resign; but the very next year Disraeli passed the sweeping Reform Bill of 1867. This bill extended the borough franchise to all owners of houses and to all men who lived in hired lodgings worth £10 a year; and the county franchise to all owners of property worth £5 a year and to all tenants paying £12 rent; it also applied the principles of Russell's Bill of 1832 to the forty-six remaining rotten boroughs. Thus well-todo workmen and small farmers received the right to vote a long stride toward democracy.

In 1870, the establishment of a competitive civil service system reduced to a minimum the possibility of bribery by "patronage," and in 1871 voting by ballot was introduced so that tenants were freed from coercion by their landlords. In 1884 Gladstone's extension of household suffrage to the counties (thus enfranchising the agricultural laborers) made the suffrage practically universal; and his Redistribution of Seats Bill, passed the next year, determined the composition of Parliament as it exists to-day.

601. Fen

ianism and disestablishment

Hopeless of procuring justice under English rule, the Irish in 1859 organized the so-called Fenian movement, which found much support from Irishmen who had emigrated to America. At the close of the American Civil War, many of these returned to Ireland, merely to use their military experience for Irish freedom. An uprising which took place in 1867 was easily suppressed, and the Fenians in desperation began a course of terrorism. In December an attempt was made to rescue a Fenian from Clerkenwell Prison, and twelve persons were killed. This event convinced the nation that some concessions must be made to the Irish, and the Liberals came into power on the "platform" of disestablishment of the Irish Church. Within a year Gladstone carried through Parliament a bill by which the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland was wholly separated from the state, becoming a voluntary organization like the

Episcopal Church of the United States. It kept all its cathedrals and churches, and its clergy were indemnified for their personal losses due to the change; but the endowments which the church had acquired since the Restoration were converted to charitable and educational uses in Ireland.

Gladstone now took up the land question, which was continually becoming more acute. Owing to England's former policy of repressing manufactures in Ireland, farming was its chief industry. The land was leased without improvements - that is, the buildings, fencing, etc., were provided by the tenant; yet rents were high, and tenant hold

602. The first Irish

Land Act

In

ings were small, because of the density of population. Thus
the margin of profit was small, especially as the climate and
the lack of natural drainage made the crops uncertain.
bad seasons, the stewards, particularly those of absentee land-
lords, evicted those who failed to pay their rents generally
without any compensation for permanent improvements made
during their tenancy- and re-leased to more desirable tenants.
The Land Act of 1870 decreed that tenants who gave up their

holdings should be compensated for improvements, and provided for government loans to responsible tenants, by which they might purchase on mortgage the farms they occupied.

Up to the year 1870, there were no free elementary schools supported wholly by the state in England. One reason for 603. Public this was that the Anglicans and the dissenters could not education agree regarding the place of religion in formal education.

In 1870 Gladstone carried through Parliament an Education Act framed by Mr. Forster. This act authorized the election of School Boards with authority (1) to levy a definite local tax for the support of education, (2) to spend this money in improving existing schools, (3) to build and maintain new schools, (4) to fix a fee for tuition, (5) to compel the attendance of pupils. It was stipulated that in "Board Schools" no religious catechism, or "definitely dogmatic formularies," should be taught; that in schools which accepted state aid all religious instruction should be given before or after the regular session, and that attendance upon this instruction should be voluntary. The next year (1871), by the abolition of religious tests, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were for the first time opened to Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters.

604. The
Russian-
Turkish
War

Before these reforms could be thoroughly tested, Gladstone was displaced by Disraeli (1874), who soon found a field for his "jingo" tendencies in the Eastern question. In 1875 the Greek Christians in Bulgaria revolted against Turkish misgovernment. Servia, Montenegro, and Roumania, (1877-1878) over which Turkey had a nominal suzerainty, joined in this revolt, which Turkey struggled fiercely to suppress. Russia at once made war on Turkey; but when her armies had forced the passes of the Balkans and were within only a hundred miles of Constantinople (December, 1877), Disraeli (now Lord Beaconsfield) dispatched a British fleet to the Bosphorus. Russia hastened to negotiate the peace of San Stephano with

Turkey, but as its terms seemed too favorable to the victor,
Great Britain protested. At a Congress held at Berlin (1878),
Bulgaria, although left tributary to Turkey, was given practical
independence, and Rou-
mania, Servia, and Monte-
negro were made wholly
independent of Turkey,
thus forming a barrier.
between Russia and Con-
stantinople. By a separate
treaty Great Britain guar-
anteed the integrity of
Turkey's Asiatic domains,
receiving in return the
island of Cyprus in the
eastern Mediterranean.
To the enormous crowd
which welcomed the en-
voys back to London, Bea-
consfield said, "I bring
you peace with honor."

605. The farther East: Afghanistan

During the Turkish-Russian War, the Russians for the second time dispatched an agent to win over the ameer of Afghanistan. To increase the prestige of Great Britain in India, Disraeli induced Parliament to bestow upon the queen the title of Empress of India (1877), and the next year British armies invaded Afghanistan and placed on the throne a ruler favorable to Great Britain. The experience of 18411842 was then repeated. Within a year (1878) a revolt took place, the new ameer was deposed, English residents were murdered, and an army was nearly destroyed. An avenging army under Lord Roberts inflicted several defeats upon the Afghans, and then the country was left to itself under a new ameer, who professed himself friendly to the British.