that if that discipline be altogether shattered, political chaos would ensue.  They, therefore, join that party with which, on the whole, they are most in agreement, and they do so knowing full well that they will almost certainly at times be associated with measures which do not fully command their sympathies.  What is it that makes such men, for instance, as Lord Morley and Mr. Arthur Balfour not merely strong political partisans, but also stern party disciplinarians?  It would be absurd to suppose that they consider a monopoly of political wisdom to be possessed by the party to which each belongs, or that they fail to see that every public question presents at least two sides.  The inference is that, recognising the necessity of association with others, they are prepared to waive all minor objections in order to advance the main lines of the policy to which each respectively adheres.

The plan which has always commended itself to those who see clearly the evils of the party system, but fail to realise the even greater evils to which its non-existence would open the door, has been to combine in one administration a number of men possessed of sufficient patriotism and disinterestedness to work together for the common good, in spite of the fact that they differ widely, if not on the objects to be attained, at all events on the methods of attaining them.  Experience has shown that this plan is wholly impracticable.  It does not take sufficient account of the fact that, as the immortal Mr. Squeers or some other of Dickens’s characters said, there is a great deal of human nature in man,[79] and that one of man’s most cherished characteristics—­notably if he is an Englishman—­is combativeness.  In the early days of the party system even so hardened and positive a parliamentarian as Walpole thought that effect might be given to some such project, but when it came to the actual formation of a hybrid Ministry, Mr. Grant Robertson, the historian of the Hanoverian period, says that it “vanished into thin air,” and that, as Pulteney remarked about the celebrated Sinking Fund plan, the “proposal to make England patriotic, pure and independent of Crown and Ministerial corruption, ended in some little thing for curing the itch.”  Neither have somewhat similar attempts which have been made since Walpole’s time succeeded in abating the rancour of party strife.  Moreover, it cannot be said that the attempt to treat female suffrage as a non-party question has so far yielded any very satisfactory or encouraging results.

Lord Milner, however, does not live in Utopia.  He does not look forward to the possibility of abolishing the party system.  “It is not,” he says, “a new party that is wanted.”  But he thinks—­and he is unquestionably right in thinking—­“that the number of men profoundly interested in public affairs, and anxious to discharge their full duty of citizens who are in revolt against the rigidity and insincerity of our present party system, is very considerable and steadily increasing.”  He wishes people in this category to be organised with a view to encouraging a national as opposed to a party spirit, and he holds that “with a little organisation they could play the umpire between the two parties and make the unscrupulous pursuit of mere party advantage an unprofitable game.”