The same logic, in a different form, applies also to the case of the Legislature and the Executive. The less contact, there is between them, the better for both, I venture to submit. The executive is in a position to corrupt the House; the executive is in a position to influence votes of the members, by the number of gifts or favours they have in their power to confer in the shape of offices, in the shape of Minister ships, in the shape of Ambassadorships, in the shape of Consulships, and any number of offices which the Executive has it in its power to bestow. We have come to a stage in political evolution when the old system called the “spoils system” is no longer upheld in any civilised country. But yet, in fact, it does happen that fifty, sixty, seventy, a hundred people may be open to be influenced by those who have it in their power to distribute even the highest offices of the State. In England, for instance, out of 615 Members of Parliament, something like 70 members are Cabinet Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries, or other Ministers and so on. This on a minor scale–I hope the House will pardon me for saying so–we are trying to reproduce here, by creating Ministers and Ministers of State and Deputy Ministers, and I suppose Parliamentary Secretaries to come. These may be–and I am sure they are–all honourable people influenced entirely by the desire of offering their services and their talents to the service of the country. But still the fact remains that the influence of the Party system, the idea of favouring one’s own people, those who agree with them and become their camp-followers, is a much more influential and important consideration, than the absolute and exclusive eye to the merits or the fitness or the appropriateness of an individual for an office.
