Note (return) — Chapter II

But the most important difficulties raised by the extension of political interest from a very small to a large fraction of the population would be concerned with political motive rather than political machinery. It is astonishing that the early English democrats, who supposed that individual advantage would be the sole driving force in politics, assumed, without realising the nature of their own assumption, that the representative, if he were elected for a short term, would inevitably feel his own advantage to be identical with that of the community.[81] At present there is a fairly sufficient supply of men whose imagination and sympathies are sufficiently quick and wide to make them ready to undertake the toil of unpaid electioneering and administration for the general good. But every organiser of elections knows that the supply is never more than sufficient, and payment of members, while it would permit men of good-will to come forward who are now shut out, would also make it possible for less worthy motives to become more effective. The concentration both of administrative and legislative work in the hands of the Cabinet, while it tends to economy of time and effort, is making the House of Commons yearly a less interesting place; and members have of late often expressed to me a real anxiety lest the personnel of the House should seriously deteriorate.