Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/760

740 little independence of mind, feeble reasonings, and strong passions. With the advance of political knowledge, of independent thought, and it must be added of public morality, allegiance to party grows less possible, party discipline loses its hold, the cohesion of party is broken up and refuses to be restored. The better a party is in point of intelligence, individual sense of responsibility, individual regard for the public good, the less submissive to the whip, and therefore the weaker, it becomes; a singular result of the only perfect system. What do we see in England now? On one side is a party weak to the verge of impotence, unable to act together even for one evening, to all appearances hopelessly excluded from power; and this because it is a party of opinion, of individual intelligence, of individual conscience, of individual desire to improve the condition of the people. On the other side is a party overwhelmingly strong, acting under perfect discipline, and likely to be for an indefinite time master of the state; and this because it is a party of interest, which always unites, while opinion inevitably divides.

Efforts are made on the Liberal side to compensate the weakness of mental independence as a basis of party union by increased stringency of organization. But these only bring more clearly to light the incompatibility of mental independence with the party system. In a recent number of this magazine we published a very graphic and interesting account of the political machinery used by the Liberal managers at Birmingham, We are not in a humor to quarrel with anything which in the present dearth of ability, especially of rising ability, in the House of Commons has helped to secure the election of Mr, Chamberlain. Nor do we overlook the fact that the spontaneous organization on the side of the Tories, in the shape of social connections and the tyrannical pressure they exert, is such that it can only be counterbalanced by artificial organization carried to a high pitch on the other side. But we must say that the use of such machinery does seem to involve a terrible sacrifice of those very habits of mental independence which it is the pride of Liberalism to promote. The absolute necessity of defending progress and the interests of the community at large against the despotism of a class alone reconciles us in any measure to the system. In the United States the masters of the party machines have everywhere taken the representation out of the hands of the people: you are practically not at liberty to vote for anybody but their nominees; and the Republican horse, to vanquish the Democratic stag, becomes absolutely the slave of its rider.

In the United States the opinion of the best judges, so far as we can gather it, is that the disorganization of the parties is increasing and is likely to increase. Nor is it possible to name any issues on which new parties can be formed. There is no question which, even supposing it to be of sufficient importance, would at all coincide with the existing lines; and a complete reconstruction of parties with a new