PARTY GOVERNMENT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 555, 2 April 1913, Page 3

PARTY GOVERNMENT.

The party government system has received some very severe criticism in Britain in recent years, and a number of remedies have been suggested, some of which are so drastic and desperate as to appear rather worse than the disease. Mr Hilaire Belloc, for instance, has urged that the electors should axtract from the candidates for their suffrage'a definite pledge that unless certain measures are made law within twelve months of their taking their seats in Parliament, they will immediately resign. Of course few, if any, canddiates would accept election under these conditions, but thai a politician and a thinker of Mr Belloc's standing should consider such a step advisable is an indication of the serious view taken in certain quarters of the shortcomings of the present system. The cable message which announced the decision of Independent Labour Party to oppose all electoral reform until the Government introduces the franchise for women is in its way just as striking a commentary as Mr Belloc's rather bizarre proposal upon the evils which government by party brings in its train Electoral reform is one of the most important planks of the Independent Labour Party's platform, and yet the exigencies of party warfare appear likely to drive the "1.L.P." members of the House of Commons irito the same lobby as the Unionists, in opposition to reforms which the party itself was created to obtain. The situation smacks of the Gilbertian, but not to a greater extent than do a score of tactical moves which have been made in the House of Commons by ail parties during" the past decade. The most vicious feature of the Darty system, the conferring of inequitable privileges and powers upon the party in power, naturally militates against reform.