230 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



Unfortunately, however, there is a lar<^'C Board oi' Directors, 

 whose interests are not altogether identical. Some ])ull one 

 ■way and some another, and what with conflicting interests, 

 clique serving, jealousy, seltishness, obstructiveness, and general 

 interference, the expert finds it impossible to get on, and he is 

 compelled to give up his work. 



Another expert takes his place, but the attitude of the 

 Directors remains unchanged ; each man has his own particular 

 axe to grind ; the Board is s})lit up into two separate parties ; 

 work is retarded ; the business of the company suffers, and, 

 between one thing and another, the unfortunate shareholders 

 are well-nigh ruined. 



This is but an example of what takes place not infrequently 

 in the commercial world. Many a good business has been 

 ruined by bad management, and many a public company has 

 been brought to grief either by an incompetent Board of 

 Directors or by men who had some narrow, selfish purpose of 

 their own to serve. 



As with men, so it is with Governments. You can no more 

 carry on the business of a nation with one party of the national 

 directors pulling one way and another party pulling in the 

 opposite direction, than you can satisfactorily conduct the 

 business of a firm under similar conditions. 



The Pakty System an Impossibility 



Yet this is precisely what we are trying to do every day in 

 our National Board of Direction. 



The members comprising that Board are disunited. They 

 are split up into two distinct parties, each forming a faction 

 professedly hostile to the other. Their interests are diametri- 

 cally opposed to each other, and their antagonism is such as to 

 preclude the possiljility of the party out of office helping on the 

 national business by supporting or encouraging the efforts of the 

 party in office. 



It is, indeed, a point of honour and of duty with the party 

 out of power that every measure, whether it be good, bad, or in- 

 different, brought up for consideration by the office-bearers for 

 the time being, shall be as vehemently attacked and as violently 

 opposed as though it were some effort to defeat the ends of 

 justice and ruin the nation. 



The British Constitution provides for a system of govern- 

 ment whereunder there shall be two political parties, one of 

 which shall carefully watch the proceedings of the other, so 

 that a salutary check may be exercised over the proceedings of 

 the party in office for the time being. It is a most excellent 



