THE PEOPLE AND THE PARTY MACHINES Si S
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Sm,—As no one with Parliamentary authority has answered the Dean of St. Paul's, may I say that I have been greatly troubled by the same problem as the Dean and think that I see the answer to it? The simplest way to continue the present National Government would be to hold a coupon election, but all parties have, for good reasons, decided against this. What remains?
An ordinary. election in which candidates stand for their respective parties ; after the election there will be a House of Commons in. which the leader of the largest party will presumably be asked to form a government. It will be for him to judge whether to aim at a National Government, so as to carry the whole nation with him through the critical post-war years, or to form a party government and do what his party thinks best in the teeth of strong opposition and with the risk of having his policy reversed by the next government.
As for candidates in the election, they might well be asked whether they were willing, if elected, to support or join a National Government if one were formed and if their own party were reasonably represented in it. I confess I should be reluctant to vote for any candidate who said he would never support any government except one drawn entirely from
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