the reduction of the wine duties and the
whole simplified system of taxation intended to apply to the commercial
treaty which Mr. Cobden had succeeded in persuading the Emperor of the
French to accept. Mr. Gladstone also introduced a provision for the
abolition of the duty on paper--a duty which was simply a tax upon
reading, a tax upon popular education. The House of Lords struck out
this clause; a somewhat impassioned popular agitation followed; and in
the next session the Lords passed the measure for the repeal of the duty
without offering any further opposition. The death of Lord Palmerston,
in 1865, called Lord Russell to the position of prime-minister, and made
Mr. Gladstone leader of the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone's mind had
long been turning in the direction of an extension, or rather expansion,
of the suffrage. It was assumed by everyone that Lord Russell and Mr.
Gladstone being now at the head of affairs, a reform bill would be sure
to come. It did come; a very moderate and cautious bill, enlarging the
area of the franchise in boroughs and counties. The Conservative party
opposed it, and were supported in their opposition by a considerable
section of the Liberals, who thought the measure was going too far on
the road to universal suffrage and the rule of the democracy. The bill
was defeated, and the Liberal statesman went out of office (1866). Mr.
Gladstone had carried his point, however, for when Mr. Disraeli came
into office he saw that a reform bill was inevitable, and he prepared
his party, or most of them, for the course which would have to be taken.
In the very next session Mr. Disraeli introduced a reform bill of his
own, which was enlarged and expanded until it became practically a
measure of household suffrage for cities and boroughs.

Somewhere about this time the attention of Mr. Gladstone began to be
attracted to the condition of Ireland. The distressed and distracted
state of Ireland, the unceasing popular agitation and discontent, the
Fenian insurrection, brought under England's very eyes by the schemes
for an attack on Chester Castle--all these evidences of malady in
Ireland's system led Mr. Gladstone to the conviction that the time had
come when statesmanship must seek through Parliament for some process of
remedy. Mr. Gladstone came after a while to the conclusion that the
Protestant State Church in Ireland must be disestablished and
disendowed, that the Irish land tenure system must be re