sweetness of temper, divested himself of his borrowed plumes with much deliberation, gave the clerical gentleman "good night" with charming affability, and left the room humming a psalm tune. Then followed the senators, conscious of their bands, and his junior disciples, who only waited to get through the door to indulge the laughter with which they had been struggling all evening. "You're one of the freshmen, I suppose?" said the clerical gentleman, addressing me, "and these amiable young fellows have been trying to frighten you a little. You'll soon learn to know professors from undergraduates. Come with me and have a glass of wine." And this was my introduction to the Dean. WHA POLITICAL CORRUPTION. HATEVER difference of opinion there may be as to the general results of the elections, on one point there is none. Everybody says that Corruption has made a gigantic stride among us. It has not only increased in amount, but attacked classes hitherto untainted; not only the venal populace of the cities, but, in too many cases, the substantial farmers, the sinews of the body politic, have been tempted to forget their self-respect, and to accept the bribe which, a few years ago, they would have rejected with scorn. This may be due in part to special causes. It is said that the Protectionists and the Pacific Railway men have opened their purses for the Government, and have stimulated a corresponding expenditure on the side of the Opposition. But, supposing this to be the case, the entanglement of commercial interests with political parties is not likely to end here. Nor will the Pacific Railway contract be the last thing of the kind under a system which improvidently commits the direction of public works, without check or control, to the majority of a party legislature. Corruption grows by what it feeds upon. It will increase, and increase in an ever accelerating ratio, while the moral resistance will become continually weaker, till among us, as in other countries, bribery becomes a jest, and corruptionist a name hardly more odious than that of politician. The progress of electoral demoralization is as certain as the increasing volume and rapidity of the descending avalanche. We shall sink to the level of the States, and perhaps below it. For corruption is deeper, more complete, and more hopeless in a small nation than in a great one. How is the evil to be checked? This cry is loudly raised to-day by the still unextinguished morality of the nation. Tomorrow it will be heard no more, and the thought of reform and purity will be derided as an impracticable dream. Will the ballot suffice? The ballot is a sovereign remedy for intimidation, of which we have comparatively little here; but conclusive arguments and decisive experience show that it is inefficacious as a remedy for corruption. It is needless to repeat the jocose but cogent reasonings of Sydney Smith. If there is reason to fear that those who sell their votes will not deliver the article for which they have been paid, the corruptionist has only to buy the voters in bodies instead of buying them individually, and to make the payment conditional on his election. But the fact is, there is honour enough among thieves to assure the general fulfilment of the corrupt bargain, especially as it would soon be seen that a breach of contract spoiled the trade. Bribery will not be rendered impracticable by the ballot, while detection will. An amendment of the law, substituting impartial judges for partizan committees in the trial of controverted elections, would be more efficacious. So, apparently, think our corruptionists, and so British exper ience and the experience of Ontario show. But neither this remedy, nor any legal or administrative remedy that could be devised, would apply to any corruption but that which takes place at the time of the election. We knew an instance of a constituency in England, one of the two seats for which was held for life by a very wealthy man, practically without a contest, while the other seat was fiercely contested. This man was not resident in the constituency; he was politically undistinguished; he was no speaker; he had no very popular qualities of any kind; he came little among his constituents, and gave himself, personally, very little trouble to conciliate their good will. He never bribed, and had an inquiry been instituted into his conduct, or that of his agents, in connection with the elections, he would have come out white as driven snow. What was his talisman? It was one of the sim plest kind. Every year, at Christmas, one of his local friends distributed for him, among the poorer electors, a large sum of money as Christmas gifts. Not a question was asked as to the vote which any of the recipients had given or intended to give; but it was distinctly understood that the distribution would continue so long, and so long only, as the benevolent donor remained member of Parliament for that borough. A good law is preferable to a bad one, if it were only as a declaration of public morality; but let the law chase corruption as it will, corruption will find a lurking place. It is Protean in its forms, and will evade the most skilfully forged chains. And supposing that we could repress electoral corruption, should we be much better off while Parliamentary corruption remained? We have heard of a Minister saying that the constituencies might do what they pleased, that what he wanted to buy was not the constituency but the member. We have seen one Opposition leader after another debauched, and either turned into a tool of the Government, or flung out into political nonentity, so that no Opposition, sufficiently strong to control the abuses of the Administration, could be formed. We have heard numberless charges of bribing opponents with place and patronage, levelled by each party against the other, and we know that in the charges on both sides there is a good deal of truth. It would be something, of course, that the electors should escape the demoralizing effects of bribery; but the Government of the country would scarcely be more pure. Who doubts