Politics. A political party that advocates the interests and claims of the country as a whole in opposition to the court or other particular interest, or (in later use) of country against town, the agricultural against the manufacturing interest.
1735–8. Bolingbroke, On Parties, 43. A Country Party must be authorized by the Voice of the Country.
1762. Hume, Hist. Eng., VIII. lxviii. (Jod.). The elections had gone mostly in favour of the country party.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 25. The language of the country party was perceptibly bolder and sharper than on the preceding day.
1888. Times, 3 Jan., 9/5. The Country Party and the Town Party were battling for supremacy under the rival standards of margarine and butterine.
