Party Government.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 31, 31 July 1902, Page 5

Party Government.

Mr T. M Healy, M.P., presided recently at a debate of the Dublin Innity College Histonoal Society. The proposition 'That party government is undesirable ' was defeated by a considerable majority. Mr Healy, in acknowledging a vote of thanks, said that, having entered Parliament at the age of 25, he was much impressed by the great men of Mr Gladstone's Government. Mr Biggar, however, to whom he had confided this sense of reverence, said that these great men were merely ' a row of jealous individuals.' The extension of the franchise, though devieed by the Liberal party for the destrucof Conservatism, had done more for Conservatism than any other measure of Parliament, and by a still more extraordinary stroke of fortune had laid the foundation of the permanent existence of the House of Lords. Before the extension of the franchise the House of Lordß was constantly frightened with threats of extinction by the unknown forces of an unchained democracy. To-day, owing to the fact that every man has a vote, and many have several, the House of Lords knows exactly the pulse of the people ; it knows exactly how the people are brigaded and regimented and marched, and it takes steps accordingly, so that there was no longer, as regards the general body of the English people— of course, Ireland stood in a different position— any likeJihood of conflict betweed the Lords and Commons. The result was that the House of Lords had received a new lease of life. The effect of the extension of the franchise on the House of Commons was that in this present Parliament, with its large Conservative majority, they had a Commons more Liberal than that one in which Mr Gladstone had a majority of 180, and far more altruistic and considerate in its attitude towards great social questions. All government, to his mind, was objectionable. It was not a question of what was the best government, but what was the least bad. The party government of England had great disadvantages, but it had many advantages, and from the Englisman'H point of view he did not think it was a system which they were likely deliberately to alter. Englishmen were more easily governed than Irishmen, because there was among them a greater distributed stupidity In Ireland ability was so widespread and genius so common that the people were more difficult to govern. The troops of silent Tories who obeyed their leaders unquostioningly in the Houne of Commons really exercised a good deal of influence in local affairs by the quiet pressure which they brought to bear upon permanent heads of Government depaitments. Mr Healy concluded by describing himself, amid much laughter, as 'a relic of party eovernment.' J