The army question was the most important issue of Swedish politics. The events of 1866 had made it evident that a strengthening of the defences was necessary. King Charles was anxious to have the question solved in a satisfactory manner, finding therein the only reliable safeguard for the future independence of Sweden. It was apparent that any attempts to settle the question in accordance with the system adopted by Charles XI. would be devoid of result. It was based upon direct taxation of the soil and must be opposed by the strong majority of small landowners of the Landtmanna party. A compromise policy was for this reason begun in 1867, the question of an abolition of the land tax being connected with the army question, although the two ought to have had no connection. The question was started with promises of a reduction or exemption of the duties of the old army system as compensation for the acceptance of a new arrangement for the country’s defence. The government made an army proposition to the Riksdag of 1869, promising several reductions to the landowners who furnished soldiers according to the old system (_indelningsverket_). The proposition was prepared by a committee, of which the new minister of war, Gustavus Rudolph Abelin, was the chairman. It was based upon the preservation of the old system for the furnishing of the body force of officers and men. The larger force was to be provided for through militia. The militia was to be drilled in the neighborhood of their various homes during sixty days of the year. The proposition was not accepted. The militia compulsory service, as the duty of every citizen for the defence of his country, had nothing to do with the regular army as provided by the stipulations of the old system. But the majority of the Second Chamber confused the two and refused to allow the establishment of the former on a wider basis, because the offers made to reduce the burdens of the old system did not appear to them liberal enough. In 1871 another proposition was made by Abelin to the Riksdag. It was similar to the first one, and its cause was eloquently pleaded by Abelin, Axel Gustavus Adlercreutz, minister of justice, Peter Axel Bergstrœm, minister of civil service, and Gunnar Vennerberg, minister of ecclesiastics. They warned against the mistake of attaching impossible conditions to the acceptance of the proposition. The proposition for an extended militia service was accepted by both Chambers. But when the Second Chamber raised, as a condition for its acceptance, the suspension, for fifteen years, of the old system which provided for the regular army, the government found it impossible to grant this, and the proposition was dropped.