One of the most important Government measures of the year was the Ballot Act. But the opposition to it was marked by no novelty of argument, and it need only be said about it here that it was passed, the Lords not venturing to reject it a second time.[40] The Scottish Education Bill, which also passed, established a School Board system of public instruction all over Scotland far in advance of that which England had been able to obtain. A Licensing Bill of a mildly regulative character was carried, the publicans grudgingly accepting it as a compromise, while the Temperance Party attacked it as miserably ineffective.[41] Mr. Stansfeld’s Public Health Bill, defining the authority which must in future be responsible for local sanitation, and embodying the principle that rates should be divided between the State and the locality was so adroitly managed by Mr. Stansfeld, that at last Mr. Disraeli supported the Government in carrying it. Another useful measure regulating the working of Coal Mines was carried in spite of many protests against interfering with private contracts between masters and servants, and many attempts on the part of the vested interests who were supported by the bulk of the Tory Party, to render the Bill inoperative. Among other things it prohibited the employment of women underground, and it made mine-owners responsible for the results of preventible mining accidents. Mr. Cardwell’s Army Bill was received with unlocked for favour. It attempted to adapt the territorial system of Prussia to the exigencies of military service in England. The nine existing military divisions were subdivided into sixty-six military districts. In each of these a small army or brigade was formed, consisting of two battalions of Regulars, to which were linked the local Militia and Volunteers. One of the regular battalions was to be told off for foreign service, and its “waste” supplied by drafts from the territorial _depôt_. The main objection to the scheme urged by Conservative officers was that it destroyed the family life of the old regiments--that it even destroyed their identity by substituting local titles for the numbers which their prowess in war had in many cases made historic. According to this scheme the country would have an Army of 446,000 men, of whom 146,000 were available for service abroad. The evidence given before the Commission which reported on the wreck of the _Megæra_, concentrated attention on Admiralty Reform. On the whole, the country gave Mr. Childers credit for having brought order into that chaotic department. Before he came to power the various branches of the Admiralty had little or no connection with each other, and when a blunder was made by conflicting authority or contradictory orders, nobody could be made responsible. Mr. Childers set responsible officers at the head of each department, and made excellent arrangements for their mutual co-operation. But the weak point of his scheme was that he as First