wealthy leisured class to form the link between
society and politics; elsewhere, there has been
wanting that tendency to a clean-cut division of
parties, a well-marked dualism of public opinion,
which provides the machinery for putting the
Cabinet in office and for turning it out. Even in
those colonies where every effort has been made
to apply the English model as closely as possible,
the resemblance is incomplete. A careful commen-
tator on Australian politics says: --

"It is doubtful whether responsible government, in the
sense of government by a ministry, which carves out a definite
policy approved by the country, and, in return, receives
allegiance from its supporters in Parliament, has ever been
acclimatised in Australasia, except in New South Wales under
the influence of the late Sir Henry Parkes. How, indeed,
could it be otherwise, when it was sought to transplant a deli-
cate system, hallowed by conventions and dependent for its
success upon the election of a special class of representatives,
among a community necessarily ruled by men who had little
experience of public life? Australian Parliaments, save on the
rare occasions when some important issue, such as that of the
tariff, has come to the front, have not been divided on ordinary
party lines, and have amused themselves with the excitement
of a constant succession of new ministries, selected on personal,
and not on political, considerations. New South Wales, South
Australia, and Victoria, to take three provinces at random,
have had, respectively, twenty-eight, forty-two, and twenty-six
ministries in forty years .... Australia has been confronted with
the difficulty, experienced by every young country, that the
men, who should naturally enter Parliament, are prevented by
commercial or professional duties from devoting the necessary
time, and that, in the absence of men of leisure, constituencies
are much hampered in their choice of candidates. The pay-
ment of members, it is needless to say, offers no inducement to
the successful merchant, but has increased the competition
among men to whom the salary is an inducement." ^*

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