the unsatisfactory character of the present state of things? Who believes that the deliberations of a party cabinet have, for their paramount object, the welfare of the country, and not the retention of office? The Opposition orators and journals thunder indignantly against the questionable acts of the Government-the subsidy given to Nova Scotia; the terms of the compact with British Columbia, which has placed all the Columbian votes in the pocket of the Minister; the refusal of securities for the independence of Parliament, so manifestly threatened by the Pacific Railway contract; the retention of the unreformed election law; the attitude of the Ministers on the subject of the Secret Service Money; the numerous instances in which patronage has been employed for other objects than the service of the public. Without entering into details, at once needless and disagreeable, we do not doubt the general fact to which these various accusations point. We do not doubt that the present Government of the Dominion subsists, like other govern ments of the same description, by means which are more or less corrupt. We do not doubt that, even in dealing with the greatest interests of the nation, even in dealing with such momentous undertakings as the Pacific Railway, it is influenced by a motive which renders its decisions more or less untrustworthy, and its action more or less injurious to national morality, as well as to the material prosperity of the nation. "Then," cry the Opposition, "the remedy is obvious. Vote for us. Turn out the Government; put us in power. Corruption will vanish, and a reign of purity will commence." But is it so? The general system, and the mode in which the cabinet is formed -out of a special group of office-seekers remaining the same, will a mere change of Ministers make much difference in the morality of the Government, or in its method of maintaining itself in place? We have been furnished from an unexpected, but most authoritative, quarter, with a decisive answer to the question. The leading organ of the present Opposition, an organ which, if we may venture on the expression, is more than leading, gave us the other day an editorial, heralding the approaching triumph of the Opposition. In this editorial it rehearsed all the acts of corruption alleged to have been committed by Sir John A. Macdonald's Government, alluding especially to the means by which it has obtained support in the smaller provinces, and then said: "Sir John Macdonald's own system of government will be turned upon himself. He has taught men to follow him for the favours he could confer; will it be strange if his disciples should take into account the possible advantages that might accrue from following another and stronger chief? The strength of the Reformers lies in the possession of certain definite principles, giving unity and cohesion to their ranks, and imparting to their policy a directness and force in which their opponents are wholly wanting. Under our Federal system, sectional and constitutional questions are constantly arising that place a weak Government at the mercy of the Opposition leader who can control, within a few votes, a clear majority of the House. A weather-cock in a North-Wester, or a cork in a tornado, would show steadiness itself compared to poor John A., thumping his desk and shaking his head, in impotent rage, at the desertion of a whole province over some local difficulty or dilemma. How often, even with a majority of two to one at his back, was this political harlequin baffled and worsted in the late Parliament? How was it he could never pass a permanent and general Election Law? What became of his Supreme Court Bill? How often did he shift and alter the tariff? What was the fate of his buncombe 'National Policy?' By how many votes did he save his precious British Columbia scheme? How many defeats did he avoid by amendments begging the question? How many times, last session, did he wheel about and turn about, Jim Crow fashion, during debates on the New Brunswick School Bill? Let his supporters recollect a few of these incidents, now become historical, and tell us what are his chances, with the game of brag played out, and an Opposition as strong in numbers as his own pledged supporters." "The system of Sir John A. Macdonald will be turned upon himself.” This, we have no doubt, is what the future, so bright in the eyes of the great Opposition journalist, really has in store for us. When Parliament meets, or rather long before Parliament meets, will commence a political auction, at which the articles bid for will be the votes of the unattached members for the smaller provinces, and the bidders will be a "corrupt" Government on one side, and a virtuous Opposition on the other. Prince Edward's Island, now that it shows a tendency to follow the example of Columbia, will, probably, be the subject of a supplementary competition. The bidding will be high, parties being so evenly balanced, and the stake, under tion while the memory of the elections, and the evil influences revealed by them, is fresh. Moreover, as we have said before, this is the accepted season; soon the malady may be beyond control, and the last chance may be lost of saving the country from the gulf into which it is too manifestly sinking. the present circumstances, being so large; and the expenses, whatever they may be, will be defrayed by the public. In the New Brunswick School case, to which the journalist refers, and which certainly was sufficiently ignominious, the Opposition was influenced, as every impartial observer must have seen, by exactly the same motive which Already the sinister forms of American influenced the Government-the fear of los-corruption have made their appearance ing the New Brunswick vote on one side, among us. Already some of the most unand the fear of losing the Roman Catholic principled members of the community have vote on the other. A similar remark may be taken to politics as their congenial trade. made as to the proposal to purchase the The Wire-puller is here. The Log-roller Nova Scotia buildings, by which the