But political action is slow and political parties are--what they are. To most of us a change of Government means that Lord This is replaced by Mr. That; probably relatives, and almost invariably belonging to the same caste; none of them particularly hasty in applying the remedies in which they believe--for when it comes to doing things instead of talking about them a great deal more depends on sentimental impressions, the result of friendly contact, than on intellectual opinions and political theories. Politicians are like other people; their imagination can more readily picture the result of action as it affects their own friends than as it affects those of another social class. Those who have a vested interest in the present conditions of things may personally suffer by any remedial change; and though there are many who are magnanimous enough to place the public gain before all else, there are far more who honestly cannot see that any measure whereby they would suffer a private loss can possibly be a public gain. They are often very estimable persons, and knowledge of that fact paralyses the action of their friends who are politically opposed to them.
It would be so much more easy to remedy evils if those who profited by their existence were only ill-natured and grossly selfish people; but when they are kindly and courteous it is a pity to push them. Besides, they are often widows and orphans; for there is a remarkably high rate of mortality among the husbands and fathers of people who have money invested in land and in breweries. There are other widows and orphans, however, who have no intimate friends in Parliament, and whose condition cannot appeal so powerfully to the imagination of Ministers because they belong to another class. The trouble is that the measures that would aid one set of widows and orphans would hurt the other; and even when legislation is passed its action is delayed out of tenderness to existing interests.
There are many men in every Parliament who are anxious to remedy the bad conditions they see around them, and they are not confined to any side of the House; but there is no popularly elected body in the country where the private member has so little power. In a Town or County Council he has a vote in the election of the executive, and if he is not pleased with the conduct of those whom he helps to office he can let them know the fact pretty effectively. The Member of Parliament finds the Government formed without any consultation with him on the subject, and if he belongs to the same political party it is disloyalty for him to criticise Ministers unfavourably. He is, however, allowed to praise and defend them, and this usually keeps him tolerably busy. For the rest, he must never vote against them except on a subject that they count of little importance and on an occasion where they are quite sure of having a majority without him. He must keep his own side in, no matter how much he disapproves of their conduct of business; and he must recognise in practice that the men who lead are the party. The people who sent him there may replace him at the first opportunity, but he will have the consolatory reflection that if the other side has got in it is only to behave in the same way. Some other members of the families whose hereditary genius for governing the country has made us the great nation we are will fill the posts their relatives have vacated; and the electors will continue to have the shadow of representative government while the substance remains with their betters.