When therefore I speak of your interest in politics I am not thinking of that rather exciting parlour game which they play at Westminster during the spring months. In this you probably take less interest than I; for I must confess (not altogether without shame) that the sporting aspect of politics has always fascinated me. You, on the other hand, have _Bridge_ to amuse you; and, when you are brought to the bar of the Nonconformist Conscience on this count, you may fairly plead that any man who played _Bridge_ with the peculiar mixture of ignorance, stupidity, criminal laziness and flagrant dishonesty with which the Front Benches play the game of politics, would infallibly be turned out of his club and probably cut by all his acquaintances. It may seem surprising that, taking this view of contemporary party warfare, I should have troubled to write a book in criticism of it. To which I can only reply that the parliamentary bridge-players are unfortunately staking on their pastime not their own money but my country’s interests; so that the incidents of the game become important despite the frivolity of the players, and it seems to me that we are on the eve of a turn of luck which may prove not only important but disastrous. I suppose that we are not unlikely to have a General Election within the forthcoming year; and many indications appear to point to the probability of a sweeping Liberal victory. I want you to consider carefully what a Liberal victory means for us and for all serious reformers. A Liberal victory means one of two things; either six years of government by the Whigs or six years of government by the Nonconformists. There is no third alternative, for neither the old destructive Free-thinking Radicalism of the late Charles Bradlaugh and the almost extinct Secular Society, nor the new sentimental High Church Radicalism of my excellent friend C. F. G. Masterman and his associates of the _Commonwealth_ has the slightest hold on any section of the electorate that counts politically. If you doubt this, it is because you did not follow Masterman’s campaign at Dulwich as closely as I did. Vehement Catholic though he was, he was forced to accept all the political shibboleths of Nonconformity on pain of certain annihilation; yet, even after he had gone to the very verge of what his conscience would permit to conciliate his sectarian masters, this did not save him from a crushing defeat. An excellent candidate, an eloquent and effective speaker with real civic enthusiasm, he met the same fate which overtook Bernard Shaw at St. Pancras, when he stood for the L.C.C. And that fate will continue to overtake all who rely on Radical support without first making their full submission--political, theological and moral--to the Vatican of Dissent.