llowed to vote by proxy, but this indefensible privilege, abolished
by standing order in the year mentioned, is likely never to be
revived.[209]

[Footnote 209: On the conduct of business in the
Lords see Anson, Law and Custom of the
Constitution, I., 281-291.]

CHAPTER VII (p. 143)

POLITICAL PARTIES

I. PARLIAMENTARISM AND THE PARTY SYSTEM

*150. Government by Party.*--Intimately connected with the parliamentary
scheme of government which has been described is the characteristic
British system of government by party. Indeed, not merely is there
between the two an intimate connection; they are but different aspects
of the same working arrangement. The public affairs of the kingdom at
any given time, as has appeared, are managed by the body of ministers,
acting with and through a supporting majority in the House of Commons.
These ministers belong to one or the other of the two great political
parties, with only occasional and incidental representation of minor
affiliated political groups. Their supporters in the Commons are, in
the main, their fellow-partisans, and their tenure of power is
dependent upon the fortunes of their party in Parliament and
throughout the country. They are at once the working executive, the
guiding agency in legislation, and the leaders and spokesmen of this
party. Confronting them constantly is the Opposition, consisting of
influential exponents of the contrary political faith who, in turn,
lead the rank and file of their party organization; and if at any time
the ministers in power lose their supporting majority in the Commons,
whether through adverse results of a national election or otherwise,
they retire and the Opposition assumes office. The parliamentary
system and the party system are thus inextricably related, the one
being, indeed, historically the product of the other. It was
principally through the agency of party spirit, party contest, and
party unity that there was established by degrees that single and
collective responsibility of ministers which lies at the root of
parliamentary government; and, but for the coherence and stability
with which political activity is invested by party organization, the
operation of the parliamentary system would be an impossibility. The
law of the British constitution does not demand the existence of
parties; on the contrary,