tongue, to advance the crowd ideals-to act, in short, as a crowdexponent.

The parties that compose a House of Commons are themselves not groups of individuals, but crowds, and not merely loosely connected crowds, but crowds strongly and elaborately organised. The party system, as it now is, renders this inevitable. An individual when he becomes a candidate voluntarily submits himself to go through a process which will almost inevitably turn him into a crowd-exponent. He may intend to retain his individuality, to reserve the freedom of his reason, to be and remain a man, but he hardly ever succeeds in so doing. The process of an election turns him out a mere incarnation of his crowd, at all events for the time, and when he gets into the House of Commons there is an even stronger organised crowd, all inflamed with the same disease, ready to swallow him up. No one there wants an individual with a freely working mind amongst the rank and file of any party. They want a voting machine, who as each session progresses will catch at once the particular enthusiasm that at the moment inspires his party, will voice it with eloquence, will find attractive shapes in which to dress it up, will carry it through the country and gain for it outside support, and will consistently give it the sanction of his vote.

The constituencies do not want parties in the House of Commons to be anything but crowds, or to act in any other way than as crowds. The constituencies do not want Parliament to be a deliberative assemblage in the old-fashioned sense. They do not now, for instance, desire that Parliament should investigate the pros and cons for oldage pensions as men of science investigate problems. They want old-age pensions granted, and do not care whether to do so is a wise or an unwise step in the true interests of the nation. Faced by such a problem, what would be the attitude of a wise man? He would admit that it would be a very nice thing if every old man could be assured of a pension in his declining years, and he would proceed to investigate whether that result could be brought to pass by legislative enactment without doing more harm than good. He would not merely consider the obvious advantage to the pension-getting individual, but he would also consider whether that advantage might not be balanced, or over-balanced, by other and greater disadvantages, either to individuals or to the body politic. He would consider the ultimate effect upon wages, and whether old-age pensions would not, in fact, be a public contribution in aid of wages, and therefore a subsidy to employers. He would consider whether the charge on the public purse would be likely to weaken the position of the country's finances in case of war, whether it would diminish the national credit, and whether, by applying annually a large sum of money to unproductive purposes, it would not injuriously effect the productivity of the nation. If he found the probable harmful effects equal to or greater than the

hoped-for benefits, he would abandon the pension scheme. The crowd, on the contrary, sees only the pleasant side of the proposal. The rich will pay and the poor will receive. There is to be pleasure in the cottage and a few more pence on the income-tax for the so-called rich. The crowd, swelling with a generous feeling in disposing of other people's money, is enthusiastic for the immediate realisation of the scheme. Its enthusiasm is probably genuine, not merely predatory, for crowds are full of fine sentiments, though by no means devoid of the predatory instincts. Here, however, generous sentiments and the supposed spoiling of the rich go together, and it may be granted that the generous sentiments predominate. The crowd will not listen to counsels of wisdom. Both parties realise that; and the leaders of both parties have bowed the head and promised the demanded price. One of them is as bad as the other, and the reason is clear-both parties are, in fact, the great crowd in little. They may consist of wise men, but, in their collective state, wise and foolish alike are merged in the crowd, inspired by it, and only able to give voice to its passions and desires.

It is the nature of all crowds to be moved by sentiment, passion, desire, hope, fear, or other emotions; not by reason, prudence, reserve, hesitation, experiment, or experience. Crowds, in fact, are ruled by the heart, wise men by the understanding. Now, seeing that the House of Commons is in fact a crowd, derived out of the national crowd, and by modern theory intended to represent it, and seeing that for a long time to come this must be the case, the important consideration to be steadily kept in view is that it should as closely represent the national crowd as possible. The House of Commons should be the national crowd on a small scale. It should reflect its emotions and changes of emotion, glow with its enthusiasms, hate with its hatreds, worship at its shrines, aspire after its ideals, and rush from extreme to extreme at its dictates. The more closely the House of Commons performs this doubtfully dignified function, the better it is. Every outworn precaution in the Constitution for freeing the representative body from the immediate contagion of national feeling is injurious, and interferes with the performance of the work which it exists to do. It exists to cry for the moon, if that is what the public wants at a given moment. It is the voice of the nation. We do not ask it for wisdom; we do not require judgment at its hands; we expect no foresight of it, nor any experience. It is to cry out when the nation suffers, it is to demand what the nation wants. It is to be warlike when the nation is for blood, and for peace at any price when the nation is craven. It is to be the nation's voice, not its head; the nation's exponent, not its guide.

It follows that the House of Commons should be elected by a suffrage as universal as possible. There is no need for brains or education in the voter. So long as he has nerves and a stomach it

suffices. All the voter has to do is to form part of the voting crowd. His business is not to reason, but to catch the infection of the crowd at the moment. He is there to be played upon by the crowd-formers, to be excited and agitated this way and that, finally, and as soon as possible to be absorbed by the winning crowd and, like Mr. Pickwick, to shout with the largest.

To what end, then, do we hesitate to grant the vote to women. Are not they excitable? Are not they sentimental? Have they no emotions? Can they not be moved by humanitarian and generous appeals? Can they not be bribed as a body with promises of a feminine Utopia? Are they in any wise inferior to men in power of crowd-constitution. Their very subservience to fashion is proof to the contrary. Even men are less universally swayed by crowddomination than women. They, far more readily than men,

consent

to allow the manner, occupation, and direction of their lives (in everything except what pertains to their young children) to be dictated by the public opinion that enfolds them. Woman is a naturally formed voter. She is already responsible to a great, though not measurable, extent for the formation of public opinion-the ideal of the crowd. Why should she not have her share in expressing that opinion? It could scarcely change more quickly than it does if she were added to the voting crowd, nor is there any reason why it should not change week by week if it pleases. Such as the nation is at any moment, such should the House of Commons be, a condensing mirror reflecting every phase and movement of national opinion. Unless the female element is mixed in, the general concoction can hardly be the same in the sample as in the whole.

