I.—lo.

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regard to the rotation of vacancies as may at once [secure sufficient harmony between the two bodies and a sufficient continuity in the executive government. The responsibility of the Executive for the decisions of the Legislature, and its obligation to resign upon every legislative defeat, which is a mere accident of English history and devoid of rational foundation, would then cease. The Legislature and the Executive would be at liberty each to do its own work. The Executive would.be national, and would receive the general support of the community instead of being an object of organized hositility to half of it; it would be stable instead of being, as it is now throughout Europe, ephemeral as well as weak. Eesponsibility on the part of its members instead of being diminished would be increased. It would become individual, whereas now it is only collective, the whole Cabinet and the party majority being bound to support each Minister whatever may be his failure in duty. Personal aptitude might be considered in the elections to the offices, whereas at present little can be considered beyond the necessity of providing for all the leaders, and a good financier or Minister of Marine would not be turned out because he was in the minority on a Franchise Bill. . . . The greater part of its energy is now expended, not in the work of administration, but in preserving its own existence. Not only is it exposed to the incessant attacks of an opposition whose business is to traduce and harass it, but it is now hardly able to sustain itself against the irresponsible power of the Press, wielded nobody knows by whom, but often under secret influences, which are a great and growing danger in all communities. To keep the popular favour, which is to them the breath of life, the members of the Cabinet have to be always on the stump, reserving to themselves little time for rest or reflection, and the stump orator is rapidly superseding the statesman.— Goldwin Smith, " Contemporary Beview," 1885. He said that the principle of government by party will some time or other come to be put to the challenge in English political life.— Justin McCarthy, " Contemporary Revieiv," 1887. Hume says: "As much as legislators and founders of state ought to be honoured and respected among men, as much ought the founders of sects and factions to be detested and hated; because the influence of faction is directly contrary to that of laws. Factions subvert government, render laws impotent, and beget the fiercest animosities among men of the same nation, who ought to give mutual assistance and protection to each other. And what should render the founders of parties more odious, is the difficulty of extirpating these weeds when once they have taken root in any State. They naturally propagate themselves for many centuries, and seldom end but by the total dissolution of that government in which they are sown." — Hume's Philosophical Works. We believe that if the nation once fully realised the position, it would introduce some form of referendum in regard to constitutional Acts which no Parliament, however anxious to do so, would dare to repeal.— Lord Hartington, " Spectator," 1889. At first they would probably wonder that it could ever have succeeded at all; and that a system, by which the Empire had been brought to the very verge of ruin, before statesmen could be roused to discriminate between their major and their minor obligations, should have been tolerated for a day by a nation which prides itself on its knowledge of the art of government. . Party has, by many great statesmen, been considered only an accident, not an essential, of our English form of government.— Speech by Lord Hartington, " Quarterly Bevieiv," 1886. The party system betrays in Canada the same fatal weaknesses which it betrays elsewhere. In the absence of organic questions, the list of which must everywhere in time be exhausted, no rational or moral line of division between parties will remain ; party becomes mere faction, and the struggles for principles degenerates into a contest for power and pelf, carried on by means not purer than the end. This is as inevitable as any moral consequence can be. . . . We shall be obliged to introduce the ballot for legislators as well as for electors, if we mean the legislator, like the elector, to vote according to his conscience. Perhaps he would sometimes speak on one side and cast his ballot on the other ; but it is the vote that we want to have on the right side, not the speech. — Goldwin Smith, " Contemporary Beview," 1887. Palmerston, in a speech made in the House of Commons on the 3rd March, 1831, said : " When, then, the public voice calls for change, when innovation is demanded, not by the bow-window orators and market-place politicians, but when the calm and steady voice of those whose property, intelligence, and station place them in a far different class; when the voice of such men calls loudly and constantly for change, it would be vain to attempt to persuade ourselves that there is not some real and practical evils which it is the duty of Parliament forthwith to endeavour to remedy. . . . Our constitution has grown up piecemeal, and by changes wrought gradually and from time to time in the frame and texture of our institutions."— Lord Palmerston, " Opinions and Policy." Cobden, in a speech made on 29th October, 1862, said : " We have not an honest state of parties in Parliament. It is a hard truth, but it is the truth, that parties are not on an honest basis in Parliament.' '■— Cobden's Speeches. As a rule Ministers profess great consideration for the opinions of Parliament: it is only the Opposition that they treat with contempt. Where an important vote is pending they first try to make sure of their majority. If there are any signs of disaffection in the Ministerial rank and file, they rally their party, an appeal is made to party feeling, the disaffected have to stand out, all the influence at the command of Ministers is employed to conciliate them, and, when all else fails, a threat of resignation or of a dissolution of Parliament will generally bring them to terms. The Ministerial ranks are then closed, and the reunited majority behind the Treasury benches are used to crush the Opposition majority. To the outside public all seems fair and square, but none the