Nuisance Value
By E. M. FORSTER
T HAVE voted at general elections fairly regularly 1 for the past half-century, and no one for whom I have voted has ever got in. So I cannot regard myself as a political force and my contribu- tion to this symposium will be brief.
How thankful I am that Parliament still exists! That is really all I have to say. I value the institu- tion not because the right people get into it or because its decisions are sound, but because it is a check—a slight check—on the government by secrecy which menaces us and every modern State. The growth of secrecy and the growth of the population seem to me the twin evils that may destroy civilisation, and there is little one can do against either of them. Just as little can be done against secrecy in this country by Parliament for the reason that it is a Talking Shop whose chatter gets widely reported. How thankful I am for the Private Member who makes himself a nuisance! He alleges some injustice, his colleagues snub him and call him a crank, but he may expose abuses that would otherwise have never been mentioned, and often an abuse gets put right just by being mentioned. He may in the long run even trip up some high-minded bully in the Home Office or elsewhere who has been losing his head in the cause of efficiency and thinking himself God Almighty. So I shall go to the polling booth on October 8 to record my wonted and unwanted vote.
I shall not, however, bother over electoral broadcasts, addresses and so on. partly because 1 know my own mind, partly through moon- gazing, and partly because I do not want to see our future representatives at their worst. Some of them feel it their duty to be vulgar—no doubt at great personal inconvenience—and most of them in the heat of the moment make promises they will be unable to fulfil.
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