which play over his own constituency. The ministry are in touch
with the people, because they are not only themselves
representatives, but are heads of a great party, sensitive to its
feelings, forced to weigh the effect of every act they do upon the
confidence which the party places in them.... The drawback to this
system of exquisite equipoise is the liability of its equilibrium
to be frequently disturbed, each disturbance involving either a
change of government, with immense temporary inconvenience to the
departments, or a general election, with immense expenditure of
money and trouble in the country. It is a system whose successful
working presupposes the existence of two great parties and no more,
parties each strong enough to restrain the violence of the other,
yet one of them steadily predominant in any given House of Commons.
Where a third, perhaps a fourth, party appears, the conditions are
changed. The scales of Parliament oscillate as the weight of this
detached group is thrown on one side or the other; dissolutions
become more frequent, and even dissolutions may fail to restore
stability. The recent history of the French Republic has shown the
difficulties of working a Chamber composed of groups, nor is the
same source of difficulty unknown in England. (Vol. i., pp. 286,
287.)

Thus we find the opinion unanimously held that the one great fault to
which cabinet government is liable is instability of the ministry, owing
to imperfect organization of public opinion into two definite lines of
policy. Bagehot called it a case of unstable equilibrium, and Bradford,
in "The Lesson of Popular Government," goes further when he
declares:--"Not to speak disrespectfully, the ministry is like a company
of men who, after excessive conviviality, are able to stand upright only
by holding on to each other."