the operative pivot of the social system. Constitutional writers have
much to say about the estates of the realm, and a great deal to say
about their relation to each other, and to the Sovereign. All that is
found to be treated upon at length. But they say very little about the
Party system. And, after all, the Party system is the dominant fact in
our experience. Nothing is more striking in the last twenty-five years
than the growth and expansion of Party organisation, and the way in
which millions of people and their votes have been woven into its
scope.

There are two great characteristics about the Party institutions of
this country: the equipoise between them, and their almost incredible
durability. We have only to look at the general elections of 1900 and
1906. I do not suppose any circumstances could be more depressing for
a political Party than the circumstances in which the Liberal Party
fought the election in 1900, except the circumstances in which the
Conservative Party fought the election of 1906. At those two
elections, what was the salient fact? The great mass of the voters of
each political Party stood firm by the standard of their Party, and
although there was an immense movement of public opinion, that
movement was actually effected by the actual transference of a
comparatively small number of votes.

When Parties are thus evenly balanced, to place such a weapon as the
House of Lords in the hands of one of the Parties is to doom the other
to destruction. I do not speak only from the Party point of view,
although it explains the earnestness with which we approach this
question. It is a matter of life and death to Liberalism and
Radicalism. It is a question of our life or the abolition of the veto
of the House of Lords. But look at it from a national point of view.