Under the voluntary system, the crisis of politics is not the election of the member, but the making the constituency.  President-making is already a trade in America, and constituency-making would, under the voluntary plan, be a trade here.  Every party would have a numerical problem to solve.  The leaders would say, “We have 350,000 votes, we must take care to have 350 members”; and the only way to obtain them is to organise.  A man who wanted to compose part of a Liberal constituency must not himself hunt for 1000 other Liberals; if he did, after writing 10000 letters, he would probably find he was making part of a constituency of 100, all whose votes would be thrown away, the constituency being too small to be reckoned.  Such a Liberal must write to the great Registration Association in Parliament Street; he must communicate with its able managers, and they would soon use his vote for him.  They would say, “Sir, you are late; Mr. Gladstone, sir, is full.  He got his 1000 last year.  Most of the gentlemen you read of in the papers are full.  As soon as a gentleman makes a nice speech, we get a heap of letters to say, ‘Make us into that gentleman’s constituency’.  But we cannot do that.  Here is our list.  If you do not want to throw your vote away, you must be guided by us:  here are three very satisfactory gentlemen (and one is an Honourable):  you may vote for either of these, and we will write your name down; but if you go voting wildly, you’ll be thrown out altogether.”

The evident result of this organisation would be the return of party men mainly.  The member-makers would look, not for independence, but for subservience—­and they could hardly be blamed for so doing.  They are agents for the Liberal party; and, as such, they should be guided by what they take to be the wishes of their principal.  The mass of the Liberal party wishes measure A, measure B, measure C. The managers of the registration—­the skilled manipulators—­are busy men.  They would say, “Sir, here is our card; if you want to get into Parliament on our side, you must go for that card; it was drawn up by Mr. Lloyd; he used to be engaged on railways, but since they passed this new voting plan, we get him to attend to us; it is a sound card; stick to that and you will be right”.  Upon this (in theory) voluntary plan, you would get together a set of members bound hard and fast with party bands and fetters, infinitely tighter than any members now.

Whoever hopes anything from desultory popular action if matched against systematised popular action, should consider the way in which the American President is chosen.  The plan was that the citizens at large should vote for the statesman they liked best.  But no one does anything of the sort.  They vote for the ticket made by “the caucus,” and the caucus is a sort of representative meeting which sits voting and voting till they have cut out all the known men against whom much is to be said, and agreed on some unknown man against whom there is nothing known, and therefore nothing to be alleged.  Caucuses, or their equivalent, would be far worse here in constituency-making than there in President-making, because on great occasions the American nation can fix on some one great man whom it knows, but the English nation could not fix on 658 great men and choose them.  It does not know so many, and if it did, would go wrong in the difficulties of the manipulation.