Because there is hardly any subject in which they are as a rule not ready to take a sympathetic interest, and hardly any about which, from the very nature of their reading and practice, they do not know at least a little. Have doctors, clergymen, merchants, bankers minds better stored with ideas, and more open to impressions than lawyers? Can any one seriously contend in the face of the facts, that the man who has specially applied his powers to acquiring legal knowledge, assuming him to have mental capacity, is likely to be "on general questions utterly at sea, capable only of half views, and holding to them with bigoted tenacity?" A whole host of great names, of names great in law, but

great also in statesmanship, philosophy, letters, oratory, philanthropy rise to refute so wild an assertion. And are the laws under which we live so bad that we should condemn lawyers as legislators? The most important part of the statute law will be found to have been placed upon the statute-book by lawyers, both in Canada and the United States. Is this consistent with the assertion that on general questions well-trained lawyers are at sea? Perhaps so, but if it is, why do not the people of these countries commit the initiative in legislation to their philosophers, artists, littérateurs, farmers, or merchants, instead of these bigoted, narrowminded, unprogressive, and designing lawyers.

TH

HE Local Legislature of Ontario has been summoned to meet on the 9th of January, and the Dominion Parliament on the 9th of the month following. As yet there has been no foreshadowing of measures to be introduced by either Government, although presumably each of them has already prepared what it deems a list of tempting, if not substantial, viands to be paraded in the carte "from the Throne." It is, no doubt, a difficult task to draw up the bill of fare for a Barmecide feast, and it can only be hoped that, in the sequel, our legislators and the country may be as well served as the beggar of Bagdad. It is much to be regretted that Mr. Mowat will persist in consulting his own convenience, rather than that of the public, as to the period of convening the House. This is certainly no party question. The chief organ of his own party, and the leading politicians most strongly attached to it in the counties, have constantly urged an early session; and still, either from reluctance to enter the conflict, or from unreadiness to face the Legislature, he continues the practice of late meetings at the most inconvenient possible period. Not to speak of the awkward division of public attention between Local and Dominion matters of interest, the beginning of January, or the middle of it, is the worst possible time that could be selected. It deranges municipal business, when councils

are in the agony of organization, by presenting to them the double duty of settling their arrangements for the year at home, and looking after their wants at Toronto simultaneously. Surely the Government cannot fail to recognize the plain and obvious result of this procrastination; why is it perversely repeated year after year? There seems no reason why the Ontario House should not meet and despatch all its business before the Christmas Holidays; it would suit the people much better and, at the same time, enable ministers to eat their meal" without fear, and sleep not "in the affliction of those dreams that shake them nightly," at the near prospect of a session. They are not, as a rule, fat men, yet they love good fare and secure enjoyment of it at a festive season, as well as their fellows; why not so arrange it that the shadows of approaching foes should be impossible or ridiculous at the Christmas board, because all the hurly-burly is over and done, and the battle lost or won?

There is one subject upon which the people of Ontario will no longer be put off with evasive answers or delusive palliatives in the shape of half-and-half legislation. If the Government proposes to deal with tax exemptions, it must do the work thoroughly, or had better refuse to deal with it at all. Any attempt to deceive the people by a pretended

compliance with their clearly expressed wishes, by an Act which "keeps the word of promise to the ear and breaks it to the hope," will most assuredly seal the fate of Ministers when they come to give in their account to the electorate, as they must shortly do. The menace of extrusion from office by defeat at the polls is the only legitimate form of intimidation; and now, when the portentous apparition of a general election gains form and substance as it is approached, a regard for consequences, as well as a gentle warning about them, may not be without effect.. It is needless to repeat the overwhelming arguments against the system it is sought to destroy. Exemption from the payment of a fair share towards the expenses of municipal government is merely the relic of a practice which vexed our forefathers and precipitated France into the jaws of revolution. No one has attempted a defence of it, save as classes and castes have always sought to maintain it by appeals to precedent or to sentiment. And now when the attempt is made, not only to perpetuate the existing system, but to extend it beyond the obvious purpose of the law, on false and frivolous pretences, and when rich corporations, religious and secular, defy the assessor by the meanest of subterfuges, the reasons for a clean sweep in these dusty and cobwebbed corners of our governmental system acquire overwhelming force and cogency. It is not enough that clergymen with their thousands a year should plead in formâ pauperis for immunity, or that congregations should occupy whole squares, free from taxation, in our crowded centres of population, or that capitalists should receive large dividends, and governments own large estates in realty without paying aught to the municipal treasury, all that is as unjust and inde fensible as any species of inequality and unfairness can be. But when it is positively claimed that all the hangers-on of churches who have the title of "reverend," publishing newspapers or keeping book-shops, shall be allowed to defraud Cæsar of what is Cæsar's, it is surely time that such an obsolete system were at once brought to an end.

