When Gladstone's Liberal government passed the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act in 1883, its supporters hoped that the future conduct of politics would be purer and more equitable. Not only would the grosser forms of corruption (such as bribery or intimidation) now be punished more severely, but the advantages previously enjoyed by wealthier candidates would now be minimized because the new law imposed strict limits on campaign spending which applied equally to all candidates for a particular constituency. But these noble goals, it soon appeared, were little closer to realization because the law contained a crucial loophole by failing to constrain the expenditure of the numerous pressure groups active in British politics. Because of this loophole, electoral corruption might continue to flourish, even if the perpetrator would no longer be the candidate's agent, but rather the pressure group treasurer. This view that the intent (if not the letter) of the law was being subverted was a common theme of Edwardian political journalism. As the Westminster Gazette observed, ‘when a by-election takes place each candidate has the assistance of a cloud of outside organizations which spend on the election a large sum of money which is not included in the official election expenses… clearly the result is to drive a coach-and-six through the Corrupt Practices Act.’ On the floor of the House of Commons similar arguments were aired. One Liberal MP contended that the statute ‘had been of great service in securing more honest representation than before, but no one who had followed political events closely could fail to see that its whole purpose was avoided, and that its terms were entirely circumvented, by the action which political organizations took on behalf of a candidate, which he was wholly unable to do for himself.’ Such assertions remained unsubstantiated, however, because infringements by pressure groups were rarely subjected to legal review in the election courts, being considered too difficult to define and expensive to prove.