Nor do I agree that the . symptoms specified are symptoms
illness. I consider them symptoms of excellent democratic heal It is right that in any grave national crisis, such as war or recon struction, a National Government should be formed from all parties it is a healthy instinct that the electorate should react against th party truce, and seek to provide Parliament with a responsibl opposition. Such decline in parliamentary vitality as has occurr is not, in fact, due to the existence of the party system, but to suspension. The present Parliament suffers under two great dis advantages, first that it is sever. years old, and, secondly, that war-time the gap between the Government and the House mus inevitably increase. The Government finds it difficult to tak the House into its entire confidence, since in war the Governmen possesses information and intentions which it must- obviously refu to disclose. The more responsible members accept this necessi without question, and refrain from comment. The less responsibl members are apt to break the silence. The impression is therefo occasionally suggested that the House of Commons is more criti and less responsible than is, in fact, the case. I hear frequent corn .plaints that this conveys to foreign observers a false picture criticism and disunity. Even if that were so, I should contend th the advantages of free and even irresponsible criticism outweigh the disadvantages. In practice, however, Dr. Goebbels does n make very lavish use of the criticisms made, or the questions ask in the House of Commons. And his reason for refraining fr advertising our hecklings of the Churchill Government are sensibl and shrewd. For he knows that for every German listener wh might think that this represented some weakening of the Pri Minister's Parliamentary position (a weakening which every g Nazi must ardently desire) there must be. fifty Germans who so "How fortunate are the pluto-democracies! How happy we shod be if the Reichstag could insist on being told the extent an sources of Goering's fortune, or who was responsible for the collap of our medical services upon the eastern front! "
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