It is said, again, that the younger members of the
Con- servative and associated parties have been subjected in recent years to too stringent discipline upon the part of the Whips. It is true indeed that some (although not all) of those who have criticised their party leaders have been cast into uttermost darkness, whereas the obedient have sometimes (but again not always) been accorded a place in Abraham's bosom. It is true also that the directors of the Conservative party seem to be oblivious of the historical fact that it has always been the Tory rebel who has infused new vigour into what might otherwise have become a mutual-benefit, if not a mutual-admiration, society. I question, however, whether those who control the levers of the party machine have any conscious desire to destroy the independent mind. It is their business to maintain discipline, and they maintain it with unexampled efficiency. And of course one cannot expect all of them to be very bright in the head.
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