Parliament, whether the upper House is reformed or not, is not the only
question which is giving rise to a closer examination of the foundations
of the House of Commons. To this external difficulty there must be added
the internal, and in the future a more pressing, problem created by the
rise of a new organized party within the House of Commons itself. The
successive extensions of the franchise have given birth to new political
forces which are not content to give expression to their views along the
old channels of the two historic parties, and the growth of the Labour
Party must accelerate the demand for a more satisfactory electoral
method. For a system which fails in many respects to meet the
requirements of two political parties cannot possibly do justice to the
claims of three parties to fair representation in the House of Commons.
It is true that some statesmen regard the rise of a new party with fear
and trembling; they imagine that it forebodes the bankruptcy of
democratic institutions, the success of which, in their judgment, is
necessarily bound up with the maintenance of the two-party system. The
two-party system must indeed be a plant of tender growth if it depends
for existence upon the maintenance of antiquated electoral methods. But
those politicians who deprecate any change on the ground that
single-member constituencies afford the only means by which the
two-party system can be preserved, have failed to explain why this
electoral system has not prevented the growth of Labour parties in
Australia and in England, or why numerous parties and single-member
constituencies go hand in hand both in France and Germany. Single-member
constituencies may distort and falsify the representation of parties,
but they cannot prevent the coming of a new party if that party is the
outcome, the expression, of a new political force.

_The new political conditions and electoral reform._