NOTES 305 



Parliament ? He is sure to be a busy man, and probably too 

 preoccupied to be wealthy, and too honest to accept one item 

 of a programme for the sake of another item. But he must 

 sacrifice his time in button-holing caucuses, his money in pay- 

 ing for his election, and his conscience by joining a party ! 

 Per contra, what about the persons who do these things ? 



Party 



Now let us consider what exactly we mean by party. If 

 an assembly has a single difficult question before it, it may 

 quite honestly be divided into two groups, a positive and a 

 negative group. If the assembly has two independent ques- 

 tions before it, it may quite honestly be divided into four 

 groups, one with two positive opinions, one with two negative 

 opinions, and two groups each with a positive opinion on one 

 question and a negative one on the other. If there are three 

 or four independent questions before an assembly, it may 

 quite honestly be divided into eight or sixteen groups, and 

 so on. Yet in our political life, though we have many inde- 

 pendent questions before us, we have only three or four groups ! 

 How is this ? Because the word honest is omitted from our 

 political combinations. 



Thus if we suppose that the six questions, say, Compul- 

 sory Service, Free Trade, Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment, 

 Imperial Federation, and Woman Suffrage, are independent, 

 then the politicians ought to be divided into sixty-four groups 

 holding positive or negative opinions on all the *items. But 

 there were only four groups before the war. How was this ? 

 Some of the politicians must have sunk their opinions on cer- 

 tain items in order to get their way as regards other items. 

 This is suppression of truth for an object. And if a man sup- 

 presses or misstates his opinion on any one point, how do we 

 know that he does not, or will not, do so on any other ? Of 

 what value then is the voting in Parliament on any party 

 question ? For the expressed opinions of many or most of 

 the voters may not be sincere, and the verdict therefore remains 

 in the clouds. Thus it is that the verdict of Parliament on 

 many of the questions mentioned above has remained in the 

 clouds for generations. 



Party is quite distinct from the natural division of honest 

 opinion. Party is a false grouping of persons who suppress 



