Generally speaking, Ministerial changes in Spain are the outcome of a tacit arrangement made some thirty years ago between Canovas and Sagasta, the then leaders of the two main parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, and continued by their successors, that each side should have its fair share of the loaves and fishes. After one party had been in office three or four years it was agreed by common consent that the time had come for the other side to have a turn. Thus, as Major Martin Hume says:[21] “Dishonest Governments are faced in sham battle by dishonest Oppositions, and parliamentary institutions, instead of being a public check upon abuses, are simply a mask behind which a large number of politicians may carry on their nefarious trade with impunity.” But sometimes, though more rarely, another cause operates to upset Governments, and that is the underground intrigues of disappointed place-hunters. If the Premier in his distribution of appointments happens to omit any important person or section of people who think themselves entitled to a share in the plums of office, they will not hesitate to join with political opponents and turn out their own nominal leader, if circumstances happen to make this possible. It is often said by foreign critics that the people--the mass of the nation--are to blame for the sins of their Governments. They have the franchise: if they are not satisfied, why do they not elect better men? This criticism proceeds from ignorance of an important factor in Spanish politics--one of the tentacles of the octopus of corruption which holds the whole country in its grip. The simple fact is that the great mass of the people have no voice at all in the election of their representatives. Nominally voting is free: actually it is not.[22]