212 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

Members act thus they are not the sheep to whom critics of
Party Government liken them; they are people who, faced with
the necessity of united action, impose the requisite discipline
upon themselves.

Secondly, the loyalty of party supporters may become a disease.
They hesitate to admit that their party has ever made, or might
make, a mistake> lest opponents should seize on the admission
and magnify it: for the same reason they will not allow any merits
to their opponents. Should this disease become far advanced
politics degenerate into factiousness and the ordinary citizen
turns away in disgust. But the elector has the remedy in his own
hands: moderate attention to public affairs will show him that
no party is infallible, and, by his attitude at meetings and his
reception of canvassers, he can show that he does not care for
absurd partisanship. If the elector does this, the politician will
soon realise that frankness and reason are required.

Thirdly, there is a neglect of certain questions because they
are not party matters. Reform of the judicial system, marriage
laws, control of amusements, are oft-quoted examples. Inde-
pendent Members who might raise these questions are few,
because it is difficult to fight an Election without the help of a
party organisation. Yet the presence of'some Independents in
every Parliament shows that the British system is not wholly
defective in this respect. The very difficulty of their election
secures that, save for an occasional crank, they are people of
outstanding ability;'but they are the tonic of Parliamentarism,
not its daily food. If it were easier to be elected as an Independent,
the quality of Independent Members would decline and the same
defects would appear as in a Parliament composed of many small
parties; the Government would be unstable, and the Inde-
pendents, conscious that they couTd not be called upon to fonrf
a Government, would be irresponsible critics.

The Member has been described as the link between his
constituents and the Government; the local party organisation is
the link between the Member and his constituents. He cannot