jority of
Parliament obey certain leaders; what those leaders propose they
support, what those leaders reject they reject. An old Secretary of the
Treasury used to say, "This is a bad case, an indefensible case. We
must apply our majority to this question." That secretary lived fifty
years ago, before the Reform Bill, when majorities were very blind, and
very "applicable". Nowadays, the power of leaders over their followers
is strictly and wisely limited: they can take their followers but a
little way, and that only in certain directions. Yet still there are
leaders and followers. On the Conservative side of the House there are
vestiges of the despotic leadership even now. A cynical politician is
said to have watched the long row of county members, so fresh and
respectable-looking, and muttered, "By Jove, they are the finest brute
votes in Europe!" But all satire apart, the principle of Parliament is
obedience to leaders. Change your leader if you will, take another if
you will, but obey No. 1 while you serve No. 1, and obey No. 2 when you
have gone over to No. 2. The penalty of not doing so, is the penalty of
impotence. It is not that you will not be able to do any good, but you
will not be able to do anything at all. If everybody does what he
thinks right, there will be 657 amendments to every motion, and none of
them will be carried or the motion either.

The moment, indeed, that we distinctly conceive that the House of
Commons is mainly and above all things an elective assembly, we at once
perceive that party is of its essence. There never was an election
without a party. You cannot get a child into an asylum without a
combination. At such places you may see "Vote for orphan A." upon a
placard, and "Vote for orphan B. (also an idiot!!!)" upon a banner, and
the party of each is busy about its placard and banner. What is true at
such minor and momentary elections must be much more true in a great
and constant election of rulers. The House of Commons lives in a state
of perpetual potential choice; at any moment it can choose a ruler and
dismiss a ruler. And therefore party is inherent in it, is bone of its
bone, and breath of its breath.

Secondly, though the leaders of party no longer have the vast patronage
of the last century with which to bribe, they can coerce by a threat
far more potent than any allurement--they can dissolve. This is the
secret which keeps parties together. Mr. Cobden most justly said: "He
had