BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

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restricting campaign expenditures and a variety of practices associated
with the treating and bribery of voters. 19
The act marked a transition from earlier nineteenth century
forms of deferential behavior associated with an individual patron
toward twentieth century standards of individual
voter preference
influenced by a number of distinct pressure groups.20
The legislation
was provisional
in character, straddling both the old and the new.
This was particularly evident in the imprecise definition given to
"agency" in the act, in effect enabling associations to exercise a
great deal of influence on prospective voters, actions that might
encourage bribery.
The law, as it was applied, permitted social and other
functions, in so far as they were a normal part of an organization's
activity, to be performed, although some restrictions were in force
during the period directly associated with the election.21
Nevertheless, as Ostrogorski noted, the practices of extrapar!iamentary
associations left them "continually sailing very near the Corrupt
Practices Act" and would certainly have been considered illegal if
performed by the candidate.
However their independent stature and
19 William B. Gwyn, Democracy and the Cost of Politics in
Britain (London: Athlone Press, 1962), pp. 51-53, 55, 89-91.
20 For a philosophical treatment of this issue spanning the
first three Reform bills, see D.C. Moore's "Political Morality in Mid-
Nineteenth Century England: Concepts, Norms, Violations," Victorian
Studies, vol. 13, no. 1 (September 1969), pp. 5-36.
21 Cornelius O'Leary, The Elimination of Corrupt Practices in
British Elections, 1868-1911 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962),
pp. 201, 203-04. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of
Political Parties, pp. 472, 479-80, 620.