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by an irresistible tendency, into the hands of a body of men allied by social and political ties. The family relationships of the Churchills, Spencers, and Godolphins, of the Russells and Montagus, the Walpoles and Townshends, the Carterets and Pettys, the Pitts, Grenvilles, and Wyndhams, often decided the composition of Ministries during the eighteenth century. It is even said that Cabinet government grew out of the practice of weekly dinners, initiated by a famous statesman. But, in a more moderate way, it may safely be alleged that the process of forming a Cabinet in early days often resembled the division of a great estate amongst the various branches of a family, rather than the construction of a national government.

In the second place, the Cabinet system could hardly have been evolved without the existence of clearly-defined parties, divided by sharp and unmistakable barriers. During the critical period of its evolution in England, this clear distinction existed. The Whigs were pledged to the parliamentary succession, with freedom of worship and press, and other substantial political ideas. The Tories were really Jacobites, and, in their hearts, abhorred the Revolution. Each Ministry knew that its conduct was being watched by jealous opponents, and that its failure meant, not merely expulsion from office, but possibly proscription or banishment. Thus the principle of Ministry and Opposition, based on real differences of ideas and hopes, was firmly established. Without this principle, the Cabinet system, as we know it, could not have been produced.

And, thirdly, it was necessary that there should be in existence a strong body of received tradition upon political conduct. It has been so often pointed out that the Cabinet system depends entirely on the observance of maxims which are never enunciated in legal form, that I need not dwell on the subject. But I may remark that one cardinal maxim of this tradition, the maxim of deference to the opinion of Parliament, had been generated in the minds of the eighteenth-century statesmen by a series of events so striking as to leave no room for misapprehension. The men who wished to avoid the fate of Strafford and Laud had to follow the example of Finch, Windebank, and Clarendon. In other words, an unpopular minister offered resignation to avoid impeachment, and, as the punishment was less, it was the more readily demanded. It

V

required conduct so bad as to be almost criminal to found an impeachment. But mere errors of judgment soon came to be looked upon as necessitating a resignation.

We see, then, that Cabinet government grew out of a combination of three special conditions-the presence of groups of influential officials accustomed to act together both in society and politics, the existence of strongly-defined parties and policies, and the habit of deference to political tradition. If we turn to Victoria at the present day, we shall hardly find these conditions existent there.

It

In the first place, the element of cohesion is wanting. is true that there are now a large number of persons who have been born in the colony, and that the vast majority of immigrants come either from the British Islands or other Australian colonies. But, within these limits, there is practically no end to the diversities of habit, education, mode of thought, and lineage which exist. If there is one feature more striking than another about Victorian society (in its largest sense) it is its atomic character.

Men come and they go. They are thought nothing the worse of for being new men, and hardly the better for being old. A very few families have branched out and intermarried with each other, but the extent of genealogic society is very small. Locality, also, is a far less powerful element of cohesion than in older countries. Amongst immigrants, it is natural that it should be so. They who have

crossed twelve thousand miles of sea will not shrink from leaving their abodes in the land of their adoption. And, even amongst natives, it is at present rare to find any deep attachment to a particular locality.

Still more strikingly absent is the second condition. Practically speaking, there are no political parties in Victoria. There are still faint echoes of bygone battles, but they have lost their meaning. Other cries may in the future arise. Some day the feeling of native against immigrant may raise a real political question, but at present it would be idle to say that it is a substantial factor in politics. All the old questionsextension of the franchise, vote by ballot, payment of members, -have been settled. We have practically confessed this truth. For the last seven years we have been content with so-called "Coalition" Ministries, and the ardent politicians, who have

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demanded a return to severer times, have forgotten that it is impossible to have party government unless there are parties.

But it may be said that, if there are no political questions, there are, and there have been, economic questions upon which the community has been keenly divided. That is quite true. There has been one great struggle on an economic subject; a still greater struggle on another is now going on. In the battle between Free Trade and Protection there was a perfectly legitimate basis for a formation of parties. But that struggle is over, at least for the present. And the great economic question of the day, the relation of Capital to Labour, is not, for a special reason, capable of being used as a basis of party government.

