rt its pretensions rejected at
the election.

The difference between the two stages of representation may now be
clearly appreciated. In the first stage we have seen that the fear of
the aggression of the monarchy held all sections together in one party.
In the second stage, however, it has been abundantly demonstrated by
experience that the fear of each other will not hold the sections of the
two parties together. The electoral machinery must, therefore, supply
the deficiency.

+Party Lines.+--With the altered character of parties there is ground
for hope that the basis of division will become questions of general
public policy, and that all causes of factious dissension and of social
disruption will tend to be repressed. This improvement is indeed
urgently needed. For if in any country party lines are decided by
geographical considerations, as town _v._ country; by class, as Capital
_v._ Labour; by race as in South Africa; by religion as in Belgium; or
by personal ambition for the spoils of office--in any of these cases the
future of that country is open to the gravest doubt.

Perhaps the greatest danger which assails most democratic countries
to-day is the risk of the working classes being persuaded by demagogues
that equal political rights have been extended to them in order that
they shall govern, instead of in order that they shall not be
misgoverned. If the general welfare is to be advanced, all classes must
influence the policies of both parties. This condition is indispensable
to bring about the ideal condition of two parties differing only as to
what is best for all.

Equally to be condemned is the narrow-minded and intolerant view of
those who can see no virtue in an opposing party; who define, for
instance, the distinction between parties as the party for things as
they are, and the party for things as they ought to be; the latter
being, of course, their own party. This is one of the objectionable
features of Australian newspaper-made politics.

A more rational view of the distinction which often underlies party
divisions is between those who desire change and those who oppose
change. J.S. Mill points out how the latter may often be useful in
preventing progress in a wrong direction. There are times when such
attitude is called for, but generally speaking we may say that the
fundamental distinction between parties should be a difference of
opinion as to the direction of progress. Nor is it inconsistent