was carried, but the abolition of the paper-duty was defeated in
the House of Lords. Gladstone justly regarded the refusal to
remit a duty as being in effect an act of taxation,Budget
of 1860. and
therefore as an infringement of the rights of the House
of Commons. The proposal to abolish the paper-duty
was revived in the budget of 1861, the chief proposals
of which, instead of being divided, as in previous years, into
several bills, were included in one. By this device the Lords were
obliged to acquiesce in the repeal of the paper-duty.
During Lord Palmerston’s last administration, which lasted from 1859 to 1865, Gladstone was by far the most brilliant and most conspicuous figure in the cabinet. Except in finance, he was not able to accomplish much, for he was met and thwarted at every turn by his chief’s invincible hostility to change; but the more advanced section of the Liberal party began to look upon him as their predestined leader. In 1864, in a debate on a private member’s bill for extending the suffrage, he declared that the burden of proof lay on those “who would exclude forty-nine fiftieths of the working-classes from the franchise.” In 1865, in a debate on the condition of the Irish Church Establishment, he declared that the Irish Church, as it then stood, was in a false position, inasmuch as it ministered only to one-eighth or one-ninth of the whole community. But just in proportion as Gladstone advanced in favour with the Radical party he lost the confidence of his own constituents. Parliament was dissolved in July 1865, and the university elected Mr Gathorne Hardy in his place.
Gladstone at once turned his steps towards South Lancashire, where he was returned with two Tories above him. The result of the general election was to retain Lord Palmerston’s government in power, but on the 18th of October the old prime minister died. He was succeeded by Lord Leader of House of Commons. Russell, and Gladstone, retaining the chancellorship of the exchequer, became for the first time leader of the House of Commons. Lord Russell, backed by Gladstone, persuaded his colleagues to consent to a moderate Reform Bill, and the task of piloting this measure through the House of Commons fell to Gladstone. The speech in which he wound up the debate on the second reading was one of the finest, if not indeed the very finest, which he ever delivered. But it was of no practical avail. The government were defeated on an amendment in committee, and thereupon resigned. Lord Derby became prime minister, with Disraeli as chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. On the 18th of March 1867 the Tory Reform Bill, which ended in establishing Household Suffrage in the boroughs, was introduced, and was read a second time without a division. After undergoing extensive alterations in committee at the hands of the Liberals and Radicals, the bill became law in August.
At Christmas 1867 Lord Russell announced his final retirement from active politics, and Gladstone was recognized by acclamation as leader of the Liberal party. Nominally he was in Opposition; but his party formed the majority of the House of Commons, and could beat the government Leader of Liberal party. whenever they chose to mass their forces. Gladstone seized the opportunity to give effect to convictions which had long been forming in his mind. Early in the session he brought in a bill abolishing compulsory church-rates, and this passed into law. On the 16th of March, in a debate raised by an Irish member, he declared that in his judgment the Irish Church, as a State Church, must cease to exist. Immediately afterwards he embodied this opinion in a series of resolutions concerning the Irish Church Establishment, and carried them against the government. Encouraged by this triumph, he brought in a Bill to prevent any fresh appointments in the Irish Church, and this also passed the Commons, though it was defeated in the Lords. Parliament was dissolved on the 11th of November. A single issue was placed before the country—Was the Irish Church to be, or not to be, disestablished? The response was an overwhelming affirmative. Gladstone, who had been doubly nominated, was defeated in Lancashire, but was returned for Greenwich. He chose this moment for publishing a Chapter of Autobiography, in which he explained and justified his change of opinion with regard to the Irish Church.
On the 2nd of December Disraeli, who had succeeded Lord
Derby as premier in the preceding February, announced that
he and his colleagues, recognizing their defeat, had
resigned without waiting for a formal vote of the new
parliament. On the following day Gladstone was Prime Minister: Irish Church disestab-
lishment.
summoned to Windsor, and commanded by the
queen to form an administration. The great task to
which the new prime minister immediately addressed
himself was the disestablishment of the Irish Church. The
queen wrote to Archbishop Tait that the subject of the Irish
Church “made her very anxious,” but that Mr Gladstone
“showed the most conciliatory disposition.” “The government
can do nothing that would tend to raise a suspicion of their
sincerity in proposing to disestablish the Irish Church, and to
withdraw all state endowments from all religious communions
in Ireland; but, were these conditions accepted, all other
matters connected with the question might, the queen thinks,
become the subject of discussion and negotiation.” The bill
was drawn and piloted on the lines thus indicated, and became
law on the 26th of July. In the session of 1870 Gladstone’s
principal work was the Irish Land Act, of which the object was
to protect the tenant against eviction as long as he paid his rent,
and to secure to him the value of any improvements which his
own industry had made. In the following session Religious
Tests in the universities were abolished, and a bill to establish
secret voting was carried through the House of Commons.
This was thrown out by the Lords, but became law a year later.
The House of Lords threw out a bill to abolish the purchase of
commissions in the army. Gladstone found that purchase
existed only by royal sanction, and advised the queen to issue
a royal warrant cancelling, on and after the 1st of November
following, all regulations authorizing the purchase of commissions.
In 1873 Gladstone set his hand to the third of three great Irish reforms to which he had pledged himself. His scheme for the establishment of a university which should satisfy both Roman Catholics and Protestants met with general disapproval. The bill was thrown out by three votes, and Gladstone resigned. The queen sent for Disraeli, who declined to take office in a minority of the House of Commons, so Gladstone was compelled to resume. But he and his colleagues were now, in Disraelitish phrase, “exhausted volcanoes.” Election after election went wrong. The government had lost favour with the public, and was divided against itself. There were resignations and rumours of resignations. When the session of 1873 had come to an end Gladstone took the chancellorship of the exchequer, and, as high authorities contended, vacated his seat by doing so. The point was obviously one of vital importance; and we learn from Lord Selborne, who was lord chancellor at the time, that Gladstone “was sensible of the difficulty of either taking his seat in the usual manner at the opening of the session, or letting ... the necessary arrangements for business in the House of Commons be made in the prime minister’s absence. A dissolution was the only escape.” On the 23rd of January 1874 Gladstone announced the dissolution in an address to his constituents,Dissolution of 1874. declaring that the authority of the government had now “sunk below the point necessary for the due defence and prosecution of the public interest.” He promised that, if he were returned to power, he would repeal the income-tax. This bid for popularity failed, the general election resulting in a Tory majority of forty-six. Gladstone kept his seat for Greenwich, but was only second on the poll. Following the example of Disraeli in 1868, he resigned without meeting parliament.
For some years he had alluded to his impending retirement from public life, saying that he was “strong against going on in politics to the end.” He was now sixty-four, and his life had been a continuous experience of exhausting labour. On the 12th of March 1874 he informed Temporary retirement. Lord Granville that he could give only occasional attendance in the House of Commons during the current session, and that he must “reserve his entire freedom to divest himself of all the
