it wisely? There may be hope fifty years hence for the special issue. This suggestion is not a condemnation of a third party; that is perhaps the best way in which to get a new problem of the day before the people. The question is that of the true function of a third party in a country like the United States as a means to bring forward and urge a new issue until that issue has been thoughtfully tested before the country.

II. HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES

389. Development of parties in England. A brief outline of party history in England follows:

Parties may be traced as far back as the reign of Elizabeth, when the Puritans appear as a body of men holding the same views on definite religious and political questions, and trying to secure their establishment in opposition to the wishes of the Queen and her ministers. Definite Parliamentary parties date from the Long Parliament of 1641, which contained men "opposed to one another in the House of Commons . . . on a great principle of action, which constituted a bond between those who took one side or the other." The opponents of arbitrary government in Church and State became known as Roundheads, while the supporters of the King received the name of Cavaliers. At the Restoration, the Cavaliers were entirely in the ascendant, but by the time of the dispute on the Exclusion Bill, 1679, the other party had revived, and the two opposing factions obtained the names of "Petitioners," i.e. those who petitioned the King to summon a new Parliament as soon as possible, and "Abhorrers," who were the supporters of the Crown, and expressed their abhorrence of the petitions, as calculated to coerce the King. Shortly afterwards these two parties received the names of Whigs and Tories. . . . Roughly speaking, the Tories were the upholders of absolute monarchy, the Whigs desired a monarchy limited by Parliament. . . . After the Revolution of 1688, the more extreme Tories developed into Jacobites, who continued to disturb the country until after the crushing of the rebellion in 1745. After that, the Tory party became the supporters of the King of England. Party government, however, cannot be said to have been established until the reign of George I; although William III, between 1693 and 1696, chose his ministers from the Whigs, the ministry, from their unity, being popularly known as "the Junto," yet, on the loss of their majority at the election of 1698, they refused to resign. By degrees, however, the present ministerial system became established by which, as the nation, and consequently the Parliament, is divided broadly into two great parties,

one of which must have the control of the executive, the ministers are bound to be of the same party as the majority in the House of Commons, and to stand or fall together.

390. Origin of parties in the United States. The following letter, written by John Adams, shows the existence of fundamental differences from the beginning of American political life:

You say, "Our administrations, with the exception of Washington's, have been party administrations." On what ground do you except Washington's? If by party you mean majority, his majority was the smallest of the four in all his legislative and executive acts, though not in his election.

You say, our divisions began with federalism and antifederalism." Alas! they began with human nature; they have existed in America from its first plantation. In every colony, divisions always prevailed. In New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Massachusetts, and all the rest, a court and country party have always contended. Whig and Tory disputed very sharply before the revolution, and in every step during the revolution. Every measure of Congress, from 1774 to 1787 inclusively, was disputed with acrimony, and decided by as small majorities as any question is decided in these days. We lost Canada then, as we are like to lose it now, by a similar opposition. Away, then, with your false, though popular distinctions in favor of Washington.

In page eleventh, you recommend a "constitutional rotation, to destroy the snake in the grass"; but the snake will elude your snare. Suppose your President in rotation is to be chosen for Rhode Island. There will be a federal and a republican candidate in that State. Every federalist in the nation will vote for the former, and every republican for the latter. The light troops on both sides will skirmish; the same northern and southern distinctions will still prevail; the same running and riding, the same railing and reviling, the same lying and libeling, cursing and swearing, will still continue. The same caucusing, assemblaging, and conventioning.

391. Fundamental oppositions in American politics. Bryce finds two general lines of cleavage forming party divisions throughout our entire national history.1

Two permanent oppositions may, I think, be discerned running through the history of the parties, sometimes openly recognized, sometimes concealed by the urgency of a transitory question. One of these

1 By permission of The Macmillan Company.

is the opposition between a centralized or unified and a federalized government. In every country there are centrifugal and centripetal forces at work, the one or the other of which is for the moment the stronger. There has seldom been a country in which something might not have been gained, in the way of good administration and defensive strength, by a greater concentration of power in the hands of the central government, enabling it to do things which local bodies, or a more restricted central government, could not do equally cheaply or well. Against this gain there is always to be set the danger that such concentration may weaken the vitality of local communities and authorities, and may enable the central power to stunt their development. Sometimes needs of the former kind are more urgent, or the sentiment of the people tends to magnify them; sometimes again the centrifugal forces obtain the upper hand. English history shows several such alternations. But in America the Federal form of government has made this permanent and natural opposition specially conspicuous. The salient feature of the Constitution is the effort it makes to establish an equipoise between the force which would carry the planet States off into space and the force which would draw them into the sun of the National government. There have always therefore been minds inclined to take sides upon this fundamental question, and a party has always had something definite and weighty to appeal to when it claims to represent either the autonomy of communities on the one hand, or the majesty and beneficent activity of the National government on the other. The former has been the watchword of the Democratic party. The latter was seldom distinctly avowed, but was generally in fact represented by the Federalists of the first period, the Whigs of the second, the Republicans of the third.

