Democracy:"--

In his Journals during a visit to Turin in 1850, Senior records a
conversation with Cesare Balbo, a member of the Chamber in the
first Piedmontese Parliament, in which Balbo said, after an
exciting financial debate:--"We have not yet acquired parliamentary
discipline. Most of the members are more anxious about their own
crotchets or their own consistency than about the country. The
ministry has a large nominal majority, but every member of it is
ready to put them in a minority for any whim of his own." This was
probably true of every legislative body on the Continent, and it
continues true to this day in Italy, Greece, France, Austria,
Germany, and the new Australian democracies. (Pp. 102, 103.)

He adduces in support of the statement the fact that the three colonies
of New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria have had respectively
twenty-eight, forty-two, and twenty-six ministries in forty years. Is
the prospect any brighter for the new Commonwealth? It is to be feared
not, if the present tendencies towards disintegration are allowed to
grow. For in the last decade a change has come over Australian politics
which portends the gravest danger. We refer to the direct class
representation which, under the name of Labour parties, has spread all
over the colonies. These so-called Labour "parties" are neither more nor
less than class factions. Their policy is everywhere the same--viz., the
use of the "balance system," which has proved so disastrous to France.
The worst effect is that they prevent the main parties from working out
definite policies on public questions, and cause them also to degenerate
into factions. In Victoria we have actually had the ludicrous spectacle
of the Opposition saving the Government time after time when deserted by
its own followers. In New South Wales the individual member is sunk in
the party; he must vote as the majority decides. Mr. Reid's term of
office was ended by one such caucus. In Queensland, where the party is
strongest, it has now practically become one of the main parties, and
the whole colony is divided on class lines. Already an Intercolonial
Labour Conference has been held, and a pledge drawn up which must be
signed by all candidates for the party support at Federal elections. The
danger of these tactics is not rightly apprehended in Australia. In
reality they mark the first step towards social disruption.