318 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [YoL. IT. 



ally the great majority of the people, from any share or participation, 

 directly or indirectly, in the government. It has been likewise established 

 that in place of the supreme power being exercised by the people's 

 representatives, the whole power of the State is absolutely possessed by 

 a minority, and practically by an exceedingly small minority. Thus we 

 utterly fail in attaining what is understood to be representative govern- 

 ment ; in its place we have acquired a totally different and perverted 

 system — a system of the character of an oligarchy, and, it is hardly too 

 much to say, exhibiting some of its worst features. We have accepted 

 the fallacy tliat a part is equal to the whole. We give supreme 

 authority to a part, numerically in the minority, and we allow it to 

 assume the power which should be exercised by the whole ; at the 

 same time we exclude a large part, generally the majority of the people 

 from the rights and privileges which by theory they possess. 



Is it surprising that this system should result in the constant recur- 

 rence of difficulty ? Would it not rather be a matter of surprise if those 

 excluded from participation in government, or from representation in 

 Parliament, should quietly acquiesce in the injustice ? It is only natural 

 that they should resent the deprivation, and strive to regain their lost 

 rights and privileges, by waging political warfare against the men who 

 for the moment rule ; h^nce it is that they employ every means, good 

 and evil, to drive them from power. The dominant party for the time 

 being, on their part strenuously defend the position they hold, and leave 

 nothing ^undone to thwart the efforts of their adversaries to displace 

 them. On the one side, there is a persistent and relentless attack upon 

 the party controlling the government ; on the other a life and death 

 struggle for political existence. Thus we have the political peace of the 

 community continuallly disturbed, and we witness, in and out of Par- 

 liament, a never-ending conflict with all its concomitant evils. Such 

 to-day is the chronic condition of public life in Canada, whatever party 

 be in power, and it seems to be much the same in all countries similarly 

 circumstanced. In the work of Sir Henry Maine on popular government 

 the condition of party government, is mildly described as "a system of 

 government^ consisting in half the cleverest men in the country taking 

 the utmost pains to prevent the other half from governing." 



It is easy to be seen that the source to which we may trace our political 

 difficulties is an incomplete, if not absolutely false, electoral system. The 

 method of election which we follow, in its effect disfranchises half the 

 population entitled to representation in Parliament, and, without any 

 doubt whatever, it is this grave defect in our political system, which throws 

 all our constitutional machinery out of gear. It is this defect which 



