party separately to elect its most popular leaders.  And yet we are still using the same method of election as our forefathers used six centuries ago.  Although the conditions have entirely changed, we have not adapted the electoral machinery to the change.  The system of single-membered electorates was rational in the fourteenth century, because there was only one party.  Is it not on the face of it absurd to-day, when there are two parties?

+The Meaning of Party Government.+—­Why should there be two parties instead of one in order that the people should be able to govern themselves?  To answer this question we must start at the beginning, and consider what is the problem of popular government.  The best definition is that it is to promote the general welfare—­to reconcile or average the real interests of all sections of the community.  Now, if the people could all agree what is best in the interests of all, unity of action might certainly be obtained; but even then the problem would not be solved, for the people are not infallible.  The greater part of the problem consists in finding out what is best in the interests of all, and no amount of mere abstract speculation can solve this part.  So diverse and so complex are the interests to be reconciled, so interwoven and interdependent one with another, that the problem of securing a just balance is incapable of solution by anything short of omniscience.  But in any case the people cannot be always got to agree to one course of action.  Therefore the people cannot govern themselves as one united party.  The only workable basis is, then, the rule of the majority, and the problem of popular government is how to ensure that the majority shall rule in the interests of all.

Party government provides the best known means of solving this problem.  The only way of finding out what is best for the whole people is by the incessant action and interaction of two great organized parties under their chosen leaders; each putting forth its energies to prove its fitness to hold the reins of government; each anxious to expose the defects of the other.  This healthy emulation as to what is best for all, with the people to judge, is the real secret of free government.  The two parties are virtually struggling as to which shall be king.  Each is striving to gain the support of a majority of the people; and the grounds on which it appeals for support are that the measures it proposes are the best for the country, and that the men it puts forward are the best men for passing those measures into law and carrying on the administration of the country.  This constant agitation, and this mutual competition to devise new measures, and to bring forward new men, prevent stagnation.  Both sides of every leading public question of the day are presented in the rival party policies, and the people are invited to decide between them.  The forces on which the parties rely to move the people are enthusiasm for measures and enthusiasm for men—­party and