Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/661

Rh The nominations carry with them the elections; the constituency at least has nothing left it but the choice between the two candidates whom the wire-pullers are pleased to set before them, and whose first qualification is of course entire subserviency to party, if not to something narrower still. Nor is there any visible way of breaking out of this fatal circle, which grows continually stronger and more confined. If an independent candidate attempts to offer himself, the wire-pullers on both sides practically combine against him as an interloper and a leader of rebellion against party discipline. The range of their unbeneficent agencies is, moreover, daily extending and affecting every part of public life. It is needless to say that a conclave of Tory squires is just as much a caucus as a Liberal "three hundred." Trusty managers of their own immediate concerns common men will manage to pick out of those with whom they are in daily intercourse, and whose characters they thoroughly know. In Canada persons qualified to judge say that the local elections, where party does not interfere, are good, and best where the area is smallest. An assembly consisting of the chosen men of each locality will be more intelligent than the body of its constituents, and at each remove upward a step in intelligence is gained. The increased importance given to the local assemblies would raise their character by inducing better men to come forward, especially in the cities. Nor, with a limited body of primary electors, is there much practical difficulty about the nominations. A college of electors, called into existence for a single term, such as that which formally chooses the President of the United States, of course becomes a nullity: the result is a mandate: but this would not be the case with a standing assembly, electing periodically members of a central Legislature. The Senate of the United States, elected by the State Legislatures, may safely be said to be in average ability decidedly above any other legislative assembly in the world, and would be an admirable government if party would let it alone; while the House of Representatives, elected directly by the people, is not only inferior to the Senate in every respect, but is a body the meeting of which is by all good citizens justly regarded with dismay, while its departure is welcomed as a deliverance. The primary electors, instead of losing by the change, would gain a real power of indirect election, whereas the apparent power of direct election which at present they possess is an illusion, the reality having been filched from them by the caucus, which is always in the hands of a ring. A wise arrangement of local institutions on the elective principle would of course be the basis of the system, as it is the indispensable training school of the people in self-government. The elections to the central Legislature, party being out of the way, ought to be by installments, a mode which would allow the steady inflow of public opinion, and at the same time prevent cataclysms such as now attend general elections, which are usually decided by some special agitation or an