12,500,000 acres, at the price for which the School Lands of Minnesota sold seven years ago, would bring $87,500,000. We believe it would have been preferable had the Government promised the company a fixed sum for every settler that might locate within twenty miles of the railway, upon such terms and conditions as would best secure an immigration into the country. The company then would have had a powerful motive to promote the settlement of the countrymuch greater than at present. The volume of immigration from Europe to Canada is not likely to be very largely increased. Since the abolition of slavery in the United States, the south and the south-west have been thrown open for settlement, and the tide of population is flowing more and more to the south. An effort which would have at one time secured for us a large population from Europe had it been put forth, will do so no longer. A gentleman who held a high position in the confederate army, says "we have a steady, though as yet a small, stream of good English immigration into Virginia. Those coming here are almost without exception men of intelligence and character, who are able to purchase and pay for comfortable homesteads. They are most cordially welcome, and are well satisfied with the country and people." Englishmen are in like manner finding their way into other states of the south; and the sooner we appreciate the difficult task we have before us in turning any considerable portion of the current towards Canada, the sooner we shall provide against the embarassments our present policy is storing up for the future. Our policy should be at once both wise and vigorous. We fear in dealing with the Pacific Railway, we have mistaken the way which leads to prosperity, and have laid the possible foundation for transactions like those which have made Hall and Tweed notorious. We think it is deeply to be regretted that any member of Parliament should be a stockholder in this enterprise. He cannot, at the same time, serve the public and serve himself in a contract with the public agents. He must either support or oppose the Ministry with whom he contracts, and in either case. a consideration of his gain or loss by the course he may pursue must influence his conduct. Will any one say that Ministers might properly be stockholders; and why not ministers as well as other members? Ministers are but a committee of the Houses enjoying their confidence and carrying on the affairs of the country in a way sanctioned by a majority of their fellow members. Parliament is responsible for what is done by Ministers, and no member can enter into contract with a Ministry without knowing that upon him ultimately depends the right to approve or disapprove, in his public capacity of the act of the Ministry in dealing with him as a private citizen, What if the Government should think the bonus insuffi cient and should propose to increase the amount, will those members with whom the Government contracted be in the position of other members of Parliament? Can there be any difficulty in predicting how they are likely to vote? If the fate of a ministry depends upon these railway members, does any one doubt that they would undertake to improve a bad bargain? From whatever point their position is viewed, it will be seen to be an inde fensible one; and every consideration of public policy which calls for the exclusion of a salaried officer of the Crown from the Parliament, requires equally the exclusion of these men. This is necessary lest it should become the policy of Parliament to grant aid to railway and other enterprises ostensibly to promote quasi public works, but really for the purpose of enriching a few members at the expense of the nation. ST. CATHARINES. Sonorous, full, the diapason swells, Then dies away in murmurings low and sweet, Or whispered vows when anxious lovers meet; And night has come, but still the child remains Entranced, serene, with every terror gone, It said: "Brave boy! my blood runs in your veins, And as she clasped him to her yearning breast, And asked him if he did not dread the gloom, He turned his eyes, and pointed to the crest, And knelt and prayed beside the good knight's tomb : And after years the happy dream he blessed, PARTY POLITICS.* A BY A RADICAL. FRIEND of ours was once a good | theory and the working of the Constitution, deal puzzled in attempting to explain find themselves wondering how the thoroughly artificial distinctions which prevail in the political arena, came to acquire such force and persistence; wondering, too, whether no new page of political history will ever be turned, and the monotonous see-saw of party strife-Oppositions becoming Governments, and Governments becoming Oppositions, and each, with every change of fortune, displaying most, if not all of the faults of those whose places they take--be succeeded by something more in accordance with reason, and more favourable to true progress. The subject is one which a little honest thought will do a great deal to clear up; for, to tell the truth, the difficulties that seem to surround it are mainly the creation of those who think they have an interest in the perpetuity of the present state of things. It is commonly assumed, for example, by the defenders of party, that those who are disposed to regard it as out of place in this advanced stage of human culture and reason, are bound to devise a complete new set of institutions for the government of nations; and, having devised them, to demonstrate their practicability. This assumption we entirely repudiate, for reasons which will sufficiently appear in the course of our argument. What we have to do, is to try and render a true account of party to ourselves, to ascertain what it is and what the conditions are that call it into existence. As we pursue the investigation, we shall see that the conditions which give it its greatest