There is one general observation which I should like to make, and it may not be out of place to make it here. My studies have led to the discovery that there has hardly ever been a time when it has not been asserted by someone or other, in writing or in speech, that the authority of Parliament and the esteem in which it is held have sadly declined. There is nothing surprising in that. Cynics and wits of all ages have tried their hand at making great institutions, as well as great men, butts at which to shoot their ridicule and contempt. Parliament has not escaped the common fate of the mighty and the sublime. It has been described as inefficient and corrupt. Its downfall has often been prophesied. Yet its foundations were never deeper or better laid than they are to-day, broad-based as they are on electoral comprehensiveness and the people’s will. Parliament as I have presented it—even with all reverence and admiration—may not be perfect. It has its faults. After all, its legislators and administrators are but human. But it is, perhaps, as fine and perfect an instrument of democratic government as can humanly be devised. Ancient and renowned as it is, it stands not remote and apart. On the contrary, it is of the fabric of the life of the people. It makes a living reality of the great principle—“Government of the people, by the people, for the people.” It is the country’s chief political instrument of progressive civilization. It is idle, in the light of experience, to talk of its being clumsy, inefficient, slow. More than ever does it make possible the closest and quickest impact of the country’s mind upon government and administration. In the World War it signally proved its practical and speedy utility. Statesmen obtained quickly and surely all the measures they deemed necessary for the national safety and the enemy’s defeat. Whenever Parliament seems to have lost caste the cause may be traced, not to the institution itself but to its membership, the confusion of its Parties, the weakness of its Ministry. The remedy is not to destroy it, and put in its place some untried mode of government and administration; but, by changing its composition, to restore it to the proper service of the Nation. Parliament is fully capable of accomplishing whatever may be asked of it, in the changing thoughts of men, probably, till the end of all time, and of doing so soberly and slowly by process of evolution, or with revolutionary rapidity and completeness, as the situation demands. MICHAEL MACDONAGH. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 5 CHAPTER I. THE MEMBER AND THE CONSTITUENCY 11 II. WOOING OF THE ELECTORS 20 III. A NEW PARLIAMENT IN THE MAKING 33