HOW TO CATCH A MAJORITY IN PARLIAMENT.
AMONG the incidents of the incessant changes on the Australian, Government Bill, is an advantage which has not been sufficiently appreciated. It only became apparent on the surface when Mr. Evelyn Denison discovered how he had been voting for the bill on the faith of one arrangement about the lands, while it really con- tained a different one. This occurrence accounts for the systematic way in which our Ministers make their bills box the compass of principles and objects; it catches votes all round. The rationale of the entrapment is not recondite. A positive idea always prevails over a negative idea, as the impress of an image seen when the eyes are open survives in the dark blank when the eyes are shut. On this principle by successively inserting in a bill, on any one point, every possible kind of provision, you catch the ,predilections of each man ; and by removing each provision, you avoid its prac- tical consequences. You may do this all round. Such is the theory : it is confirmed, we perceive, by Parliament- ary practice. The Australian Government Bill was supported by men on all sides, for all reasons—each having pinned Ins faith upon it when it was at the meridian of its merits to his parallel. Henceforward Government will cultivate this art of recruitment by perfecting the practice. If you want to bring in a bill for any purpose—say to abolish the Papacy in Stoke Pogis—your plan would he in the first instance to introduce a bill for the opposite purpose—for endowing the Papacy in Stoke Pogis with gifts and privileges; and then you would gradually bring it round to the opposite : by such means you will get the House to be unanimous.
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