+England.+—­We have seen that the fundamental error of the proportionalists is that they have failed to distinguish between the two stages of representation.  In constantly appealing back to the earlier parliaments they altogether overlook the fact that the functions which Parliament now exercises were then vested in the King.  But this error is not confined to the proportionalists, most of whom, indeed, however inconsistently, favour party government.  It is also put forth as an argument by those who lay all the blame of present evils on the party system, and who think that all sections should work together as one united party.  Take, for instance, the diatribe of Mr. W.S.  Lilly on “The Price of Party Government” in the Fortnightly Review for June, 1900.  Mr. Lilly complains bitterly that the infallible oracle in politics to-day is “the man in the street.”  He asserts that all issues are settled “by counting heads, in entire disregard of what the heads contain.”  His bugbear is the extension of the franchise.  “Representative institutions, for example,” he asks, “what do they represent?  The true theory unquestionably is that they should represent all the features of national life, all the living forces of society, all that makes the country what it is; and that in due proportion.  And such was the Constitution of England up to the date of the first Parliamentary Reform Act.  Its ideal was, to use the words of Bishop Stubbs, ’an organized collection of the several orders, states, and conditions of men, recognized as possessing political power.’” Could anything be more ridiculous?  Political power is to be apportioned in the nineteenth century as it was in the fourteenth century!  The people are to be always governed by their superiors!  Mr. Lilly continues:—­“It appears to me that the root of the falsification of our parliamentary system by the party game is to be found in the falsification of our representative system by the principle of political atomism.  Men are not equal in rights any more than they are equal in mights.  They are unequal in political value.  They ought not to be equal in political power.”

The mistake here is in the premise.  Has not the demagogue more power than his dupes, or the Member of Parliament more power than the elector?  We have hardly yet reached, and are never likely to reach, that ideal of direct government.  But what is this price which Mr. Lilly is railing at?  “The price may be stated in eight words.  ’The complete subordination of national to party interests.’  The complete subordination.  I use the adjective advisedly.  Party interests are not only the first thought of politicians in England, but, too often, the last and only thought.”  All this is sheer nonsense.  The coincidence of party aims with the real interests of the people which the British Parliament has displayed since the Reform Act of 1832 has never been even remotely approached by any other country.  Two causes have contributed