4 • EOYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



draw our examples from the histories with which we are all familiar, 

 those of Canada, Britain and the United States, 



The first fact that meets us, one that lies on the very surface of those 

 histories is, that a living party is created only by the occurrence of some 

 new issue of considerable importance and always of widespread interest. 

 We may adduce as examples the parties which divided the nation from 

 Henry VIII, to Elizabeth, from James I, to Charles II,, from James II. 

 to George t. As during this period the constitutional liberty of Eng- 

 land was only slowly taking form, the parties were largely revolutionary 

 on the one side and absolutist on the other ; but in every case the intense 

 and persistent political life of the party was due to the importance of the 

 issue involved and the widespread interest whi^ch consequently attached 

 to it. Such issues occur only in the life of an active and progressive 

 nation. Wherever the people have settled down into a stagnant tradi- 

 tional life, without ambitions or new interests, and things go on as they 

 were, there can be no new creation or birth of party. It is a ripe issue, 

 involving large interests on the one side and the other, intelligently 

 grasped by the people, that possesses this power of giving birth to party 

 life. A merely speculative question cannot constitute such an issue. 

 Academic disputes do not move the people. An issue or question enters 

 the field of practical politics only when it has first entered into the in- 

 dustrial, commercial, or political life of the people, or into their inter- 

 national relations, and so forces itself upon their attention. We doubt 

 whether a case can be found in which an abstract principle formed the 

 basis of successful party life. The issue must take concrete form. We 

 may even go further, and say that it must propose a positive course of 

 action under the circumstances, a definite policy. It is more frequently 

 on the policy or course of action to be pursued than on the end to be 

 attained that party division of opinion arises. The deeper and more 

 permanent party lines, however, imply divergence of ends as well as of 

 methods. The first party lines in the Province of Upper Canada were 

 based on the divergence of Imperial and Colonial interests. The ques- 

 tion was, should the country be governed from Downing street accord- 

 ing to the ideas and convenience or interests of the Home Government ? 

 or by the voice of and in 'the interests of its own electorate ? Such a 

 divergence goes to the very basis of political life and creates a party 

 line of division which may perpetuate itself through the entire national 

 history. 



The issue which draws the line of division between parties must be 

 important and permanent as well as practical. It must touch great 

 common interests of the people, interests which are essential to their 

 individual or united well being, and which are continuous in their char- 



