Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/653

Rh of the system is to give class-selfishness a great and ever-increasing advantage over patriotism and conviction. The quicker the intellect and the stronger the conscience of the nation become, the less practicable will be the mode of government which we are told is alone possible, and destined by an inherent necessity of human nature to endure to the end of time.

Even in its best estate, when there are organic issues, issues which create genuine enthusiasm and raise the combatants above the meanness of faction, is party a good government? Is not the possession of power and place always present as a motive warping the conduct of the leaders on national questions? Does not sheer passion always rage among the rank and file? Is not corruption an almost indispensable instrument of party organization? The bribe may be money, it may be patronage, it may, when the support of rich men is to be gained, be titles and social grade; but is not bribery in some shape always there? Let the main object of association be ever so important, must there not be always, to preserve discipline and beat the enemy, a terrible sacrifice of conscience and of freedom of opinion? Is not legislation, on the most vital subjects, apt to be governed, not by regard for the public good, but by the exigencies of the conflict and the necessity of keeping up the ministerial steam, or raising an agitation to drive opponents from power? It was not an American adventurer, but a British nobleman of ancient lineage and enormous wealth, the vaunted pattern at once of the Conservative sentiment and the personal honor which is supposed to go with aristocracy, who was ready to take such a leap in the dark as household suffrage for the purpose of dishing the Whigs. At this moment is not party trying to cut the sinews of a government which is struggling against a great public peril? It is scarcely possible for statesmen under such a system to-give their best energies to the work of legislation and government; their minds must be constantly occupied with strategy, and they are now being called upon in this country, by the increasingly demagogic character of their position, to spend their parliamentary vacation, not in recruiting their working powers and storing thought, but in the delivery of stump-speeches. Stump-oratory is, indeed, in a fair way to supersede statesmanship, for the masses who are now enfranchised care comparatively little about great questions; they want a leader who will fill their imaginations: this a striking stump-orator does, and to him, therefore, though in every essential respect he may be the worst of pilots, the helm of state is likely to be consigned. Perhaps even his influence will be less pestilent than that of the master of tactics and intrigue. Party has served its purpose in history; it has been the rough and questionable, yet perhaps indispensable instrument of progress in England, the agency by which, through a long and intermittent series of struggles, the supreme power has been transferred from the Crown to Parliament,