At the same time, trial by jury is now used with a certain degree of economy, both because it is slow and expensive, and because men do not make good jurors if they are called upon too often.  In order that popular consent may support criminal justice, and that the law may not be unfairly used to protect the interests or policy of a governing class or person, no man, in most civilised countries, may be sentenced to death or to a long period of imprisonment, except after the verdict of a jury.  But the overwhelming majority of other judicial decisions are now taken by men selected not by lot, but, in theory at least, by special fitness for their task.

In the light of this development of the jury trial we may now examine the tentative changes which, since the Reform Act of 1867, have been introduced into the law of elections in the United Kingdom.  Long before that date, it had been admitted that the State ought not to stretch the principle of individual liberty so far as to remain wholly indifferent as to the kind of motives which candidates might bring to bear upon electors.  It was obvious that if candidates were allowed to practise open bribery the whole system of representation would break down at once.  Laws, therefore, against bribery had been for several generations on the statute books, and all that was required in that respect was the serious attempt, made after the scandals at the general election of 1880, to render them effective.  But without entering into definite bargains with individual voters, a rich candidate can by lavish expenditure on his electoral campaign, both make himself personally popular, and create an impression that his connection with the constituency is good for trade.  The Corrupt Practices Act of 1883 therefore fixed a maximum of expenditure for each candidate at a parliamentary election.  By the same Act of 1883, and by earlier and later Acts, applying both to parliamentary and municipal elections, intimidation of all kinds, including the threatening of penalties after death, is forbidden.  No badges or flags or bands of music may be paid for by, or on behalf of, a candidate.  In order that political opinion may not be influenced by thoughts of the simpler bodily pleasures, no election meeting may be held in a building where any form of food or drink is habitually sold, although that building may be only a Co-operative Hall with facilities for making tea in an ante-room.

The existing laws against Corrupt Practices represent, it is true, rather the growing purpose of the State to control the conditions under which electoral opinion is formed, than any large measure of success in carrying out that purpose.  A rapidly increasing proportion of the expenditure at any English election is now incurred by bodies enrolled outside the constituency, and nominally engaged, not in winning the election for a particular candidate, but in propagating their own principles.  Sometimes the candidate whom they support, and whom they try to commit as deeply