BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

While special rights and privileges were accorded the SGC, it
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never obtained "separate, but equal" status.
Grand Council set policy
standards and guidelines. 75
The LGC and SGC held roughly equivalent
positions, each subordinate to the Central Office, but convinced of its
superior status vis-a-vis the other.
Thus, the LGC felt justified in
directing how its yearly contributions to the SGC might be spent, even
going so far as to insist on an annual balance sheet itemizing all
income and expenditures of the Scottish office.
The SGC, for its part,
refused to provide a detailed statement of its finances, although it
eventually provided some information regarding the manner in which
donations by the LGC were applied.76
IV
Relations between the Habitations and Conservative Associations
were generally cooperative and conciliatory. Nevertheless,
overlappping spheres of influence occasionally provoked frictions
between rival local organizations.
In his letters to Salisbury and
Northcote in January of 1886, Hardman emphasized the increasingly
January 1887; 18 November 1897; 10 January 1899; 14 February 1899. The
Primrose League Gazette, 1 May 1899, p 7.
75
Scottish Branch Minute Book, 27 January 1890; 20 July 1894;
18 November 1897; 14 February 1899; 27 June 1899; 2 November 1899.
Minutes of the Scott Habitation, 9 April 1901; 28 May 1901.
76
LGC Executive Committee Minutes, 12 March 1891; 10 April
1891; 24 April 1891; 1 May 1891; 29 May 1891; 17 July 1891; 29 April
1892; 24 March 1893; 14 April 1893; 2 March 1894; 2 November 1895; 6
November 1896. Scottish Branch Minute Book, 12 May 1891.