Note 137 — INDEX

Footnote 137: On the adoption of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act of 1883 see May and Holland, Constitutional History of England, III., 31-33. The actual operation of the system established may be illustrated by citing a specific case. At the election of 1906 the maximum expenditure legally possible for Mr. Lloyd-George in his sparsely populated Carnarvon constituency was £470. His authorized agent, after the election, reported an outlay of £50 on agents, £27 on clerks and messengers, £189 on printing, postage, etc., £30 on public meetings, £25 on committee rooms, and £40 on miscellaneous matters—a total of £361. The candidate's personal expenditure amounted to £92, so that the total outlay of £462 fell short by a scant £8 of the sum that might legally have been laid out. Divided among the 3,221 votes that Mr. Lloyd-George received, his outlay per vote was 2s., 10d. At the same election Mr. Asquith's expenditure was £727; Mr. Winston Churchill's, £844; Mr. John Morley's, £479; Mr. Keir Hardie's, £623; Mr. James Bryce's, £480. In non-contested constituencies expenditures are small. In 1906 Mr. Redmond's was reported to be £25 and Mr. William O'Brien's, £20. In 1900 a total of 1,103 candidates for 670 seats expended £777,429 in getting 3,579,345 votes; in 1906, 1,273 candidates for the same 670 seats expended £1,166,858 in getting 5,645,104 votes; in January, 1910, 1,311 candidates laid out £1,296,382 in getting 6,667,394 votes. A well-informed article is E. Porritt, Political Corruption in England, in North American Review, Nov. 16, 1906.(Back)