rol over detail; but the design must come from popular desire.
Have we got that down?

(4) You, I understand, hold that English M. P.s today do thus obey
the public in design, varying only in detail. That is a quite clear
contention.

(5) I say they don't. Tell me if I am getting too abstruse.

(6) I say our representatives accept designs and desires almost
entirely from the Cabinet class above them; and practically not at
all from the constituents below them. I say the people does not wield
a Parliament which wields a Cabinet. I say the Cabinet bullies a
timid Parliament which bullies a bewildered people. Is that plain?

(7) If you ask why the people endure and play this game, I say they
play it as they would play the official games of any despotism or
aristocracy. The average Englishman puts his cross on a ballot-paper
as he takes off his hat to the King--and would take it off if there
were no ballot-papers. There is no democracy in the business. Is that
definite?

(8) If you ask why we have thus lost democracy, I say from two
causes; (a) The omnipotence of an unelected body, the Cabinet; (b)
the party system, which turns all politics into a game like the Boat
Race. Is that all right?

(9) If you want examples I could give you scores. I say the people
did not cry out that all children whose parents lunch on cheese and
beer in an inn should be left out in the rain. I say the people did
not demand that a man's sentence should be settled by his jailers
instead of by his judges. I say these things came from a rich group,
not only without any evidence, but really without any pretence, that
they were popular. I say the people hardly heard of them at the
polls. But here I do not need to give examples, but merely to say
what I mean. Surely I have said it now.

Yours,

G. K. CHESTERTON.

January 26th, 1911.

_Editor's Note_.

Mr. Chesterton is precise enough now, but he is precisely wrong.
There are grains of truth in his premises, a bushel of exaggeration
in his conclusions. We have not "lost democracy"; the two instances
which he alleges, both of which we dislike, are too small to prove so
large a case.

To this G. K. replied:

Sir,

I want to thank you for printing my letters, and especially for
your last important comment, in which you say that the Crimes and
Children's Acts were