The attempt to compress infinite issues in a space too
little has altered and, as some critics think, degraded the whole tenor
of public life. Parliament is no longer the Grand Inquest of the Nation,
at least not in the ancient and proper meaning of the words. The
declaration of Edmund Burke to the effect that a member has no right to
sacrifice his "unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened
conscience" to any set of men living may be echoed by the judges in our
day, but to anyone who knows the House of Commons it is a piece of pure
irony. Party discipline cracks every session a more compelling whip; and
our shepherded, regimented, and automatised representatives themselves
realise that, whatever more desirable status they may have attained,
they have certainly lost that of individual freedom. Out of their own
ranks a movement has arisen to put an end altogether to Party
government. This proposal I myself believe to be futile, but its very
futility testifies to the existence of an intolerable situation. All
this turns on the inadequacy of the time of the House of Commons to its
business.
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