They consist of (1) the regular armament works with immense new extensions, (2) the large transformed engineering works with their extensions, (3) the further scattered and miscellaneous resources brought in by the special scheme of local committees. Material and equipment are arranged for, the orders for different classes of goods co-ordinated in co-operation with the Allies, the supervision of products reorganised, transport and delivery controlled from the centre. But to complete the scheme there remains to be added to the means of production a number of large new factories, the national pro'jectile factories,' planned by the Ministry of Munitions. They have been erected and will be managed for the Government by the armament makers and a few big engineering firms. Some are already complete, others are approaching completion. They are intended for the production of ammunition for the new classes of heavy guns being made elsewhere, and absolutely essential to our military operations. The difficulty is the staffing, and particularly the supply of skilled engineers, of whom 80,000 are wanted. Men must be transferred from other and less important work, and they can be released by the substitution of women and unskilled men. The women have proved that they can do almost anything, and they require very little teaching and supervision. In one factory 320 women, with eight men to help them, are turning out 9000 18-pounder high explosive shells a week. They will be very largely employed, but some of the work is too heavy for them. The engineers must consent to the 'dilution' of the workshops by unskilled or half-skilled labour without reserve. Nothing less will complete the industrial effort and ensure victory.

A. SHADWELL.

A

POLITICAL RECONSTRUCTION

YEAR ago the country was profoundly dissatisfied with the way in which the then Liberal ministry was conducting the war, and high hopes were entertained when the Coalition was formed in May last. It was then assumed almost universally that the combination of the best men of both parties and the definite removal of the possibility of party warfare would lead to a great increase of efficiency and to the concentration of the whole strength of the country on the one purpose of winning the war. After eight months' experience public opinion was certainly dissatisfied with the results achieved. More recently there has been a gratifying rally to the Government as the result of their decision upon the question of compulsion; but doubt is still felt as to the wisdom of the Coalition experiment. In particular, regret is constantly expressed at the loss of a regular Opposition. It is argued that a strong Opposition always watching the Government and ready at any moment to produce effective criticism would have provided a useful check upon the administration. The argument is of doubtful validity. Before the Coalition was formed there was a strong Opposition, but it did not effectively criticise the Government. On the contrary, it deliberately abstained from any serious criticism at all. And the reason was plain. The Opposition could not have criticised the Government and driven home its criticisms unless it had been willing to undertake the formation of an alternative Government. But the mere fact of that willingness, if it existed, would at once have discounted the value of the criticism. Opponents would have argued that the purpose of the criticism was not to improve the conduct of the war but to obtain the loaves and fishes of office, and instantly the ordinary party conflict would have been renewed on another plane. The leaders of the then Opposition, in spite of pressure from the rank and file of the party, were too patriotic to run that risk. They preferred to merge themselves in a Coalition Government,

although in so doing they sacrificed their political freedom without gaining the reality of power. The Liberals reserved for themselves a majority in the Cabinet, and behind that majority there remained unbroken the Liberal majority in the House of Commons. From the political point of view the whole effect of the change was the destruction of the Opposition. But we cannot restore the Opposition as it existed before the war except by going back to the old conflict between the outs and the ins, and that nobody wants. By common consent we have suspended the internal war between parties because of the external war in which our country is involved, and that suspension must continue so long as the greater war lasts.

But the disappearance of the regular Opposition has destroyed one of the essential parts of the machinery which has so long both created and controlled the successive Governments of the United Kingdom. In the absence of that essential part of the old machine we feel baffled. We do not know how to control the existing Government, still less do we know how to create a new one. A totally new type of machine is required for our present needs, but none has yet been discovered. Indeed it is doubtful whether any political mechanism can be devised to give the nation the results it now wants, so long as the ground remains cumbered with the litter of the old plant. Our old political system was designed to facilitate and maintain a perpetual warfare between two parties, each struggling for office. We cannot by altering a few wheels here and there adapt such a system to the purposes of a unified nation bent on the exclusive pursuit of national ends. If the nation is to get, and keep, the kind of Government it now yearns for, it must be prepared for a political reconstruction which will cut at least as deeply into our national life as did the system which broke down eight months ago.

