as to what is best for the whole people the majority shall prevail, and party government tends to realize this condition.  But direct government by the people offers no check whatever on the power of the majority, which is as absolute as that of the Czar of Russia.  As Calhoun, the American statesman, writes in his “Disquisition on Government,” “the principle by which constitutional governments are upheld, is compromise, that of absolute governments is force!” Now, the significance of party government as a guarantee of free government lies in this:  that party policies represent a compromise of what every section composing each party supposes to be the interests of the whole people; and the parties are engaged in fighting out a compromise of the real interests of every section of the people.

Lest it be thought that in this panegyric on party government we have been indulging in a wild flight into the region of speculative politics, we hasten to add that the ideal condition we have pictured has never been reached.  The British Parliament has perhaps most nearly approached it, but already shows signs of retrogression.  America and the Australian colonies are drifting further away from it.  Already political philosophers are shaking their heads and predicting the failure of popular government.  The cry everywhere is for a stronger executive.  Party organization is breaking down; small factions actuated by self-interest hold the balance of power between the main parties, and render government unstable and capricious.  The main parties themselves tend to degenerate into factions.  Personality is declining—­the demand is for followers, not leaders.  Compromise is supplanted by log-rolling and lobbying.  And, to crown all, the rumbling of class strife grows ominously louder.  The danger is that these tendencies may be allowed to go too far before reform is attempted—­that the confidence between classes may be destroyed.

+Organization and Leadership.+—­We have shown that the two great principles underlying representation are organization and leadership.  Now, after all, there is nothing very profound in this conclusion.  Is there a single department of concerted human action in which these same principles are not apparent?  What would be thought of an army without discipline and without generals; or of a musical production in which every performer played his own tune?  Even in the region of sport, can a cricket or a football team dispense with its captain and its places?  And yet many people imagine that a disorganized collection of delegates of various sections can rule a nation?  Such an assembly would be as much a mob as any primary assembly of the people, and would in no sense be a representative assembly.  The fact is that the growing intensity of the evils which beset representative institutions throughout the civilized world to-day is due to imperfect expression of these two principles.  Representative assemblies are not properly organized into two coherent parties, nor is each party allowed free play to select its most popular leaders.  What is the remedy?