as she stooped and flung the food to her | her hands, but I saw the flush mount pets. I determined to get it over, and to the tip of her rosy ears. I rushed at it.

veloped in the immediate future, and | Radical, who supported Home Rule for that the dual division of parties is also Ireland and the Church of England, likely to be maintained. It is the in- and objected to the consumption by teraction of the Cabinet and the cau- other people of a kind of liquid nourcus, the pressure of the party leaders ishment which he did not himself enand the party whips, by which so joy. It is likely enough that in the much of its old constitutional vital- immediate future there will be many ity has been squeezed out of the members on one side of the House of House of Commons. But what, it is Commons, and perhaps on both, who asked, if your preliminary condition be will be in this person's case; that is to wanting? What if your close and say, who, in addition to their general organized party arrangement goes to allegiance to one or other of the great pieces? What if, instead of two par- combinations called roughly Conservaties in the House, you have six-tive and Liberal, will have also pledged ten - a dozen? In other words, is themselves to support the aims of some that development of Cabinet influence, much smaller body or sect. The queswhich some people would consider tion on which the future of English beneficial and some unfortunate, at all constitutional politics largely turns is possible if the group system continues that of the relations which the one to develop also? And are there not drift of opinion will bear to the other many signs that it is the system of in the mind and conduct of this kind of groups which gains ground, alike in bi-colored legislator. When the crisis Parliament and in the country, and the comes in which he has to choose bedivision into two great, solid, well-de-tween his party and his group, or in fined parties which is rapidly becoming obsolete ?

the still more exacting moment when he sees a chance of assisting the particular interest to which he is pledged at the cost of voting against his leaders and the allies with whom he usually acts, the member of Parliament, like Desdemona before the Venetian senators, will "perceive here a divided

at any rate, it is reasonable to suppose that his decision will correspond to that of Brabantio's daughter. To his group, no doubt, he owes a filial reverence. "To you," he may often say with truth, "I am bound for life and education "- for political life and a sound education in particularism; and he would no doubt be willing to add

No one will deny that a certain fissiparous tendency in English parties, and more particularly in one of them, has become very marked of late years. Whereas it was formerly the practice for a man, be he elector or elected, to label himself plain Whig or Tory, Lib-duty." In a certain number of cases, eral or Conservative, and live, die, and vote comfortably under the one or the other broad banner, he now shifts uneasily among finer shades of opinion usually called principles by those who believe in them, and fads by those who do not. It is not enough to ask him, as in those simpler times of a less complicated creed, whether he is Blue or Buff. Before you can place him accurately, you may want to know his attitude towards Socialism, his views on Irish government, his feelings about municipal progress," ," his sentiments towards Sir Wilfred Lawson. A friend of mine, asked to define his political faith, described himself as a Teetotal-Prohibition-Anti - DisestablishmentCollectivist - Gladstonian - Home - RuleDiggleite; and perhaps he could not have more compendiously conveyed the information that he was a Socialist

My life and education both do learn me
How to respect you.

After which very proper tribute to the
sanctities of political kinship we may
perhaps expect him to throw himself,
even as Desdemona did, into the arms
of that other more exigeant "party,”
with whom he is in daily conjugal rela-
tions. The groupist in him will give
place, when the strain comes, to the
partisan.

In this region of prophecy it is dan

gerous to dogmatize; but the history | Whig the latter-day "progressive" of the inmediate past is at least some Radical, newly minted, with the marks guide to the politics of the imminent of the Socialist die sharp-edged upon future. It is worth while to pursue him. Never in English political histhe historical inquiry for a moment tory has there been so conspicuous an and examine what the conduct of the example of the group system at work; groups has been during the last two and one would have said that all the years and a half. The Parliament of inherent weaknesses and vices of that 1892 started its political existence with system would presently be revealed, members arranged, roughly speaking, and that a government, made up in under some such divisions and sub-this piecemeal, patchwork fashion, divisions as the following:

1. Paruellites.

2. Anti-Parnellites.

3. Welsh Radicals.

4. Scotch Liberals, divided into
(a) Those who wanted to disestab-
lish the Church.

(b) Those who did not.

