740 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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 con- 

 science, of individual desire to improve the condition of the people. 

 On the other side is a party overwhelmingly strong, acting under per- 

 fect 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 strin- 

 gency 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 connec- 

 tions 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 men- 

 tal independence which it is the pride of Liberalism to promote. The 

 absolute necessity of defending progress and the interests of the com- 

 munity at large against the despotism of a class alone reconciles us 

 in any measure to the system. Li the United States the masters of 

 the party machines have everywhere taken the representation out of 

 the hands of the people : yon are practically not at liberty to vote 

 for anybod}^ but their nominees ; and the Republican horse, to van- 

 quish the Democratic stag, becomes absolutely the slave of its rider. 



In the United States the opinion of the best judges, so far as Ave 

 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 suppos- 

 ing it to be of sufficient importance, would at all coincide with the 

 existing lines ; and a complete reconstruction of parties with a new 



