policies represent a compromise of what every section composing each
party supposes to be the interests of the whole people; and the parties
are engaged in fighting out a compromise of the real interests of every
section of the people.

Lest it be thought that in this panegyric on party government we have
been indulging in a wild flight into the region of speculative politics,
we hasten to add that the ideal condition we have pictured has never
been reached. The British Parliament has perhaps most nearly approached
it, but already shows signs of retrogression. America and the Australian
colonies are drifting further away from it. Already political
philosophers are shaking their heads and predicting the failure of
popular government. The cry everywhere is for a stronger executive.
Party organization is breaking down; small factions actuated by
self-interest hold the balance of power between the main parties, and
render government unstable and capricious. The main parties themselves
tend to degenerate into factions. Personality is declining--the demand
is for followers, not leaders. Compromise is supplanted by log-rolling
and lobbying. And, to crown all, the rumbling of class strife grows
ominously louder. The danger is that these tendencies may be allowed to
go too far before reform is attempted--that the confidence between
classes may be destroyed.

+Organization and Leadership.+--We have shown that the two great
principles underlying representation are organization and leadership.
Now, after all, there is nothing very profound in this conclusion. Is
there a single department of concerted human action in which these same
principles are not apparent? What would be thought of an army without
discipline and without generals; or of a musical production in which
every performer played his own tune? Even in the region of sport, can a