Principles of western civilisation

x THE MODERN WORLD-CONFLICT 349

the long stress of the development described in the last chapter.

Now if we look closely at the system of government by party, it may be perceived that what it essentially represents is the unconscious organisation, on each side of a line of cleavage, of all the opposing elements in any situation utilised against each other to the full extent of their powers as forces of criticism and progress. The essence of the system is that there are of necessity only two principal parties, each continually organised in opposition to the other ;* and that, as in the system of legal trial developed in the conditions of English jurisprudence,” each side proceeds from the point of view that it is itself entirely in the right, and that its opponent is of necessity equally and entirely in the wrong. Vital, essential, and fundamental as is the system of party government in the circumstances mentioned, it is nevertheless almost outside the forms and recognition of written constitutions. A system in the conduct of public affairs which appears so entirely bewildering, and even absurd to the observer who has not grasped its meaning, is only made possible by a condition which is always in the background, but which is never expressed in any constitutional formula. It is a condition the influence

1 The character of the party system, as an organisation of two great parties only in the government of the State, is as remarkable in the United States as in England. Looking through the records, in Stanwood’s History of the Presidency, of the last ten presidential elections included in the nineteenth century, the fact has to be noted that of the 59 candidates for the Presidency, for whom votes were cast by the members of various parties, the 20 official candidates of the two great opposing parties in the United States received over 94 per cent of the total votes. All the other 39 candidates of other parties received together less than 6 per cent.

2 Compare in this connection note, p. 352, in relation to differences in principles of jurisprudence in Latin countries.