00 other Liberals; if he did, after writing
10000 letters, he would probably find he was making part of a
constituency of 100, all whose votes would be thrown away, the
constituency being too small to be reckoned. Such a Liberal must write
to the great Registration Association in Parliament Street; he must
communicate with its able managers, and they would soon use his vote
for him. They would say, "Sir, you are late; Mr. Gladstone, sir, is
full. He got his 1000 last year. Most of the gentlemen you read of in
the papers are full. As soon as a gentleman makes a nice speech, we get
a heap of letters to say, 'Make us into that gentleman's constituency'.
But we cannot do that. Here is our list. If you do not want to throw
your vote away, you must be guided by us: here are three very
satisfactory gentlemen (and one is an Honourable): you may vote for
either of these, and we will write your name down; but if you go voting
wildly, you'll be thrown out altogether."

The evident result of this organisation would be the return of party
men mainly. The member-makers would look, not for independence, but for
subservience--and they could hardly be blamed for so doing. They are
agents for the Liberal party; and, as such, they should be guided by
what they take to be the wishes of their principal. The mass of the
Liberal party wishes measure A, measure B, measure C. The managers of
the registration--the skilled manipulators--are busy men. They would
say, "Sir, here is our card; if you want to get into Parliament on our
side, you must go for that card; it was drawn up by Mr. Lloyd; he used
to be engaged on railways, but since they passed this new voting plan,
we get him to attend to us; it is a sound card; stick to that and you
will be right". Upon this (in theory) voluntary plan, you would get
together a set of members bound hard and fast with party bands and
fetters, infinitely tighter than any members now.

Whoever hopes anything from desultory popular action if matched against
systematised popular action, should consider the way in which the
American President is chosen. The plan was that the citizens at large
should vote for the statesman they liked best. But no one does anything
of the sort. They vote for the ticket made by "the caucus," and the
caucus is a sort of representative meeting which sits voting and voting
till they have cut out all the known men against whom much is to be
said, and agreed on some unknown man against w