The dominant characteristic of that system for nearly two generations has been the control of the House of Commons by the Cabinet. The old theory that Cabinet Ministers-the 'King's servants are responsible to the House of Commons has given way to the now established practice that the House of Commons is itself the servant of the Cabinet which in turn represents the party victorious at the polls. This inversion of rôles is the necessary result of the increased

rigidity of the party system, which followed upon the extension of the franchise. Where a multitude of votes have to be attracted by a candidate in order to secure election, it is imperative to create in each constituency an organisation to look after the voters. Given the party system, that organisation must be of a party character. The large majority of electors know little and care less about most of the issues which are debated in Parliament. But they generally possess a healthy human instinct for fighting, and as an election contest proceeds they take sides with ever-increasing enthusiasm, eager that their party should win. Naturally they will feel aggrieved if the man that they succeed in returning should go over to the enemy. Such a man would have little chance of ever being elected again, even though his action might have been entirely consistent with all his election pledges. It is not pledges or principles that the mass of the electorate cares about, but the party fight. Consequently members of Parliament are compelled, either for financial reasons or for fighting reasons, to be loyal to their party. It follows that the Government representing the victorious party can always rely upon its majority in the House of Commons and thus controls that House, instead of being controlled by it.

The Government in the last resort means the Prime Minister. He selects his own colleagues and can dismiss them at will. In effect, he has usurped the powers both of the Sovereign and of Parliament. That again is intelligible when the party system is in full working order. The leadership of a fighting organisation requires certain obvious qualities which can quickly be estimated by the rank and file of the organisation. A political party has comparatively little difficulty in choosing a leader, and if that party wins an election its victorious general becomes the ruler of the conquered kingdom. He gives orders equally to the King and to the House of Commons; the only limit to his power is the limit imposed by the fear that if he gives the Opposition too much material for destructive criticism they may succeed in turning his party out at the next general election.

Even in peace-time this can hardly be described as an ideal system of government; in war, as the country has seen, it breaks down altogether. The Opposition has vanished and cannot be restored. The Whips of the two parties work

together instead of working against one another. Between them they control probably eighty per cent. of the members of the House of Commons. Parliamentary criticism is therefore reduced to mere nagging, which is neither dignified nor effective. Sniping by franc-tireurs is a poor substitute for the clash of organised battalions.

Under present conditions the only effective restraint upon the Cabinet is the power of the press, and ministers show how conscious they are of that power by their childish petulance in dealing with newspaper criticisms. To some extent the increased power of the press is the result of influences which are independent of the war. For a long time past the value of parliamentary speeches has been declining because they can so seldom lead to any tangible result. Probably not once in a session is a speech delivered which determines even a single vote in the subsequent division. The only effect that parliamentary speeches can produce is through public opinion outside the House, and that effect is clearly dependent on the extent to which speeches are reported and read. The newspapers have discovered that long reports will not be read and occupy space which the purchaser of the paper would sooner see devoted to some other purpose. Speeches which took half an hour to deliver are cut down in the newspaper reports to half a dozen lines; many speeches are not reported at all. It is characteristic of the official attitude of mind that the abridgement of the newspaper accounts of the proceedings in Parliament has been accompanied by an enormous expansion of the official report of those proceedings. In old days when Hansard' was published by a private firm as a commercial undertaking, only the most important speeches were reported verbatim; the rest were judiciously and in general very ably summarised. But as soon as the House of Commons became aware that nobody wanted to read what its members said, it abandoned the contract with the representatives of Hansard and established an official report of its own. In this publication, paid for with the money of the taxpayer, practically every speech is reported verbatim. Even members themselves can hardly be so foolish as to wish for a permanent record of most of their own speeches. Certainly no one else wants such a record. Probably not one elector in a million ever buys a copy of the official report. These