ad
been inclined to yield. As it was, by firmness, patience, and that tact
which springs not from courtiership but from right feeling, he succeeded,
and in the June of 1870 the Queen approved an order in council that put an
end to the dual control of the army, defined the position of the
commander-in-chief, and removed him corporeally from the horse guards to
the war office in Pall Mall.(234) This, however, by no means brought all
the military difficulties to an end.

One particular incident has a conspicuous place on the political side of
Mr. Gladstone's life. Among the elements in the scheme was the abolition
of the practice of acquiring military rank by money purchase. Public
opinion had been mainly roused by Mr. Trevelyan, who now first made his
mark in that assembly where he was destined to do admirable work and
achieve high eminence and popularity. An Act of George III. abolished
selling of offices in other departments, but gave to the crown the
discretion of retaining the practice in the army, if so it should seem
fit. This discretion had been exercised by the issue of a warrant
sanctioning and regulating that practice; commissions in the army were
bought and sold for large sums of money, far in excess of the sums fixed
by the royal warrant; and vested interests on a large scale grew up in
consequence. The substitution, instead of this abusive system, of
promotion by selection, was one of the first steps in army reform. No
effective reorganisation was possible without it. As Mr. Gladstone put it,
the nation must buy back its own army from its own officers. No other
proceeding in the career of the ministry aroused a more determined and
violent opposition. It offended a powerful profession with a host of
parliamentary friends; the officers disliked liberal politics, they rather
disdained a civilian master, and they fought with the vigour peculiar to
irritated caste.

The first question before parliament depended upon the Commons voting the
money to compensate officers who had acquired vested interests. If that
were secure, there was nothing to hinder the crown, in the discretion
committed to it by the statute, from cancelling the old warrant. Instead
of this, ministers determined to abolish purchase by bill. Obstruction was
long and sustained. The principle of the bill was debated and re-debated
on every amendment in committee, and Mr. Gladstone reported that "during
his whole parliamentary life, he had been accus