In free countries party government is the best if not the only way
of conducting public affairs, but it is impossible without a large
amount of moral compromise; without a frequent surrender of private
judgment and will. A good man will choose his party through
disinterested motives, and with a firm and honest conviction that
it represents the cast of policy most beneficial to the country. He
will on grave occasions assert his independence of party, but in
the large majority of cases he must act with his party, even if
they are pursuing courses in some degree contrary to his own
judgment.

Everyone who is actively engaged in politics--everyone especially
who is a member of the House of Commons--must soon learn that if
the absolute independence of individual judgment were pushed to its
extreme, political anarchy would ensue. The complete concurrence of
a large number of independent judgments in a complicated measure is
impossible. If party government is to be carried on there must be,
both in the Cabinet and in Parliament, perpetual compromise. The
first condition of its success is that the Government should have a
stable, permanent, disciplined support behind it, and in order that
this should be attained the individual member must in most cases
vote with his party. Sometimes he must support a measure which he
knows to be bad, because its rejection would involve a change of
government, which he believes would be a still greater evil than
its acceptance, and in order to prevent this evil he may have to
vote a direct negative to some resolution containing a statement
which he believes to be true, (p. 112.)

Mr. Lecky goes on to point out that "many things have to be done from