minds and energies to the
task; that patronage in all its branches having for some years gone
mainly to one party, the other party are now to have their turn. There
are periods when the country is well satisfied with the general policy
of a government but not with the men who carry it on. Ministers of
excellent principles prove inefficient, tactless, or unfortunate, or
quarrels and jealousies arise among them, or difficult negotiations are
going on with foreign nations which can be best brought to a successful
termination if they are placed in the hands of fresh men, unpledged and
unentangled by their past. The country wants a change of government but
not a change of policy, and under such circumstances the task of a
victorious opposition is much less to march in new directions than to
mark time, to carry on the affairs of the nation on the same lines, but
with greater administrative skill. In such periods the importance of
party objects is much diminished and a policy which is intended merely
to keep a party in power should be severely condemned.

Sometimes, however, it happens that a party has committed itself to a
particular measure which its opponents believe to be in a high degree
dangerous or even ruinous to the country. In that case it becomes a
matter of supreme importance to keep this party out of office, or, if
they are in office, to keep them in a position of permanent debility
till this dangerous project is abandoned. Under such circumstances
statesmen are justified in carrying party objects and purely party
legislation much further than in other periods. To strengthen their own
party; to gain for it the largest amount of popularity; to win the
support of different factions of the House of Commons, become a great
public object; and, in order to carry it out, sacrifices of policy and
in some degree of principle, the acceptance of measures which the party
had once opposed, and the adjournment or abandonment of measures to
which it had been pledged, which would once have been very properly
condemned, become justifiable. The supreme interest of the State is the
end and the justification of their policy, and alliances are formed
which under less pressing circumstances would have been impossible, and
which, once established, sometimes profoundly change the permanent
character of party politics. Here, as in nearly all political matters,
an attention to proportion and degree, the sacrifice of the less for the
attain