d have been pressed in
parliament There was no government to deal with. The interests of the
union as a whole, distinct from local and sectional interests, had no
organ in the representative bodies; it was all a question of
canvassing this member of congress or the other. It is easy to
perceive that, under such a system, jobbing must become not the
exception but the rule,"--remarks as true in 1901 as in 1850.

It is important also to dwell on the fact that in Canada the
permanency of the tenure of public officials and the introduction of
the secret ballot have been among the results of responsible
government. Through the influence and agency of the same system,
valuable reforms have been made in Canada in the election laws, and
the trial of controverted elections has been taken away from partisan
election committees and given to a judiciary independent of political
influences. In these matters the irresponsible system of the United
States has not been able to effect any needful reforms. Such measures
can be best carried by ministers having the initiation and direction
of legislation and must necessarily be retarded when power is divided
among several authorities having no unity of policy on any question.

Party government undoubtedly has its dangers arising from personal
ambition and unscrupulous partisanship, but as long as men must range
themselves in opposing camps on every subject, there is no other
system practicable by which great questions can be carried and the
working of representative government efficiently conducted. The
framers of the constitution of the United States no doubt thought they
had succeeded in placing the president and his officers above party
when they instituted the method of electing the former by a body of
select electors chosen for that purpose in each state, who were
expected to act irrespective of all political considerations. A
president so selected would probably choose his officers also on the
same basis. The practical results, however, have been to prove that in
every country of popular and representative institutions party
government must prevail. Party elects men to the presidency and to the
floor of the Senate and House of Representatives, and the election to
those important positions is directed and controlled by a political
machinery far exceeding in its completeness any party organization in
England or in Canada. The party convention is now the all important
portion of the mac