hundred members must vote for it. In a speech, which Sir Stafford described as having enthralled the house, Gladstone said that his personal interest in the question was small. His lease was all but run out, but he implored the House of Commons not to allow itself to be made the laughing-stock of the world. The resolution was carried by 234 to 156. On 4 Feb. the speaker, acting upon it, laid certain rules upon the table, the chief of which enabled him to put the question whenever he thought fit. The Irish members, however, continued the struggle, and on 18 Feb. the speaker produced further rules, one of which contained the time limit, afterwards known as the gag. Taking advantage of this, Gladstone on 21 Feb. moved, and carried by an overwhelming majority, that the proceedings in committee on the bill should be brought to a close on the next day. But of the sixty-three members who voted against this thirteen were conservatives. The report of the bill was hastened in the same way, and on 24 Feb. it was read a third time, and passed the House of Lords in three days. Urgency was then applied to the arms bill, which prohibited for five years the carrying of weapons in proclaimed districts in Ireland, and gave the police the right of search for them. This bill, which was in the hands of Sir William Harcourt, had to be forced through the house by the same drastic methods as its predecessor.
Twice in this session Gladstone had occasion to deliver one of those obituary speeches in which he excelled. On 13 March Alexander II, emperor of Russia, was murdered in St. Petersburg, and on the 15th a vote of condolence with the imperial family was moved by Gladstone in the House of Commons. He paid an eloquent tribute to the memory of the sovereign who liberated the serfs. Lord Beaconsfield's death occurred on 19 April, and on 9 May Gladstone proposed that a national memorial should be erected to him in Westminster Abbey. His speech was a masterpiece of tact and taste. On 5 April Gladstone made his financial statement. But the days of his great budgets were over, and his proposals were tame. He had a surplus of rather more than a million. By means of this, and by substituting a probate duty of one and a half for a legacy duty of one per cent., he was enabled to take off the penny from the income tax which he had put on the year before. He also proposed a reduction of debt to the amount of sixty millions by turning short into long annuities. On 7 April the claims of Greece, for which Gladstone had pleaded so earnestly in opposition, were settled by the transfer to the Greek kingdom of Thessaly and part of Epirus.
On 22 April 1881 Gladstone was able to announce in the House of Commons the terms which had been made with the government of the Transvaal. So early as 16 Dec. 1880 the Boers had taken the most practical means of showing that they were not in favour of annexation by rising in armed rebellion, and proclaiming the South African Republic. On 21 Jan., during the debate on the address, Peter Rylands [q. v.] proposed an amendment condemning the annexation of the country. Gladstone objected to it as inopportune, and, as a matter of fact, negotiations were at that time proceeding through President Brand of the Orange Free State [see Brand, Sir Johannes Henricus, Suppl.] While they were in progress came the defeat of Sir George Colley [q. v.] at Laings Nek and his death at Majuba. Sir Evelyn Wood, who succeeded to the command, assured the government that he was in sufficient strength to crush the rebellion. But the government refused to interrupt the negotiations on account of these disasters. On 6 March an armistice was concluded, and the war was not resumed. The conditions of peace, as explained by the prime minister, were that the suzerainty of the queen over the Transvaal should be maintained, and that the burghers should enjoy complete self-government; but that their foreign relations should be under British control, and that that there should be a British resident at the capital. A royal commission was to determine the rights and provide for the protection of the natives. This settlement was bitterly attacked, both inside and outside parliament, as a cowardly surrender. Gladstone, however, defended it on the ground that to break off negotiations already begun on account of defeat would have been a useless, and therefore wicked, sacrifice of life.
On 7 April 1881 Gladstone introduced his second Irish land bill, which is perhaps the greatest of all his legislative achievements. He proposed to constitute a land court for the fixing of judicial rents. Either landlord or tenant could apply to the court; the rent, when fixed, was to last for fifteen years. There were to be three land commissioners, of whom one would have the status of a judge, and there were to be assistant commissioners for every county. If a tenant wished to purchase his holding, the commissioners were to advance three-fourths of the purchase money by way of loan, and there was to be an absolute parliamentary title.
