responsibilities of leadership at no distant date.” His most
important intervention in the debates of 1874 was when he
opposed Archbishop Tait’s Public Worship Bill. This was read
a second time without a division, but in committee Gladstone
enjoyed some signal triumphs over his late solicitor-general,
Sir William Harcourt, who had warmly espoused the cause of
the government and the bill. At the beginning of 1875 Gladstone
carried into effect the resolution which he had announced a year
before, and formally resigned the leadership of the Liberal
party. He was succeeded by Lord Hartington, afterwards
duke of Devonshire. The learned leisure which Gladstone had
promised himself when released from official responsibility
was not of long duration. In the autumn of 1875 an insurrection
broke out in Bulgaria, and the suppression of it by the Turks
was marked by massacres and outrages. Public indignation
was aroused by what were known as the “Bulgarian atrocities,”
and Gladstone flung himself into the agitation against Turkey
with characteristic zeal. At public meetings, in the press, and
in parliament he denounced the Turkish government and its
champion, Disraeli, who had now become Lord Beaconsfield.
Lord Hartington soon found himself pushed aside from his
position of titular leadership. For four years, from 1876 to 1880,
Gladstone maintained the strife with a courage, a persistence
and a versatility which raised the enthusiasm of his followers
to the highest pitch. The county of Edinburgh, or Midlothian,
which he contested against the dominant influence of
the duke of Buccleuch,Midlothian campaign. was the scene of the most
astonishing exertions. As the general election approached
the only question submitted to the electors was—Do
you approve or condemn Lord Beaconsfield’s foreign policy?
The answer was given at Easter 1880, when the Liberals were
returned by an overwhelming majority over Tories and Home
Rulers combined. Gladstone was now member for Midlothian,
having retired from Greenwich at the dissolution.
When Lord Beaconsfield resigned, the queen sent for Lord Hartington, the titular leader of the Liberals, but he and Lord Granville assured her that no other chief than Gladstone would satisfy the party. Accordingly, on the 23rd of April he became prime minister for the second time. His second administration, of which the main achievement was the extension of the suffrage to the agricultural labourers, was harassed by two controversies, relating to Ireland and Egypt, which proved disastrous to the Liberal party. Gladstone alienated considerable masses of English opinion by his efforts to reform the tenure of Irish land, and provoked the Irish people by his attempts to establish social order and to repress crime. A bill to provide compensation for tenants who had been evicted by Irish landlords passed the Commons, but was shipwrecked in the Lords, and a ghastly record of outrage and murder stained the following winter. A Coercion Bill and a Land Bill passed in 1881 proved unsuccessful. On the 6th of May 1882 the newly appointed chief secretary for Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish, and his under-secretary, Mr Burke, were stabbed to death in the Phoenix Park at Dublin. A new Crimes Act, courageously administered by Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan, abolished exceptional crime in Ireland, but completed the breach between the British government and the Irish party in parliament.
The bombardment of the forts at Alexandria and the occupation of Egypt in 1882 were viewed with great disfavour by the bulk of the Liberal party, and were but little congenial to Gladstone himself. The circumstances of General Gordon’s untimely death awoke an outburst of indignation against those who were, or seemed to be, responsible for it. Frequent votes of censure were proposed by the Opposition, and on the 8th of June 1885 the government were beaten on the budget. Gladstone resigned. The queen offered him the dignity of an earldom, which he declined. He was succeeded by Lord Salisbury.
The general election took place in the following November. When it was over the Liberal party was just short of the numerical strength which was requisite to defeat the combination of Tories and Parnellites. A startling surprise was at hand. Gladstone had for some time been convinced of the expediency of conceding Home Rule to Ireland in the event of the Irish constituencies giving unequivocal proof that they desired it.First Home Rule Bill. His intentions were made known only to a privileged few, and these, curiously, were not his colleagues. The general election of 1885 showed that Ireland, outside Ulster, was practically unanimous for Home Rule. On the 17th of December an anonymous paragraph was published, stating that if Mr Gladstone returned to office he was prepared to “deal in a liberal spirit with the demand for Home Rule.” It was clear that if Gladstone meant what he appeared to mean, the Parnellites would support him, and the Tories must leave office. The government seemed to accept the situation. When parliament met they executed, for form’s sake, some confused manœuvres, and then they were beaten on an amendment to the address in favour of Municipal Allotments. On the 1st of February 1886 Gladstone became, for the third time, prime minister. Several of his former colleagues declined to join him, on the ground of their absolute hostility to the policy of Home Rule; others joined on the express understanding that they were only pledged to consider the policy, and did not fetter their further liberty of action. On the 8th of April Gladstone brought in his bill for establishing Home Rule, and eight days later the bill for buying out the Irish landlords. Meanwhile two members of his cabinet, feeling themselves unable to support these measures, resigned. Hostility to the bills grew apace. Gladstone was implored to withdraw them, or substitute a resolution in favour of Irish autonomy; but he resolved to press at least the Home Rule Bill to a second reading. In the early morning of the 8th of June the bill was thrown out by thirty. Gladstone immediately advised the queen to dissolve parliament. Her Majesty strongly demurred to a second general election within seven months; but Gladstone persisted, and she yielded. Parliament was dissolved on the 26th of June. In spite of Gladstone’s skilful appeal to the constituencies to sanction the principle of Home Rule, as distinct from the practical provisions of his late bill, the general election resulted in a majority of considerably over 100 against his policy, and Lord Salisbury resumed office. Throughout the existence of the new parliament Gladstone never relaxed his extraordinary efforts, though now nearer eighty than seventy, on behalf of the cause of self-government for Ireland. The fertility of argumentative resource, the copiousness of rhetoric, and the physical energy which he threw into the enterprise, would have been remarkable at any stage of his public life; continued into his eighty-fifth year they were little less than miraculous. Two incidents of domestic interest, one happy and the other sad, belong to that period of political storm and stress. On the 25th of July 1889 Gladstone celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his marriage, and on the 4th of July 1891 his eldest son, William Henry, a man of fine character and accomplishments, died, after a lingering illness, in his fifty-second year.
The crowning struggle of Gladstone’s political career was now approaching its climax. Parliament was dissolved on the 28th of June 1892. The general election resulted in a majority of forty for Home Rule, heterogeneously composed of Liberals, Labour members and Irish. Second Home Rule Bill. As soon as the new parliament met a vote of want of confidence in Lord Salisbury’s government was moved and carried. Lord Salisbury resigned, and on the 15th of August 1892 Gladstone kissed hands as first lord of the treasury. He was the first English statesman that had been four times prime minister. Parliament reassembled in January 1893. Gladstone brought in his new Home Rule Bill on the 13th of February. It passed the House of Commons, but was thrown out by the House of Lords on the second reading on the 8th of September 1893. Gladstone’s political work was now, in his own judgment, ended. He made his last speech in the House of Commons on the 1st of March 1894, acquiescing in some amendments introduced by the Lords into the Parish Councils Bill; and on the 3rd of March he placed his resignation in the queen’s hands. He never set foot again in the House of Commons, though he remained a member of it till the dissolution of 1895. He paid
