Party
leaders seek such followers, who can always be depended on to
walk tamely into the lobby at the party whip's orders, provided
the leader will make their seats safe for them by the process
which was called, in derisive reference to the war rationing
system, "giving them the coupon." Other incidents were so
grotesque that I cannot mention them without enabling the reader
to identify the parties, which would not be fair, as they were no
more to blame than thousands of others who must necessarily be
nameless. The general result was patently absurd; and the
electorate, disgusted at its own work, instantly recoiled to the
opposite extreme, and cast out all the coupon candidates at the
earliest bye-elections by equally silly majorities. But the
mischief of the general election could not be undone; and the
Government had not only to pretend to abuse its European victory
as it had promised, but actually to do it by starving the enemies
who had thrown down their arms. It had, in short, won the
election by pledging itself to be thriftlessly wicked, cruel, and
vindictive; and it did not find it as easy to escape from this
pledge as it had from nobler ones. The end, as I write, is not
yet; but it is clear that this thoughtless savagery will recoil
on the heads of the Allies so severely that we shall be forced by
the sternest necessity to take up our share of healing the Europe
we have wounded almost to death instead of attempting to complete
her destruction.
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