Section II., 1903 [ 3 ] Trans. R. S. C. 



I. — The Evolution and Degeneration of Party. — A Study in Political 



History. 



By Eeverend Dr. N. Burwash, Victoria College, Toronto. 



(Read May 19th, 1903.) 



In all countries enjoying either a democratic or a constitutional 

 form of government the political party plays an important part. In 

 primitive times a party formed around the person of a strong military 

 leader was often the means hy which the original liberty of the tribe or 

 nation was lost and absolute government established. At a later period 

 a revolutionary party was the means by which that liberty was regained. 

 But in modern times the party is no longer an occasional or extraordin- 

 ary agency, called into being at some great crisis, but a permanent and 

 legally recognized part of the machinery of a free representative govern- 

 ment. It is such to-day in Britain, in the United States of America, in 

 Canada, in France and Germany and even in Japan. 



In these cases the party is not the volcanic outbreak of resistance to 

 oppression, but is the result of the fact that the people have a voice in 

 determining the various issues which arise in their history; that they 

 are free to discuss these issues, and to form and express their opinions 

 thereon; and that they can finally give force to those opinions at the 

 polls. The party is the voluntary association of citizens by the help of 

 which public questions are thoroughly discussed, public opinion formed, 

 such opinion on the one side or other propagated and finally made effec- 

 tive in legislation. Such association is absolutely necessary if publid 

 opinion is either to be intelligently formed or effectively expressed. 



Our object in this study is not to follow the history of the various 

 parties which have arisen in our own or any other country, or to trace 

 their varying fortunes of ins and outs, or their changes of origin, growth 

 and decay. It is rather to treat the party in politics as a species or type^ 

 and to determine the forces which contribute to its origin and healthy 

 development. It is to study the laws by which those forces operate, as 

 well as to follow the normal course of the development into the highly 

 conijplex organism of the modern party. And it is finally to observe 

 the evil influences which contribute to its decay and eventually result 

 in its overthrow. 



The method of such a study must, of course, be inductive ; and as 

 human nature is the same the world over, and the forces which govern 

 the social or political evolution are universal in their operation, we may 



