In 1870 Mr. Gladstone introduced his Irish Land Bill, a measure of reform which Parliament had for years refused to grant. By it the tenant was given the right to hold his farm as long as he paid his rent, and received a claim upon the improvement made by himself and his predecessors—a tenant-right which he could sell. This bill was triumphantly carried; and another important Liberal measure, Mr. Forster’s Education bill, became law. Other liberal measures were passed, but the tide which had set so long in this direction turned at last, the government was defeated in 1873 on a bill for University Education, and in a subsequent election the Liberal party met with defeat. Gladstone at once resigned and was succeeded by Disraeli. Two years later the latter was raised to the peerage by the Queen under the title of the Earl of Beaconsfield. Gladstone was not in the field for honors of this type. He much preferred to inherit the title of a distinguished predecessor, that of “The Great Commoner.” During his recess from office he occupied himself in literary labors and as a critical commentator upon the foreign policy of Disraeli, which plunged the country into a Zulu war which Gladstone denounced as “one of the most monstrous and indefensible in our history,” and an Afghan war which he described as a national crime. These and other acts of Tory policy in time brought liberalism again into the forefront, an election held in 1880 resulted in a great Liberal victory, Disraeli (then Lord Beaconsfield) resigned and Gladstone was once again called to the head of the ministry. In the new administration the foreign policy, the meddling in the concerns of the East, which had held precedence over domestic affairs under the preceding administration, vanished from sight, and the Irish question again became prominent. Ireland had now gained an able leader, Charles Stewart Parnell, founder of the Irish Land League, a trade union of Irish farmers, and its affairs could no longer be consigned to the background. Gladstone, in assuming control of the new government, was quite unaware of the task before him. When he had completed his work with the Church and the Land bills ten years before, he fondly fancied that the Irish question was definitely settled. The Home Rule movement, which was started in 1870, seemed to him a wild delusion which would die away of itself. In 1884 he said: “I frankly admit that I had had much upon my hands connected with the doings of the Beaconsfield Government in every quarter of the world, and I did not know—no one knew—the severity of the crisis that was already swelling upon the horizon, and that shortly after rushed upon us like a flood.” DESPERATE STATE OF IRELAND