THE DECLINE OF PARTY GOVERNMENT. 743 



to his secession did not alter the fact. In the case of his defense of 

 party, as in many other cases, his fervid and unbridled imagination 

 has ei'ected a particular expedient, the necessity of a special occasion, 

 into a universal and everlasting law. Before him, another man had 

 shaken off party trammels apparently from the conviction of their 

 radical inconsistency with the public interest. The life of Lord Shel- 

 burne is in this special respect a most important, as well as in all re- 

 spects a most interesting, addition to political biography, and we shall 

 see as it proceeds whether Shelburne is entitled to the credit of hav- 

 ing tried to be a national statesman. 



Our proposition, however, is this : that, let party, as a system of 

 government, be good or evil, the materials for parties are nearly ex- 

 hausted in the British colonies, and probably in the United States ; 

 that they are temporarily exhausted, and may one day be entirely ex- 

 hausted, in England ; while in other countries (in France and Ger- 

 many, for instance) the sections and subsections of opinion are too 

 numerous and the lines between them are too wavering to admit of 

 the clear division into two parties absolutely essential to the working 

 of the system, which, when there are three or four parties instead of 

 tyvo, becomes a quicksand of intrigue on which no government can be 

 founded. Under these circumstances it is necessary, whether we will 

 or not, to look out for some other foundation for constitutional gov- 

 ernment. The penalty of not doing so will be either confusion or the 

 domination of some selfish and, because it is selfish, compact and all- 

 powerful interest. 



To determine what that foundation is to be, is probably a task re- 

 served for better heads than ours. But perhaps the Swiss Constitu- 

 tion, in its general principles, may point the way. It suggests the 

 regular election of the executive council by the legislature in place of 

 a struggle of parties to determine which side of the House shall have 

 the privilege of distributing the prizes among its leaders. The proper 

 relations between the legislature and the executive might be pre- 

 served by a proper rotation of elections, with any such provisions as 

 seemed expedient in the way of cumulative voting. The tenure of 

 office would of course be limited ; whether to the duration of the Par- 

 liament (which is the Swiss system) or to a term of years would be a 

 question of detail, but the advantage of a continuous executive would 

 be in favor of the latter plan. It does not seem that with this limita- 

 tion the power of the members of the executive council would be too 

 great, or that their responsibility would be unduly diminished ; excess 

 of authority, provided it be constituted in the interest of the whole 

 nation and accountable to the nation in case of an abuse of power, is 

 not the i^olitical danger which at present we have most reason to 

 dread. Nor does it seem that, with, say, three elections occurring 

 each year, the executive council could get much out of harmony with 

 the legislature, or fail pretty adequately to represent the j^revailing 