vitality have passed away, and are little likely to return; and that party, if limited to its natural and legitimate development to a young lady of an enquiring turn of mind the nature of a Parliamentary Opposition. Government she understood and Parliament, as a deliberative and legislative assembly, she understood; but the idea of a party of men, whose sole function was to op-pose what others pro-posed, seemed to be beyond her grasp. If it could have been explained to her that this so-called Opposition was a mere temporary organization for a temporary purpose the government of the country having fallen into bad hands and it being very desirable to harass them into an abandonment of their position-the thing would have been more easily intelligible; but no, the truth had to be told, that this "Opposition" was as permanent an institution as Government itself, and that the eagerness and bitterness with which it pursued its ends, bore no assignable relation to the merits or demerits of the holders of authority. However faultless an Administration might be, there must still be an Opposition, or the British Constitution would fall to pieces. "Why don't they content themselves with opposing what is wrong?" was asked, with simplicity. "Well, of course, that is what they profess to do," was the answer. "Then there is no particular reason for calling them Opposition, for everybody professes the same thing. I am Opposition, and you are Opposition we are all Opposition together, if that is what it means." The difficulty in which our young friend was involved was one which, in some shape or other, presents itself to everybody. Even grown men, tolerably familiar both with the * It seems proper to state that this paper was written before our contributor had perused the article on "Political Corruption," the views expressed in which are thus supplemented and confirmed from an independent point of view.-ED. CAN. MONTHLY. in these days, would be a very different thing indeed from what we now witness. 66 We cannot do better than take our departure from Burke's well-known definition. Party," says the great philosophic statesman, “is a body of men united for promoting, by their joint endeavours, the national interest, upon some principle in which they are all agreed." Party, in this sense of the word, is something every one can understand: it calls for no justification, any more than any other form of association for a worthy object. It will be observed, however, that, according to Burke's definition, party is but a means towards an end, and a means which is only available in certain defined circumstances. The end is the national interest, and the condition necessary to give vitality to party, is the agreement of all its members in "some particular principle" which they wish to see applied in the government of the country, and to which, of course, another party in the State is opposed. Burke says not a word to justify the opinion that parties are essential to the well-being of the State, under all circumstances: for that would be simply tantamount to saying that no country could be prosperous in which there were not those radical differences of opinion upon political subjects, which alone afford a rational basis for party organization. Nearly all the talk we hear in the present day on the subject of parties, really involves the absurd proposition that, unless a country is divided against itself, it cannot stand. Because parties were once a necessity of the times the natural expression in Parliament of real and lamentable antagonisms that existed throughout the country, therefore parties must exist for ever; and if we have not real antagonisms to support them, we must get up sham ones! The Chinaman, in Charles Lamb's charming apologue, set his house on fire, in order to have, indirectly, some roast pork. Our roast pork is the party system; and, in order that we may taste the savour again and again, we set the State on fire with all kinds of false and factitious issues. In Burke's time, and almost down to the present day, in England, there have never been wanting more or less serious causes of division among parties; moreover, in a country like England--the continuity of whose political history has never been broken by revolution, and where, consequently, many institutions exist, simply because they have existed, and not because they are peculiarly adapted to the present time-there will always be a certain opposition between those who wish to preserve what time has handed down, and those who, imbued with the spirit of the present, aim at bringing everything as much into harmony with that spirit as possible. Even in England, however, there are unmistakable signs that the palmy days of the party system have passed away for ever. It is in politics, in these days, very much as it is in war: men see the inevitable much sooner than they used to do; and, when they see the inevitable, they yield to it. This arises simply from the greater sway that reason has over the minds of men, and, particularly, over the minds of those fitted by nature to lead. The truth of these remarks may be seen signally illustrated in the policy of the Conservative party, led by Mr. Disraeli and the late Lord Derby, on the question of Parliamentary Reform. Everyone remembers what a nagging opposition they offered to Earl Russell's seven-pound-householder Reform Bill of 1867; and everyone remembers still better what kind of Reform Bill the same party, after their nagging had worked them into power, left on the statute book,—a bill which virtually amounts to what was once the cry of the extreme Radicals, household suffrage. Another illustration, almost as much to our purpose, may be seen in the very feeble opposition offered in the House of Commons to the Ballot Bill recently passed. In former times such a measure could only have become law after the most |