleavage. The City Council of Petersfield
or Midhurst is divided into Conservatives and Liberals precisely as the
Hampshire Le