The Voter and the Two Voices

The real evil of our Party System is commonly stated wrong. It was stated
wrong by Lord Rosebery, when he said that it prevented the best men from
devoting themselves to politics, and that it encouraged a fanatical
conflict. I doubt whether the best men ever would devote themselves to
politics. The best men devote themselves to pigs and babies and things
like that. And as for the fanatical conflict in party politics, I wish
there was more of it. The real danger of the two parties with their two
policies is that they unduly limit the outlook of the ordinary citizen.
They make him barren instead of creative, because he is never allowed to
do anything except prefer one existing policy to another. We have not got
real Democracy when the decision depends upon the people. We shall have
real Democracy when the problem depends upon the people. The ordinary man
will decide not only how he will vote, but what he is going to vote about.

It is this which involves some weakness in many current aspirations
towards the extension of the suffrage; I mean that, apart from all
questions of abstract justice, it is not the smallness or largeness of the
suffrage that is at present the difficulty of Democracy. It is not the
quantity of voters, but the quality of the thing they are voting about. A
certain alternative is put before them by the powerful houses and the
highest political class. Two roads are opened to them; but they must go
down one or the other. They cannot have what they choose, but only which
they choose. To follow the process in practice we may put it thus. The
Suffragettes--if one may judge by their frequent ringing of his bell--want
to do something to Mr. Asquith. I have no notion what it is. Let us say
(for the sake of argument) that they want to paint him green. We will
suppose that it is entirely for that simple purpose that they are always
seeking to have private interviews with him; it seems as profitable as any

other end that I can imagine to such an interview. Now, it is possible
that the Government of the day might go in for a positive policy of
painting Mr. Asquith green; might give that reform a prominent place in
their programme. Then the party in opposition would adopt another policy,
not a policy of leaving Mr. Asquith alone (which would be considered
dangerously revolutionary), but some alternative course of action, as, for
instance, painting him red. Then both sides would fling themselves on the
people, they would both cry that the appeal was now to the Caesar of
Democracy. A dark and dramatic air of conflict and real crisis would
arise on both sides; arrows of satire would fly and swords of eloquence
flame. The Greens would say that Socialists and free lovers might well
want to paint Mr. Asquith red;