it affords them no recognition or place. The
conventions, however, both assume and require them.

*151. Two-Party Organization.*--The relationship which subsists (p. 144)
between parliamentarism and party government is to be accounted for in
no small measure by the fact that the number of great parties in the
United Kingdom is but two. Certain continental nations, notably France
and Italy, possess the forms of parliamentary government, adopted
within times comparatively recent and taken over largely from Great
Britain. In these countries, however, the multiplicity of parties
effectually prevents the operation of the parliamentary system in the
fashion in which that system operates across the Channel. Ministries
must be made up invariably of representatives of a number of
essentially independent groups. They are apt to be in-harmonious, to
be able to execute but indifferently the composite will of the
Government coalition in the popular chamber, and, accordingly, to be
short-lived. Despite the rise in recent decades of the Irish
Nationalist and Labor groups, it is still true in Great Britain, as it
has been since political parties first made their appearance there,
that two leading party affiliations divide between themselves the
allegiance of the mass of the nation. The defeat of one means the
triumph of the other, and either alone is competent normally to govern
independently if elevated to power. This means, on the one hand, a
much more thoroughgoing predominance of the governing party than can
be acquired by a single party in France or Italy and, on the other
hand, a unique concentration of responsibility and, in turn, an
increased responsiveness to the public will. The leaders of the one
party for the time in the ascendancy govern the nation, by reason of
the fact that, _being_ the leaders of this party, they are selected
without doubt or equivocation to fill the principal offices of
state.[210]

[Footnote 210: For a fuller exposition of the
relations of party and the parliamentary system see
Lowell, Government of England, I., Chap. 24. The
best description of English parties and party
machinery is that contained in Chaps. 24-37 of
President Lowell's volumes. The growth of parties
and of party organization is discussed with
fullness and with admirable temper in