In practice, however, democracy has come under the thumb of the Party System, and the Party System has reached a very high point of efficiency. It has {434} bettered the example of the hugest mammoth store in existence. It has elaborated machinery for crushing out independent opinion and for cramping the characters of public men. In commending its wares it has become as regardless of truth as a vendor of quack medicines. It pursues corruption as an end, and it freely uses corruption--both direct and indirect--as the means by which it may attain its end. If the Party System continues to develop along its present lines, it may ultimately prove as fatal to the principle of democracy as the ivy which covers and strangles the elm-trees in our hedgerows. Leadership is our greatest present need, and it is there that the Party System has played us false. To manipulate its vast and intricate machinery there arose a great demand for expert mechanicians, and these have been evolved in a rich profusion. But in a crisis like the present, mechanicians will not serve our purpose. The real need is a Man, who by the example of his own courage, vigour, certainty, and steadfastness will draw out the highest qualities of the people; whose resolute sense of duty will brush opportunism aside; whose sympathy and truthfulness will stir the heart and hold fast the conscience of the nation. Leadership of this sort we have lacked. The Newcastle speech with its soft words and soothing optimism was not leadership. It does not give confidence to a horse to know that he has a rider on his back who is afraid of him. [Sidenote: NEED FOR FRANKNESS] It is idle at this stage to forecast the issue of the present war. Nevertheless we seem at last to have begun to understand that there is but a poor chance of winning it under rulers who are content to wait and see if by some miracle the war will win itself; {435} or if by another miracle our resources of men and material will organise themselves. Since the battle of the Marne many sanguine expectations of a speedy and victorious peace have fallen to the ground. The constant burden of letters from soldiers at the front is that the war--so far as England is concerned--is only just beginning. And yet, in spite of all these disappointments and warnings, the predominant opinion in official circles is still, apparently, as determined as ever to wait and see _what the people will stand_, although it is transparently clear what they ought to stand, and must stand, if they are to remain a people.