In Canada, we boast ourselves to be freer, if not better, than our English sires. We have no State Church, and yet by a process of "levelling up," which would delight Lord Beaconsfield, every church, denomination, and sect is at this moment endowed by the State to

the precise amount of its exemption. What they do in England, is now known from the courteous replies of Sir Stafford Northcote to Mr. Potter's interrogatories. The IncomeTax, which is there an Imperial impost, is levied upon all, save the Queen; and she, with an honourable regard for justice, pays it of her own free will. Churches are exempt from local taxation, but not church property; so also is Government property, but then in that case, as in all other cases where exemptions are made, the amount is paid to the local authorities by the Imperial Parliament. So that in Old England, where there is an Established Church, an ecclesiastical caste, an aristocracy, and an expensive Government, the claims of even-handed justice are more firmly asserted and more equitably adjusted than they are in this free and enlightened Canada of ours. The question is one of those

and they are many-in which parties are not to be trusted; the people must soon have the solution of the problem in their own hands, and they will be themselves to blame, as they will be the sufferers, if they permit this remnant of privilege and immunity to be maintained. It will be for them to decide whether any set of individuals or corporations, either on the plea of sanctity, divine right, prescriptive right, or otherwise, shall continue to shift the burdens they ought in equity and in conscience to bear themselves, upon the shoulders of the community at large. It is impossible yet to determine what attitude the parties, as such, may choose to assume touching this vital question; but it cannot be amiss to urge the people to watch thein narrowly. They are not above suspicion in the matter, and it must be remembered that "eternal vigilance" is not only the price, but the safeguard also by which alone equal rights and impartial legislation can be secured and maintained. The entire system of taxation requires thorough revision and reconstruction; for that the electors must look to the wisest and best of their public men; but the exemption question is one they can judge for themselves, since it is one of justice and fair dealing between class and class, man and man, rich and poor-one which every man, not blinded by the film of prejudice or interest is competent to answer at the polls.

So far as the Dominion Parliament is concerned, the outlook is not encouraging. No doubt the old stories of jobbery and corrup

tion, which proved so effective at the pic-nics, will be revamped and made more presentable, in compliment to the genius loci. One party will strive to show that the other has broken every principle it struggled for while on Mr. Speaker's left hand, and it will meet with the retort that the other side never had any principles at all worth speaking about. Charges and counter-charges will be hurled to and fro with that sort of energy we usually associate with Billingsgate or Donnybrook Fair. To prove that its opponents are as black as itself is the highest ambition of the hour,―the tu quoque argument its only logic. What better can be anticipated of parties which have run to seed? Nationalists are not the only people who deprecate the prevailing tactics of the parties. In the press or on the platform, whenever men disclose their honest convictions, the fact that we so often strive to urge upon the public mind is candidly admitted and deplored. Certainly, nothing more severe has been said in these pages than the following from the Journal of Commerce, in an article written to reprove the MONTHLY for abusing parties :-"To us it seems inevitable that the next Canadian political contest must turn on the fiscal policy to be adopted, and if the consequence should be a disruption of the present political parties, it would probably be a fortunate circumstance, inasmuch as it would tend to eliminate from our politics the violent personal bitterness which has been the most marked feature of the recent political pic-nics." Our contemporary, as might have been expected from so able and thoughtful a journalist, acknowledges the evil and desires its elimination, and yet he seems afraid of the remedy he himself perceives to be the only radical and effective one. The disintegration of parties may possibly occur, and it would "probably" be a good thing, because it might "tend" to accomplish a cure. Why this half-hearted fluttering between an honest hope and a half-disclosed aversion? Simply because the latter lurks deeper and has a firmer hold, not consciously, perhaps, upon the partisan's feelings and prejudices than he is prepared to avow. Why should the Journal desire to wait for a reform in political manners until after a general election, conducted under the auspices of these very parties, with their passions more warmly aroused and their better feelings more completely stifled? So far from believing that parties could edify

the public mind or elevate the tone of political morality, by a tardy repentance when in the throes of dissolution, it is our conviction that they would still further defile the atmosphere and sow the seeds of slander and calumny to fructify through the entire life of another Parliament.

