The country being, in the main, divided politically into three chief groups of thought—Conservative, Liberal and Labour—the machinery for the promotion of political principles and Party interests is principally supplied by three great rival organizations. These are the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, controlled by the Conservative Central Office; the National Liberal Federation, controlled by the Liberal Central Association; and the Labour Party, controlled by the National Executive. Each of these organizations is aided by several subsidiary but independent bodies, which are formed for the promotion of sectional political interests within the main movement to which they are attached. The systems of the National Union, the Liberal Federation and the Labour Party are much alike in methods. Those of the two ancient political Parties may be taken for the purposes of illustration. In most constituencies there is a branch of each organization. These local bodies elect the council for the county or for the borough. These councils send delegates to the annual conferences of the Conservative Union, or the Liberal Federation, by which the programme of each Party is considered, revised and confirmed, and a central executive is appointed with supreme authority. The branches look after Party interests locally. The Federation, or the Union, speak for the Liberalism or Conservatism of the country as a whole. But in reality Party organization is controlled, for the Conservatives by the Conservative Central Office, and for the Liberals by the Liberal Central Association. Both the Union and the Federation are founded upon a popular and representative basis, and their annual meetings, at least, are open to the Press. They each fulfil the double functions of educating political thought in the country, and of enabling the Party leaders in Parliament to gauge the drift of opinion within the Party on current questions of the day. But of the working of the Conservative Central Office and the Liberal Central Association little or nothing is made public—nothing, at any rate, that is really important. What is known is that each consists of a staff of officials directed by a Chief Agent, who is appointed by the parliamentary leaders of the Party. The Chief Party Whip in the House of Commons is also a leading director of the affairs of each of these central bodies. In each is vested the expenditure of the Party fund, subscribed by wealthy supporters, and popularly supposed to be immense. Each has a voice in the selection of candidates. The favour of headquarters is often the best passport to selection by the local association. Each body has an agent permanently residing in constituencies where political opinion is pretty evenly divided. “Give the men a smoking concert,” these Party agents are advised in a little book called _How to Win an Election_, “where they can obtain a reasonable quantity of good, pure, wholesome