an election must be suppressed: all plural voting must be abolished: the comedy of cars for feeble voters must be forbidden: all indirect bribery, either of voters or candidates, must be rigorously punished. Candidates must put a simple and sober statement of their views and proposals before the electorate, and no further expense should be permitted. Some system of proportional representation and secondary elections should ensure that large minorities would not be entirely without representation. The election should be confined to one day, preferably a Sunday, and stripped of all melodramatic nonsense and occasion for corruption.
The party-system will, no doubt, long survive in English political life. Within twenty years or so the word “Conservative” will, as in other countries, pass out of use, and the Conservative elements will unite under the banner of “Liberalism,” in opposition to “Labour.” It is, of course, the dread of this issue which at present unites the constitutional parties in opposing reform. One can, by studying advancing countries, even foresee a next phase. The Conservative elements will unite in a “Labour” party against the Socialists; and in the dim future we may, like Anatole France, foresee a Socialist commonwealth established and an Anarchist party furiously assailing it.
But, though the party-system be retained (very much modified by proportional representation), this disgusting sale of honours and offices, this oligarchic tyranny over the House and the con-
