Applying the same tests as we have used in the case of the great democracies to the present position of Australian politics, what is the result?  First, as regards organization, where do we stand?  It must be confessed that we are far behind Great Britain and America, though certainly we are not in the same sad plight as France.  Still there is the fact that we are classed among the failures.  Take the evidence of Mr. E.L.  Godkin in “Unforeseen Tendencies of 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.  We may cite the authority of Mr. James Bryce on this point.  After pointing out in “The American Commonwealth” that since the Civil War combinations of States have always acted through the national parties, he writes:—­