Parties -- unselfish philanthropic organizations that advance the country's interests OR self-serving party machines?

From E.A. Partridge's book A War on Poverty (1925):

"Even political parties (I again quote Professor Barnes to support my contention) are no longer looked upon as “unselfish philanthropic organizations devoted to advancing the interests of the country as a whole, but as organizations centering about a set of distinct interests for which they desire to obtain public recognition, aid and protection. These ‘interest groups’ may be specific and highly articulate as in the case of well-known labor or agrarian parties; or they may be general and inclusive, as in the Conservative and Liberal party alignment in Great Britain...

Even in the United States,” (and let me add, Canada, particularly in respect to provincial politics) “where the major parties have long ceased to have any rationale except an organized effort to exploit the public, and bear no real outward relation to the vital issues of the day, the dominant interests are able to find effective, if indirect and surreptitious, modes of utilizing the party machinery for the advancement of their special aims and interests.”

I don't think too many people think that political parties as a rule are "unselfish philanthropic organizations devoted to advancing the interests of the country as a whole."

The way elections are fought currently, where the Liberal and Conservatives strive for power and manoeuvre to get it, sometimes despite how vote are actually cast, give credence to jaundiced view that most people hold of parties.

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Even back in 1871, a Canadian held the view that parties were bent on their own success more than guiding the country to higher levels of satisfaction for everyday people:

Moncrieff, W.G. Party and government by party. Toronto: Copp Clark, 76 pages. Attacks party voting and party discipline.

(listed in Weinrich.

available in Hathi trust: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t1tf0d385&seq=6)

Moncrieffe is perhaps the same as W.G. Moncrieff, a noted phrenologist, in 1858.

William Glen Moncrieff was born in Scotland on November 4, 1816 and died in London Ontario September 27, 1891. He had been a Presbyterian Church minister in Scotland but resigned from the ministry in 1854 and came to Canada with his wife Helen and eldest son, George, and settled in London.

from: Our Ontario

https://images.ourontario.ca/london/74426/data

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