Conservative associations of a popular character, with subordinate branches more or less fully developed, now exist in almost every parliamentary constituency in England and Wales, and in all but a few of those in Scotland, the central office of the party being engaged in a ceaseless effort to perfect the organisation wherever it remains incomplete. Unless in a very feeble state, the associations have their professional secretaries or agents, who are paid, on the average, a little higher salaries than their Liberal rivals, and are, therefore, it is claimed, on the whole, a better grade of men. The Conservative, like the Liberal, agents have societies of their own; a mutual benevolent society, and a national association with subordinate branches which admits members only on examination.
Similarity of Liberal and Conservative Associations.
At the present day local party organisation has been brought to a high state of efficiency in England, each party having covered almost the whole of Great Britain with a tessellated pavement of associations. These are especially complete in the boroughs, for on both sides the machinery in the rural parts of counties is less fully developed. The Conservatives have done their work a little more thoroughly than the Liberals, because with more rich men in their ranks they have larger resources in money, and can maintain paid agents in more constituencies where the chance of success is small. In general character the local associations of the two parties do not differ greatly, the most obvious contrasts being the common use of coöptation by the Liberals, and the special privileges accorded to the larger subscribers among the Conservatives. But neither of these things is universal, and in their essential features the local organisations of both parties are framed upon the same general principles. Both of them are democratic in form, admitting all adherents of the party, or all who pay a small subscription. Both are in form representative, the affairs of the associations being managed by a series of councils and committees, composed mainly of delegates whose authority is based ultimately upon mass meetings of all the members.
FOOTNOTES:
[466:1] Bulwer, "Life of Palmerston," I., 23-24.
[466:2] Cf. Wallas, "Life of Francis Place," Chs. ii., v.
[467:1] By 1837 Conservative registration societies had become common throughout the country. (Publications of the National Union of Conservative Associations, 1868, No. 4.)
By far the best, and in fact the only comprehensive, work on the party organisations in Great Britain is Ostrogorski's "Democracy and the Organisation of Political Parties," Vol. I. His description is very complete, but, while accurate, is likely to mislead a superficial reader, who might easily get an impression that the extreme cases were typical, although the writer takes pains not to say so. Mr. Bryce's caution in the preface should, therefore, be borne in mind. Mr. Ostrogorski appears to look on democracy, and on party machinery in particular, from the outside, as something artificial and weird, rather than the natural result of human conduct under the existing conditions. He does not seem to put himself quite in the shoes of Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Schnadhorst, Lord Randolph Churchill, Lord Salisbury, Captain Middleton, or other men who have come into contact with the party organisations, and ask what he himself would, or might, have done in the same position. Hence his analysis has a slight air of unreality, and does not wholly approve itself as a study of ordinary political motives. But apart from this criticism, the work is admirably done, and is an invaluable contribution to political science.
[468:1] Ostrogorski, I., 156-58.