abuses in the army by abolishing the purchase system, under which
a junior officer was accustomed to buy his promotion by
compensating his seniors, a practice which had closed the higher
grades to men of small means. The extension of the suffrage to
the agricultural laborers was finally reached by his Reform Bill
of 1884, the last class being thus admitted to the body politic.


THE CAUSE OF IRELAND


But it was to the grievances of Ireland that Gladstone bent the
readiest ear, and it was upon that reef that his political career
made shipwreck at the last. In his first ministry he undertook
and carried the disestablishment of the Irish Church, by which
the Irish Catholics were relieved of an odious burden. His Irish
Land Act of 1870 aimed to give the tenant-farmer certain valuable
rights in the land which he rented. The result was rather to
redouble the cry against "landlordism," with its corollary of
agrarian crime. A second Land Act (1881) provided a land court
for adjusting rents. Instead of quieting the disorders this
indulgent legislation was the signal for a fresh outburst of
crime. The Irish Land League was organized to secure the
abolition of landlordism, and when the Irish leader, Charles
Stewart Parnell, was imprisoned he exhorted the tenants to cease
paying rent altogether until the government should grant all
their demands. The Liberals were forced for the moment to use
strong measures to restore order to Ireland, but the Home Rule
party in Parliament, skillfully led by Mr. Parnell, continued to
embarrass legislation and obstruct the ordinary functions of