notable illustration of this we have in the condition of political parties in the Italian Parliament for some time past. The Parliament of Italy is modelled on the English system of Government by Party, and there have been no less than twenty-five new administrations in that country in eighteen years, or an average of one every eight or nine months. In New Zealand, also, where the worst features of the parliamentary system of the mother country have been adopted, there were in 1872 no less than nine changes of government within seven months.1 A general election, and a good cry to go to the country with, would have put an end to this state of things. Party government in England has only been saved from merited contempt by the party leaders on either side. adroitly seizing on every question of public interest, and turning it to account for party purposes.

The position taken up by the advocates of party government is, indeed, an altogether extraordinary one. They assume that strong governments are desirable; but by a strong government they mean. a strong party government, that is to say, a government supported by an organized party and opposed by another organized party with a proper balance of power between them; and they assign as a reason for having an organized opposition, that it is neces1 Todd's Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies, p. 544.

sary there should be a check upon strong governments.1 In other words they want party government, because by that means they hope to have a strong government; and they want a party government, because by that means a strong government may be kept in check. They want, in fact, to do and to undo at the same time and by the same means; they desire a strong government, and no sooner have they got a strong government than they want to get rid of it, and the method they propose for attaining both ends is one and the same.

Under the system of Government by Party, Parliament exercises no permanent control over the government, and as we have seen, its advocates profess that it exercises none. That it exercises none in matters

1 "On the other side we find that government without party is absolutism; that rulers without opposition may be despots."-May, Const. Hist., vol. ii. p. 93.

"But Mr. Pitt united all these classes in one irresistible phalanx of power. Loyalty and patriotism, fears and interests, welded together such a party as had never yet been created; and which, for the sake of public liberty, it is to be hoped will never again be known."-Ibid., vol. ii. p. 38.

"Where the balance of power between the component parts of the supreme authority is duly preserved . . . Parliament will be able to fulfil its proper function, of exercising a vigilant control over every act of administration, and being prompt to interpose upon every occasion of abuse or misgovernment."-Todd, Parl, Gov., vol. i. p. 24.

Nay, what says the brilliant and versatile author of Coningsby? "No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influence of fruition and hope."

of administration is certain, for of nothing are ministers more jealous than of any interference in departmental arrangements; that it exercises none in legislation is also certain, as we have seen that the theory of party government, in fact its raison d'être, is that the government, to use the words of Earl Grey, shall "guide the decisions" of Parliament in such matters. It is assumed throughout by the advocates of this system that if the government did not exercise authority in this respect the legislative business of the country could not be carried on. On the other hand, I contend that it is solely because ministers exercise their authority that it is so difficult to get any legislation out of Parliament. So far from being of any assistance, in my opinion, party government is a positive hindrance to legislative action. If a private member bring in a measure the government will, either openly or covertly, oppose it, and in that case it is doomed; on the other hand, if the government introduce a measure of its own, no matter how necessary or important it may be, it will have to encounter the whole forces of the opposition, which, combined with the defections from the ministerial ranks, will, in nine cases out of ten, succeed either in emasculating it, or in defeating it, or what practically amounts to the same thing, in delaying it indefinitely; for there is no denying the fact that a measure disposed of in

this way at once becomes unpopular in the House. It is looked upon henceforth as a troublesome and dangerous question to deal with, and no ministry, present or future, will take it up again unless it is forced upon them by the country, as was the case with the reform question.

Like the dogma of the divine rights of kings and passive obedience, party government came to the front during the stormy period of the Revolution. The system is indeed so monstrous, that it could only have found acceptance at a time when national animosities ran high, and the people were in an abnormal state of excitement. Under no ordinary circumstances is it conceivable that the English people would have tolerated a political system so entirely different from that to which they had been so long accustomed, and so opposed to their practice in the affairs of everyday life. To the mass of the people it was, and always will be, a matter of utter indifference as to who were in office or who out of it, so long as the country is well governed. They had been accustomed to send their representatives to Parliament to confer together and co-operate for the common good of the whole community. It must therefore have shocked their moral sensibilities when they discovered that their representatives, instead of attending to the business of the country for which they

had been elected, were devoting themselves to far other purposes; that no sooner did they come together than they immediately ranged themselves on opposite sides of the House; that they openly avowed hostile intentions towards one another; that they at once proceeded to open acts of hostility; that they spent their time and energies in vilifying one another, in misrepresenting one another's motives, opinions and actions, and in attempting to ruin one another's reputations, to defeat one another's plans, and to delay and mutilate, when they could not reject, one another's measures. And that men eminent for their talents, their eloquence and even their uprightness in other relations of life, should do all this without any sense of its impropriety and its injustice, was a sight not calculated to raise parliamentary institutions in the estimation of right thinking men. Had it been the design of its authors to demoralize the public mind, to impede the public business, to create natural animosities and general anarchy, they could not have better accomplished their end than by the introduction of such a system as this. Nothing can be more obvious to common sense than that the representatives of a great nation could be bound together by the same interests, aims and aspirations as the people themselves, and that they should co-operate with them for the common good of the whole country; and nothing can be more absurd than