Mrs. McKechnie’s whole account of the matter seems to me to be something of an _ex parte_ statement. It is quite true in an ordinary way that “one does not take in a paper unless one agrees with its politics,” but a list of the “insurance claims” paid at that time to readers of the more prominent organs is a valuable commentary on the doctrine. That the Independent Government left behind it a quite innocuous record may also be admitted, but it must be admitted on the other side that it has left behind it no single important legislative bequest. It disappeared without leaving a ripple upon the surface of National politics.
It remained for Lord Hopedale’s Administration to reinstate the Party system. Some have held that they showed vindictiveness in their management of the situation, but it was a situation which needed strong measures. Party Government is surely not possible without party funds, and these had to be recruited somehow. The old system of “bought peerages” had, as Lord Millthorpe said, “done its work”; in fact, there was a glut. The Americans, too, were insisting very strongly that the purity of the aristocracy should be safeguarded. There seemed nothing for it but to place a slight premium on all elections to Parliament, which was almost negligible when compared with the honourable status given by a seat in the House of Commons, quite apart from the business advantages. At the same time the new arrangement discouraged, once for all, the appearance on the hustings of candidates who were only anxious to promote some doctrinaire fad of their own, and had not enough sense of discipline to “toe the line” with either of the great political parties. There was another novelty in the Parliamentary Elections Act, which it is difficult to imagine as having been dispensed with by earlier Governments—the provision, namely, by which any member who votes against his own party has thereupon to seek re-election.
But the raising of the premium from £5,000 to £7,500 was a piece of frank electioneering, and it is difficult to see how a statesman of Lord Hopedale’s honourable record can have made himself a party to it. The Party in power had always the advantage in finding candidates, since it was possible to guess with some sort of accuracy what programme they meant to take to the country; whereas the Opposition, since their programme was seldom worked out in detail until a week before the elections, had to ask their candidates to take their policy on trust. Since the Democrats were, on the whole, men of a more moderate income than the Conservatives, it seemed at one moment that it would be well-nigh impossible to fill the coupons. As it was, old Sir Arthur Bates had to appeal to his constituency from a bath-scooter, and Mrs. Farnham, though the doctors said she might wave her arms, was not allowed to speak.