was still made that no pact: existed beyond a common patriotism. But the
pretence failed altogether; for it was evident that the leaders on
either side, so far from leading in divergent directions, were much
closer to each other than to their own followers. The power of these
leaders had enormously increased; but the distance between them had
diminished, or, rather, disappeared. It was said about 1800, in derision
of the Foxite rump, that the Whig Party came down to Parliament in a
four-wheeler. It might literally be said in 1900 that the Whig Party and
the Tory Party came to Parliament in a hansom cab. It was not a case of
two towers rising into different roofs or spires, but founded in the
same soil. It was rather the case of an arch, of which the
foundation-stones on either side might fancy they were two buildings;
but the stones nearest the keystone would know there was only one. This
"two-handed engine" still stood ready to strike, not, indeed, the other
part of itself, but anyone who ventured to deny that it was doing so. We
were ruled, as it were, by a Wonderland king and queen, who cut off our
heads, not for saying they quarrelled but for saying they didn't. The
libel law was now used, not to crush lies about private life, but to
crush truths about public life. Representation had become mere
misrepresentation; a maze of loopholes. This was mainly due to the
monstrous presence of certain secret moneys, on which alone many men
could win the ruinous elections of the age, and which were contributed
and distributed with less check or record than is tolerated in the
lowest trade or club. Only one or two people attacked these funds;
nobody defended them. Through them the great capitalists had the handle
of politics, as of everything else. The poor were struggling hopelessly
against rising prices; and their attempts at collective bargaining, by
the collective refusal of badly-paid work, were discussed in the press,
Liberal and Tory, as attacks upon the State. And so they were; upon the
Servile State.