The other opposition, though it goes deeper and is more pervasive, has been less clearly marked in America, and less consciously admitted by the Americans themselves. It is the opposition between the tendency which makes some men prize the freedom of the individual as the first of social goods, and that which disposes others to insist on checking and regulating his impulses. The opposition of these two tendencies, the love of liberty and the love of order, is permanent and necessary, because it springs from differences in the intellect and feelings of men which one finds in all countries and at all epochs. There are always persons who are struck by the weakness of mankind, by their folly, their passion, their selfishness and these persons, distrusting the action of average mankind, will always wish to see them guided by wise heads and restrained by strong hands. Such guidance seems the best means of progress, such restraint the only means of security. Those on the other hand who think better of human nature, and have more hope in their own tempers, hold

the impulses of the average man to be generally towards justice and peace. They have faith in the power of reason to conquer ignorance, and of generosity to overbear selfishness. They are therefore disposed to leave the individual alone, and to intrust the masses with power. Every sensible man feels in himself the struggle between these two tendencies, and is on his guard not to yield wholly to either, because the one degenerates into tyranny, the other into an anarchy out of which tyranny will eventually spring. The wisest statesman is he who best holds the balance between them.

III. PRESENT POLITICAL PARTIES

392. Present tendencies in English politics. In his recent book on the government of England, Lowell indicates the position of the leading English parties as follows:1

The two great parties are separated to-day by no profound differences in general principles or political dogmas. But this does not mean that they are not marked by distinct tendencies, and still more by a tradition of tendencies. There is a theory held by the Liberals — although denied by their opponents - that they are more democratic, that they have more trust in the people, and more real sympathy with the workingmen. After enfranchising the middle class, and winning its support, they felt that any further extension of the suffrage must have a similar result. They considered the lower strata of society as their protectorate, or at least within their particular sphere of influence, and they still regard an alliance between the Conservatives and any fraction of the working classes as unnatural. This feeling is shared by the Labor leaders, and one sometimes hears them say that the Liberals favor labor legislation from conviction, the Conservatives only to get votes. Nevertheless that belief is by no means universal among workmen, many of whom have been said to support the Conservatives on the ground that owing to their control of the House of Lords they are really the most effective party in enacting labor laws.

There is another theory to the effect that Liberals believe in peace, retrenchment and reform, and are less inclined than the Conservatives to an aggressive foreign policy. There is truth in all this; although foreign policy depends to a great extent upon the personal views of the minister who has the principal charge of it. . . . In regard to retrenchment or economy, it is certain that national expenditure has increased

1 Copyright, 1908, by The Macmillan Company.

very rapidly, and if the Liberals have been more cautious in spending money, they have followed the Tory lead, although like the hind legs of the stag, at some distance.

Again there is a theory that the Liberals give greater weight to local opinion, that they have more regard for the wishes of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and that they are generally more favorably disposed toward local control. This also is not without foundation, but it is hardly a general political principle, and was certainly not applied in the case of the recent Education Bill.

On the other hand, there is a theory that the Conservatives have more respect for existing institutions, and dread to disturb venerable things. The impression is partly true, partly a tradition, and to some extent exaggerated. It was, in fact, the Conservatives who swept away, by the County Councils Act of 1888, the local government of the counties by justices of the peace, certainly a venerable institution, and if not in harmony with the spirit of the age, by no means moribund or indefensible. It was they, a dozen years earlier, who recast the judicial system, making the greatest single change in the courts that had been made for centuries. The Conservatives, no doubt, talk far less about attacking institutions, and the same act raises less of a storm if done by them than if done by the Liberals. The vested interests of the country are, indeed, more affected by a dread of what the Liberals may do than by what they have actually done.

All these tendencies have some effect in shaping the policy of the parties, and in determining their position on current questions; but the differences are in degree rather than in kind, and are liable to present strange shapes under the stress of party warfare.

The most marked and permanent tendencies in which the parties differ are found in their attitude toward certain powerful interests in the community. The Conservatives tend strongly to favor the claims of the Church of England, of the landowners and now of the publicans, while the Liberals are highly sensitive to the appeals of the Nonconformist conscience. These again are tendencies, and must not be stated in too absolute a form.

393. Political parties in France. The general nature of political parties in France is indicated in the following:

The parties and factions in the French parliament are bewildering in number. The election of 1906 sent to the Chamber of Deputies repre sentatives of the following groups: radicals, socialist radicals, dissident radicals, independent socialists, unified socialists, republicans of the left, progressivists, nationalists, monarchists, and Bonapartists, and a few