1890-91.] NOTE ON ELECTORAL REPRESENTATION. 331 



remarks will have been attained if it be shown that a way may be opened 

 by which the flames of political discord may be extinguished, and the 

 virus of evil which taints our body politic be neutralized. 



A Parliament, fairly representing the whole people, would realize the 

 idea of a true deliberative and legislative unit. Devotion to country 

 would be substituted for devotion to party, and the tendency would 

 be, not to exhaust and neutralize the mental forces of the people's 

 representatives in fruitless agitation and barren debates, but to bring the 

 united energies of the wisest and ablest statesmen on both sides to 

 act with purposes in common. They would no longer appear as political 

 enemies to lead on the rank and file in successive faction fights, and in- 

 terminable struggles ; if ever contentions arose it would be in generous 

 efforts to determine who could accomplish the greatest public good. 



As already pointed out, we have happily in this new land no social 

 complications or traditional impediments to encumber our political 

 constitution, or clog the working of any improvement in our system 

 of government. In Canada we are in a state of general and continuous 

 development. Year by year we advance forward as our fathers did before 

 us. If the methods of our fathers do not serve the purposes of the 

 present generation, w^e must, as they would have done, abandon the 

 methods of our fathers. When we find defects in our political condition, 

 it is our duty to discover their origin and remove causes of friction by a 

 rc-adjustment of the legislative machinery. Now that the foundations 

 of the Dominion are laid broad and deep, we should, by every means in 

 our power, endeavour to prevent and obliterate divisions which tend to 

 cleave us in two. We should have one aim, one aspiration in our 

 political partnership. We should seek to remove the causes which have 

 led to divergence in the past and be animated with one desire, the 

 welfare of Canada as a whole : one determination, to promote her 

 prosperity and maintain her honour. 



If imbued with these sentiments, the sons of Canada approach the 

 consideration of the subject which the writer has humbly endeavored to 

 present — who can doubt that we shall witness the dawning of a new day 

 in public life in this fair land of ours ? Let us with confidence entertain 

 the conviction, that before long there will be a new departure in politics ; 

 that for divisions and weakness and instability, with a long train of 

 evils, there will be the unity, and strength, and security, which proceed 

 from wisdom, and peace, and concord. 