5. Teetotallers and Local Optionists.
6. Independent Labor Party, consist-
ing of

(i.) Mr. Keir Hardie.

(ii.) Mr. Keir Hardie's friends. 7. Laboucherian Radicals. 8. The Gladstonian party.

Besides these sections of the majority, there were of course the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists forming the Opposition. It is possible that some more laborious investigator into the original documents of the period may discover that I have omitted a group or two; but those I have enumerated, I think, are the principal.

would split asunder the moment a strain was put upon it anywhere. In point of fact, that is what we did say; scores of hostile pens were filled and emptied to show how utterly Mr. Gladstone's party lacked solidity and cohesion, and to point the inference that it must go to pieces rapidly. The gov ernment could not last a year-six months perhaps not six weeks after it was fairly face to face with Parliament. It was not the enemy only that prophesied an early dissolution. Ministers themselves, when they took office, anticipated that the disruptive forces beneath and behind them would tear them from power within a few months. Sir Wemyss Reid has told us that in August, 1892, when the leading members of the new government went down to Osborne to receive the seals of office just surrendered by their predecessors, one eminent Cabinet minister remarked to his colleagues as they were crossing the Here, then, we have a Parliament Solent, "I have been thinking over divided among the better part of a the matter carefully, and I really do dozen larger or smaller factions, some not see any reason why we should not of them openly and avowedly playing remain in for two years." His words for their own hand with an ostenta- were received with a burst of incredutious disregard for their partners in the lous laughter from the other members game; and we have a majority which of the administration. It seemed to could at any moment be converted into them, and to everybody, quite absurd a minority by the defection of a single to suppose that anything but speedy one of the bands of Free Companions collapse awaited a government whose which nominally fought under its flag. following was so composite and loosely It is impossible to conceive of two sets jointed. The prediction was plausiof political associates having less in ble; but events have falsified it. It common than the "official" Liberals may be that not long after these lines inside and outside Mr. Gladstone's are in print the final catastrophe will ministry and the knot of Irish so-called have occurred, and the party that was Irreconcilables led by Mr. Redmond; Mr. Gladstone's will be out of office nor is the interval much less wide again. But, if so, its leaders may at which separates from the old economic least meet their fate with the reflection

counted on. they may say:

Ich habe genossen das irdische Glück,
Ich habe gelebt und geliebet.

that they have had their day, and a and the test has been tolerably selonger day than they could have vere it does not bear out the view With Schiller's Thekla that the group system renders party government impossible, or that it tends to destroy the growing authority of the Cabinet. The power of this body is largely due to the fact that, once placed in office, it is practically safe against defeat until its majority has been crumbled away by a long series of hostile by-elections; and long before that has happened a minister would usually dissolve and receive either his dismissal or a fresh license to govern from the

the electorate, not the House of Commons, which makes the ministry; and, once made, the House dares not unmake it, as the history of the last twenty years has shown. The M.P. regards himself, and is regarded by others, as the delegate of the dominant party in his division; he has been sent to Parliament, not to register an independent vote — which is considered a very improper and almost an illegal thing to do but to support a particu

They have drawn their salaries and remained in office for two years and a half; and a ministry with a "homogeneous "majority of a hundred might be satisfied with the experience. The groups might have put them out at any moment, but the groups never did. An Irish revolt, a Welsh revolt, a Labor constituencies. In point of fact, it is revolt, a Laboucherian revolt, were talked about all the time; but the sessions of '93 and '94 went by, and the revolts did not take the shape of rebellion in the division lobbies. The groups may have murmured in secret, and some of their members even went so far as to threaten pretty freely in public; but after all, when it came to the point, and they had before them the alternative of voting for or against the ministry, they ended invariably if we except a minute number of legis-lar combination or set of public men. lators of unusual independence or ex- The ministry, being able to count upon ceptional eccentricity by doing as the the whole vote of the majority, is of party whips bade them. Never was course safe till a general election; there less loose voting than in this which does not, as a rule, occur till a Parliament. The disciplined cohorts sufficient tapping of the by-election of the country squires in the days of barometer has convinced the leaders the anti-Corn Law debates did not that it is time to "go to the country.” follow their leaders with a more un- Now, it is significant and informing to deviating loyalty when it was a ques- note, as has been just said, that the tion of voting-than the members of heterogeneous and multi-colored mathe half-score of sects and factions jority of 1892 acted, in this respect, which gathered under the Gladstonian quite as its predecessors did, and umbrella. It was a curious and in- brought its "brute voting strength" to structive spectacle. The kaleidoscopic bear down all opposition, when any Parliament of 1892- for in common question of confidence in the governjustice we must remember that the ment arose, with even more mechangrouping was not confined to one side, ical steadiness than such united and and that the party which comprehended fairly harmonious majorities as those Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and Mr. of 1874 and 1880. It would seem, Chaplin was a little checkered too therefore, that a ministry pillared on a was divided as cleanly and definitely, number of detached groups may be for voting purposes, as any of the Par- quite as safe against defeat in the liaments of the pre-Peelite days, when House as one planted on the solid pedgroups were almost unknown and prac-estal of a single compact party; and a tically every member was Conservative ministry safe against defeat in the or Liberal. House is a ministry absolute while it