It may be speciously argued that for a similar reason the votes of children should also be taken. It would not make any appreciable difference if they were, as soon as they (the voters) are old enough to catch the crowd contagion. A series of observations and experiments by suitable experts would soon fix that age. There is certainly no reason to exclude paupers and people who have been unfortunate enough in one way or another to fall below the present voting level. We want to hear the general, full-throated shout of the whole people, and the House of Commons should be a kind of gramophone record of it, turned on daily at Westminster for the information of legislators and administrators.

Such I take to be the modern ideal of a representative assembly, the ideal towards which the actual House of Commons approximates, and might be made to approximate more closely. It follows, of course, that the House of Commons now, and less in future as it more closely approximates to this ideal, is, and will be, unfit to act as a deliberative and legislative body. It can call out the grievances of the people, but it cannot mend them. It can voice the aspirations of the people, but it can do nothing to attain them. It can formulate nothing, criticise

nothing, control nothing, foresee nothing. To this condition it has steadily advanced since the days of reform began. Before the Reform Bill the House of Commons did not represent the national crowd at all. It represented some small sections of it and a certain number of individuals. The numbers composing it were not moved by emotion so much as by interest and reason. It was a wholly different kind of body from the existing assemblage. But exactly in proportion as the House of Commons has become a sample of the national crowd it has ceased to be a deliberative assembly, and it has lost its head. It votes now without relation to reason. It has lost the power of forming an opinion. It has abandoned its initiative. It has parted with its reasoning powers to the Cabinet. To-day the House of Commons exists to register the decrees of the Cabinet and to inform it of the feeling of the country, which the Cabinet may or may not give effect to.

The individual member of Parliament is little more than a voting machine. He cannot in practice initiate legislation. He can hardly ever raise discussion on a subject of his own choice, however complete his knowledge and unique his information. He can ask questions under increasing restrictions. He is, in fact, the slave of the Front Benches. It is they who hold the real power. They may amuse the House and the country by spectacular debates on so-called great Bills and on occasional questions of public policy; but, in fact, the legislation which matters, the actual ordering of affairs which affect the everyday lives of individual men, women, and children, is determined by the Cabinet and the Civil Services, subject to all sorts of private communications and arrangements with the Front Opposition Bench. So far as the House of Commons is concerned the Cabinet practically governs by decree. If the Cabinet decides on a measure, it can pass it through the House of Commons without a single amendment. The process may take time. The number of Bills so forced through the House in a single session may be narrowly limited. But the thing can be done if the Cabinet chooses. The only real debate, the only true deliberation that a measure receives (except sometimes in the House of Lords), is the secret debate that goes on over it in Government offices and Cabinet Councils before it is exposed to public acceptance. What goes on afterwards in the House of Commons is of little or no importance, except as a means of public advertisement. The newspapers could do that for it equally well. It is not the debates upon their Bills in the House of Commons that a Government fears, but the debate in the country.

The more closely the House of Commons is in touch with the national crowd, the better it serves as a measure of the national temper from day to day, but the less is it suited to act as a deliberative legislative assembly. The House of Commons is, consequently, at its worst in Committee, and at its best, in a great full-dress debate. It

forms a fine assembly for the enunciation of large general proposals or for the registration of great reforms. It is a perfect stage for the spectacular presentation to the nation and to the world of the march and onrush of changes and the recording of accomplished results. But in the detailed consideration of measures, whose every word and clause should dovetail with all the rest, its futility is abysmal. It can raise loud encomiums on peace, or cry for the diminution of military and naval expenditure, but when it comes to the consideration of estimates in detail its criticisms are valueless and its economies impracticable. The days are gone by when the House of Commons could perform such functions. It has parted with its powers to the Cabinet and must register its decrees.

There is only one body that now stands between the individual British subject and his absolute submission under the yoke of a practically irresponsible Cabinet. This body is the House of Lords. Few, if any, will claim the House of Lords as a very efficient legislative body. It is faulty in constitution, irregular in action, illogical in structure; but it is not elected by any set of constituents, and that is its merit and the germ of its vitality. The Peers, as is often said by crowd-addressing orators, represent no one but themselves. If it were otherwise they would be valueless. Just as it is well that the House of Commons should reflect as exactly as possible the views, even the moods and whims, of the national crowd (called 'the people '), equally so is it unnecessary and inadvisable that the second Chamber of the Legislature should duplicate that function. The House of Commons is itself a crowd, or group of crowds, organised, officered, disciplined, and maintained to act as a crowd and to be subordinate to its governing committee, the Cabinet. But unless the Cabinet is to be a despotic oligarchy, it in turn must be held in check by some body that is not an organised crowd, and that body can only be the House of Lords. At present the House of Lords does actually perform that function, intermittently, it is true, but not altogether badly. The rejection of the Home Rule Bill was their work, and the country accepted that rejection and confirmed it. The country seems likewise to have accepted the rejection of the Education Bill two years ago by the same body. There are no signs anywhere apparent that the actions of the House of Lords during the last generation in contravention of the decrees of the Cabinet, as registered by the House of Commons, have been other than well pleasing to the country as a whole, in its reflective moods. Every attempt to raise a great popular movement to sweep away the veto of the House of Lords has failed, and each failure, of course, strengthens the position of the hereditary House.

Everyone admits that the Upper House performs its functions intermittently, and often neglects them altogether. It sleeps when a Tory Government is in office. It assents to its worst measures and gives