amendment to the Address in favour of the Right to Work Bill, a measure
as to the practicability of which there is a difference of opinion
within the party. Mr. Johnson, the member for Nuneaton, voted against
the amendment, and commenting on the incident the _Labour Leader_ said:
"Is Mr. Johnson to be allowed to defy the Party's mandate? We invite
the Labour stalwarts of Nuneaton to give their earnest consideration to
this question. And there can be no doubt as to what the verdict
will be."

_Mechanical debates._

These repeated attempts to make members of a party conform in all
respects to a specified pattern, this constant insistence that members
must give up the right of criticism and support on all occasions the
party to which they belong, must and does react on the composition of
the House of Commons. The duty of a Member of Parliament will tend more
and more to be restricted to registering his approval or disapproval of
the decisions of the Government, and, as the central organization of
each party is in close touch with the party whips, the free and
independent electors will be more and more confined, in the election of
their representatives, to a choice between the nominees of machine-made
parties. Moreover, in a House of Commons so composed discussion
necessarily loses its vitalizing character. The debates on Free Trade in
the House of Commons in 1905 towards the close of Mr. Balfour's
administration were very real and full of life, because argument could
and did affect the votes of members, but if the process continues of
excluding all elements save those of the machine-controlled, debates
will become more and more formal. They will lose their value. As Lord
Hugh Cecil has said[10]: "The present system unquestionably weakens the
House of Commons by denuding it of moderate politicians not entirely in