The reason is that, upon this question, each party holds one House of the Legislature, and party questions must be fought out in a single House, just as two combatants must fight in one ring. Broadly speaking, the Legislative Council is the organ of capital. Its restricted franchise, the property qualification of its members, the size of its constituencies and the consequent expense of its elections, the fact that its members are unpaid, all render it practically certain that it will be filled by men of wealth, who quite naturally take the capitalist view of the situation. The opposite incidents of the Assembly tend, as naturally, to make it the mouthpiece of labour. And as it is obviously necessary that each of these two great parties should be duly represented in the government of the country, the present state of things is so far satisfactory, that any proposal to extinguish either branch of the legislature carries on its face this obvious injustice, that its effect would be to deprive one party or the other of all voice in the management of affairs.

But, although the abolition of one House of the Legislature would be manifestly unjust, it is possible that an amalgamation of the two would be of advantage. There is little doubt that a somewhat slavish copying of English institutions has resulted in placing the Legislative Council in an anomalous position, in which much of its usefulness is lost. There can be no reason, for example, why the members of a representative body such as the Council should be precluded from dealing with questions of finance. The prohibition has enabled the Assembly to per

petrate at least one flagrant piece of class legislation.1 And, in other respects, the analogy upon which the two Houses are framed altogether breaks down when the circumstances of the colony are considered. Of course, if the two Houses were combined, and all the members of the combined House were elected on the same basis, injustice would be done, for the plan would be almost certain to suit one party better than the other. But, as the practice of European countries shows, there is no reason why all the members of a representative body should be elected on the same basis. And it is more than probable that, in their earlier days, what are now the separate houses of the Parliaments of European countries sat together as united bodies.

Thirdly, it must be confessed that in Victoria the binding force of political tradition has been considerably weakened. In some respects it is still strong, but in others, and especially on some of those points most essential to the working of the Cabinet system, it tends to break down. The proof of this assertion lies in the record of certain facts which have happened during political crises, but which are not, perhaps, very pleasant to refer to specifically. On broader grounds, we may safely say that the whole tendency of modern thought is to do away with the influence of tradition, not less political tradition than other forms, and thus to weaken one of the conditions most essential for the working of the present system. And it does not need special insight to see that, if the rather delicate traditions of Cabinet government break. down, the system will degenerate more and more into a cynical struggle for office, in which, as the prizes are not very great, the competitors engaged will not necessarily be of a very high order of merit. In fact, Parliament has already marked its appreciation of the truth that the working of Cabinet government is not altogether satisfactory under colonial conditions, by removing from the control of the Ministry of the day certain large departments of business which used to belong entirely to it. And if this tendency continues, if important departments of public business are made permanent, and their management placed in the hands of nonpolitical officials, the Cabinet will more and more recede from

1 I allude to the "Land Tax Act 1877," which imposes a tax upon the owner of a grazing estate of 640 acres, worth £3000, but lets the owner of a piece of land upon which a street of suburban houses has been built go scot free.

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its old position of working head of the executive system, and assume a new status as a committee of inspection, which committee may itself ultimately become permanent.

As a final criticism, we may note also that the Cabinet system sins against one of the cardinal maxims of democracy. If there is one article of democracy's creed more easy to discover than another, it is the jealousy of paid officials. The doctrine of democracy is that no man who holds a paid office is to be trusted with a share in the government of the institution from which he draws his salary. The plan of the municipalities, where the executive officials are rigidly excluded from the legislative bodies, is the ideal plan of democracy. The "interested expert" is its aversion, for all laymen dread the influence of professional knowledge. And against this doctrine the Cabinet system sins in the most open way.

But it may be said that it is idle to criticise a scheme which is now an essential of the political system; that, however unsuited Cabinet government may really be to the circumstances of the case, it cannot now be dispensed with.

My answer is, that an elementary study of history reveals the truth that there are very few essentials in politics, and that institutions which are not really suited to the circumstances in which they exist are apt to disappear. But, to be more specific, I may point, in conclusion, to tendencies which may possibly result in the euthanasia of the Cabinet system in Victoria. For I do not think, for a moment, that it is likely to be forcibly or even consciously displaced.

If I have succeeded, in this book, in reproducing the picture of Victorian government as it appears to my own eyes, it will be evident from a perusal of it that the power and influence of the central government are out of all proportion with those of the local government. Many causes have contributed to this result, but they do not all continue.

In the first place, Victoria was settled at a time when central government in England was abnormally strong, and local government unusually weak. The great increase in the influence of Parliament of the United Kingdom, consequent upon the Reform Act of 1832, made itself felt even in Australia. All through the earlier history of the mother colony, it is the desire to reproduce parliamentary institutions