Oppo- is here. The Ward Politician is here. sition tried to cap the Government grant. The Working Man's Friend is here. And And if the votes of the Churches are an at Ottawa, since the recent development element in the game, the relations of both of public works, we have seen plainly parties to the Roman Catholics are equally enough the sinister face of a Canadian affectionate, and their object in forming Lobby. these relations palpably the same. We have great faith in the honourable intentions of the leaders of the Opposition; and we are at the same time perfectly convinced that, as soon as they became the heads of a party Government, struggling for its life against a hungry and vindictive enemy, nearly a match for it in force, their intentions would give way to the exigencies of their position, and that they would do first things for which they would be sorry, and then things of which they would be ashamed. At last shame itself would cease. Electoral corruption has its source in Parliamentary corruption, which affords inducements to candidates and Ministers to purchase seats; and the source of parliamentary corruption is the system of making the offices of State, with the patronage annexed to them, the prize of a perpetual conflict between two organized factions, euphemistically styled party government. This question has been more than once presented to our readers within the last halfyear; but we wish to keep it before their minds for a time, on account of its transcendent importance to the country, and because it is more likely to command atten Party government, in England, dates as a regular institution from the reign of William III., who, after vainly attempting to form a cabinet without distinction of party, was compelled, by the factiousness and selfishness of the men about him, and his position as the occupant of a disputed throne, to form a cabinet on the party principle. And with party government at once came organized corruption. "From the day," says Macaulay, "on which Caermarthen was called a second time to the chief direction of affairs, Parliamentary corruption continued to be practised, with scarcely any intermission, by a long succession of statesmen, till the close of the American war. It at length became as notorious that there was a market for votes at the Treasury as that there was a market for cattle in Smithfield. Numerous demagogues out of power declaimed against this vile traffic; but every one of these demagogues, as soon as he was in power, found himself driven by a kind of fatality to engage in that traffic, or at least to connive at it. Now and then, perhaps, a man who had romantic notions of public virtue refused to be himself the paymaster of the corrupt crew, and averted his eyes * * * * while his less scrupulous colleagues did that which he knew to be indispensable and yet felt to be degrading. But the instances of rican Government, simply for the purpose of embarrassing the Government of his own country. The same man had done his utmost, at the time of the American war, to impede the efforts of Lord Palmerston's Ministry to prevent the escape of cruisers and preserve the neutrality which was so es this prudery were rare indeed. The doctrine generally received, even among upright and honourable politicians was, that it was shameful to receive bribes, but that it was necessary to distribute them. It is a re-sential to us as a commercial nation. Can it markable fact that the evil reached the * * * The only intermission of corruption, during the period mentioned by Macaulay, was when Chatham for a few years put party under his feet, and ruled as the Minister of the nation. be doubted that Lord Cairns had been taught by the party system to hate Englishmen of the opposite party more than he loved England? Did not Lord Derby, when he took his tremendous "leap in the dark," by carrying an extension of the suffrage, which, whether expedient or not in itself, was contrary to all the avowed principles of his party, and which he must have believed to be fraught with the utmost peril to his country, find comfort in the reflection that he had "dished the Whigs?" And would not the Whigs have sacrificed the public good with equal facility for the satisfaction of dishing Lord Derby? In France party government was introduced with constitutional monarchy, on the restoration of the Bourbons, and reintroduced with the constitutional dynasty of Louis Philippe. There again it bred corruption, (the Government multiplying offices for corrupt purposes, till, under Louis Philippe, the number of officers actually exceeded the number of electors,) and not only corruption, but, as the fury of the factions increased, civil war and political ruin. Transported with hatred of his rival Guizot, Thiers, himself an adherent of constitutional mo But the mutual hatred, the mutual slander, and the reckless sacrifice of patriotism to factious passions, which party government brought with it, were worse, if possible, than the corruption. Chatham himself conspired from merely factious motives - motives which were afterwards admitted to have been merely factious by the conspirators them-narchy, headed the movement which overselves-to drive Walpole into the iniquitous threw the constitutional throne. and disastrous war with Spain, which, as its natural consequence, brought on the attempt of the Pretender, and a renewal of civil war in England. In the recent controversy respecting the Treaty of Washington, Lord Cairns, a man who had held one of the highest offices in the State, supported with the utmost violence and with all the resources of legal casuistry at his command, the most outrageous pretensions of the Ame It is needless to show how corruption has attended party government in the United States. But it is equally certain that the spirit engendered by the struggle of the two factions for place contributed in no small degree to prepare the way for the civil war : and if any one feels assured that the possi bilities of such calamities in the United States are exhausted, he reads the situation with different eyes from ours. |