Now is the time to arouse the nobler feelings and to goad the dormant conscience. It will be too late after a general election, when the hopes or fears of each party have been realized, and they are at liberty, like Richard, to return to their "holy work again." And why should any one view the prospect of party dissolution with regret, much less with apprehension? The evils wrought by party conflict are written in broad characters on almost every page of this coun try's history, during the last half century at least. Those alone who have had ampler opportunities of breathing the political atmosphere than we can boast-and this writer in the Journal is perhaps of the numbercan tell how foul and pestilential it has been. But even outsiders know something of its baneful influences. Its victims lie thick upon the path of progress, and mark it at every step of the way. If a complete narrative could be given of all the wrecked reputations, all the embittered lives, all the sinister results of party passion in blunted moral perceptions, unscrupulous trickery, reckless calumny, and baseless vituperation, we should possess a history, from which Louis XI., Machiavelli, Napoleon, or any other master of craft, duplicity, and falsehood might have profited. The last decade has been redolent of nothing but the miasma referred to. shall be told that up to the coalition of 1864 there were great principles at stake, and that as men necessarily, and for the most part honestly, differ, parties must exist to bring the matter to an issue. Let us ask if that is the lesson taught by the events of the period from 1854 to 1864? Far otherwise. It was found at last, and candidly enough confessed, that partyism, as a means of settling disputed questions of principle, was a failure; and that the only remedy was a breaking up of parties and the fusion of their best elements.

We

suffer also by the encounter.

The Ithuriel touch of a principle, be it as light as the angel's in Milton, not only transforms, but weakens and destroys those who meddle with it, in party array. Great measures in England have always been taken up as a pis aller by governments, and party shipwreck has been the issue. The Emancipation Act of 1829 drove the first wedge into the Tory party, and the Free Trade measures of 1846 shivered it to atoms. The first Reform Act was fatal to its Whig authors, and the second to Mr. Disraeli, who framed it to out-bid the Liberals. Mr. Gladstone fairly bristled with "burning questions," and his party were sent into political Coventry for many a year. In like manner, the Republican party in the United States had no sooner achieved the success of the cause it had espoused and brought a desperate internecine conflict to a triumphant issue, than it lost its first estate and sank deep down into the same slough the Democrats had wallowed in before. At this moment President Hayes, who is making an honest effort on behalf of sound principles, finds himself deserted by three-fourths of his party, and substantially dependent, for support in Congress, upon the precarious favour of his opponents. It is not too much to say that the distribution of Government patronage, by and for the party, is the real bone of contention, not the Southern policy or the remonetization of silver. The success or failure of Mr. Hayes clearly depends upon the question, whether country is to triumph over party or party over principle, honesty, and impartial government. As a permanent agent in a well balanced constitutional system partyism has failed there as it has failed here, and was foredoomed to fail. It is not a question of growth, maturity, and decay merely, as partizans would put it; there is nothing in the life of a party resembling ordinary organic life. Principles no doubt promote its formation; but, in the progress of time, either it strangles the principles, or the principles disappear as an original element of its vitality. As a party, in the proper sense of the term, it ceases to be; but during many years the wretched thing may sub sist upon departed worth or desert, and linger on with spasmodic strength and spiteful temper, until it is cut down as a cumberer of the ground. If there be any analogy at all between the individual life and a collective career of this kind, it must be sought in

the domain of pathology, not in that of healthful, vigorous, and active existence.

Disregarding the commonplaces with which independents are pelted by partizans, what inference should be drawn from an analysis of the relations between principle and party? Not certainly that organized efforts to secure a desirable end are to be condemned; on the contrary, we believe that they are essentially necessary when such an end is clearly in view. Individualism, like its opposite extreme, multitudinism, is a foe to success in any good work. Man is a gregarious animal, and must associate with his fellows to achieve any purpose; and he should therefore seize, at whatever risk, the advantages flowing from association. Still ought he none the less to acknowledge the fallibility of his instrument, know how to fling it aside when it has served its purpose, and be careful lest, at last, the means become the end. Whenever political parties have fulfilled their mission, they should cease to be, not be perverted from their original purpose into mere agents for disseminating slander, with office for their aim, and vituperation as their method. In Canada, there are two parties so-called, which have a name to live by, though they are dead. The soi-disant Reformer denies that his opponent has any title to be called Liberal or Conservative, and asserts that he unites both qualities in his own person. Per contra, the "LiberalConservative" parades a list of "Reform" principles, and taunts the dominant party with having abandoned them all. There is much to be said on both sides. The names mean nothing, and principles form the appanage of an Opposition; when office is attained they are flung aside with as much ease and as naturally as a snake leaves his slough behind him.

"What are the 'really party questions?'' has been asked repeatedly in these pages; but no answer is forthcoming, for the best of all reasons, that no such questions exist. Neither Reformer nor Conservative has one shred of principle he can distinctively call his own. Both parties have been living for years, each on the sins and shortcomings of the other. No one denies that to the late Government, as well as the present, the country is indebted for many important measures of practical utility-indeed, no Administration could survive, its first session