that their example would give an impetus which
would carry prohibition to victory. But the House of Commons shattered
that hope. The forces of reaction immediately began to raise their
head, and to the tables of the home and the mess alcohol slowly
returned to resume its fell sway. The nation that had braced itself
for social surgery was presented with soothing medicine in the form of
the Central Control Board.

Though it is impossible to assign causes to these effects with
certitude, yet it is safe to say that this failure was the {128} fruit
of the party system. We have seen how the play of political parties
one against the other devastated the countryside. The party
politicians think primarily of votes, and anything that would cost them
votes is banned. They knew in what peril the nation stood before the
war, but they did not summon the nation to prepare for war and endure
hardness. That would have been unpopular--and would have cost votes.
They kept the nation in ignorance of its peril, and cowered before the
people whom they kept in the dark, terrified to use firmness lest the
firm hand on the reins should mean their unseating. They went further:
when Lord Roberts warned the State in prophetic terms, they held him up
to derision. The greatest calamity that ever befell the human race we
owe to the party politicians.

Behind the party politician there is the caucus, and behind the caucus
the party funds. The power of money is proverbial, and behind the
party politician {129} is the exchequer supplied by his supporters.
That exchequer is replenished by the sale of honours. When Oleander, a
Phrygian and erstwhile slave, was the minister of the Emperor Commodus,
Rome saw the woeful spectacle of the rank of Consul, of Patrician and
of Senator exposed to public sale. We hold the decencies of life in
too high regard to do that. Secretly and decorously our senatorships
and the ancient orders of our knighthood are assigned. At one end of
the social scale national degeneracy makes the trader in alcohol a
plutocrat; at the other end the same national degeneracy makes him a
legislator and a pseudo-aristocrat. The alcoholic trade was too wise
to be on terms of friendship with one party alone; it sought
relationship with all. Nobody can object to the man who pays the piper
calling the tune. In Ireland the publican is even a greater power in
politics than he is in England. And the power behind the politicians