Land Problems and National Welfare 



cases mere automatons, useful to their leaders, 

 but no longer representative of their constituents. 



The results are necessarily bad. No measure 

 is taken up until the Party in power either sees 

 a chance to please the mob and so to gain 

 votes, or fears to lose them by refraining from 

 action. Merely useful measures have no chance 

 of becoming law, there is no time to deal with 

 anything that does not help to make " an 

 attractive shop window." Time which should 

 be spent on well-considered legislation is wasted 

 over every conceivable dodge by which one 

 Party attempts to score off the other. Instead 

 of devising a rational system of decentralisation, 

 the legislature is choked with business, and 

 recourse is had to that most barbarous, dan- 

 gerous and unconstitutional process known as 

 the "guillotine." Well-considered legislation is 

 almost a thing of the past. 



It may be undesirable to try a new system, 

 but it is difficult to imagine that the group 

 system could be worse than the one we suffer 

 under now. 



Decefnher, 1908. 



326 