So far, then, as experience has gone lasts.

66

In fact, the group arrangement does | vote of confidence, there is no certainty not really interfere with the system of that they would not do so on other delegation and ministerial election by issues. Indeed, we have had examples the constituencies, which is now the before now of a snap division taken on essential element in our public polity. some minor point, and inflicting a sudMany of the members of the Parlia- den defeat on a government which in a ment of 1892 were elected as associates general way had a good working maof a comparatively small sect or fac- jority in the House. A very eminent tion they were Liberal Unionists, statesman, who has been good enough Radicals, Labor men, and so on; but to send me some criticisms on my forthere was no member of the whole six mer article, has pointed out that it is hundred and seventy who did not owe this circumstance which renders it as his election primarily to the manner in necessary as ever it was for the Cabiwhich he answered the fundamental net to contain members who are adepts question, Do you support Mr. Glad- in the art of House of Commons manstone, or do you support Lord Salis- agement and possess the confidence bury? That was the real test. The of the Chamber. It is true that the constituencies demanded, and of course ministry is generally impregnable when received, a plain answer to the question; and they expect their representatives to abide by the answer; an expectation which has not been disappointed, since the number of gentlemen who have developed independence during the present Parliament is so small as to be scarcely worth considering. The Groupists have been just as staunch -or as servile - as the official brigade. The theory of many persons was, and is, that you cannot count on the members with fads and with fixed ideas on minor points. But that seems to be an error. Beyond and around the fad and the pet project is the allembracing gaseous envelope of party sentiment. This is the air breathed into the lungs of the politician by the caucus that turned him from the wandering and troubled ghost called a candidate into the flesh-and-blood member. Roughly and broadly, the constituency sent its man to Westminster to keep in one set of political players, or to get them out; and to do anything but obey this mandate would be as treasonous as if, for example, a Surrey bowler should fail to do his best against the Yorkshire wickets because he disapproved of his captain's views on Home Rule or Proportional Representation.

On the other hand, it may be said that even if the groups would hesitate to combine against the ministry of their choice when it is a question of a formal

it has had time to organize electoral pressure, and to bring to bear the caucus machinery on the rank and file; but it is always liable, unless the House of Commons is skilfully managed and properly held in hand, to sustain a rebuff on some incident that may arise in the course of debate, or on some question too remote from general interest to rouse the party feeling of the constituencies. In other words, though you could not defeat a government on the second reading of a Home Rule Bill, you might possibly do so on the Opium Question, the Eight Hours Day, Bimetallism, or Miss Cass. As the parties are more and more broken up into groups, no doubt temporary combinations among several of them to support each other mutually, on the do ut des principle, might become more common. But it is not at all certain that these combinations, even if they produced rather frequent successes in the division lobbies, would really diminish the authority of the Cabinet. In the midst of the shifting cliques and kaleidoscopic combinations of the House of Commons, the ministry would seem the one stable element in the situation - the one power which, on the large issues, has the weight of public opinion behind it. The ministers would probably be supported by the electors if they quietly disregarded a defeat produced by any such temporary combination as that suggested; and,