This temporary dislocation is no new phenomenon. The reform bill of 1867 became a serious part of the ministerial programme when a London mob pulled up the railings of Hyde Park: that was direct pressure from below. Direct pressure from above came when Mr. Gladstone appealed, over the head of some four hundred critical, angular supporters, to vast mass-meetings throughout the country; their verdict and sanction overrode the authority of the discreet representatives who had been returned to interpret the will of the people; representative government yielded place, on occasion, to a direct mandate, to an informal referendum: in a word, to direct democracy. And, as democracy became articulate through the press and through public meetings, the doctrine was born that every political change must be inaugurated by a press and popular campaign. In the last six years every political revolution has been forced on the House of Commons from outside. The constitutional passage of home rule was checked in 1914 by a threat of military rebellion and popular violence; the suffrage was extended to women as the reward of their extra-parliamentary agitation and in the teeth of press and popular opinion; war with Bolshevist Russia was stopped by the labour party, outside the House; and Ireland, despairing of help or leadership from England, has set up a Sinn Fein government. In one form or another this is "direct action"; and "direct action" is the _ultima ratio_ of the governed against their governors when the elected representatives slip beyond the control of their electors. The course of legislation and of foreign politics is now determined by a series of political strikes. In 1920, the labour party tried its hand on a solution of the Irish problem. Certain railway workers refused to carry munitions for the government. The National Union of Railway Workers was urged to support this local strike and to declare a general strike if the government tried to run the Irish railways with the help of engineers working under military discipline. Here, if it had chosen to throw down the challenge, organised labour would have met and contended with the executive of representative government on the highest plane. Mr. J. H. Thomas shewed the statesmanship to avert or postpone this conflict by asking the prime minister to receive a deputation to discuss an Irish settlement from the standpoint of labour.