50 CONCLUSION. 



Cobden, Bright, and Villiers, when one of the greatest Ministers ol 

 England, Sir Robert Peel became a convert, a minority became a 

 majority, and was finally passed into law May 26th, 1846, a great 

 achievement, for it conferred on the toiling millions the boon of un- 

 taxed bread. 



Such was the important measure for the Repeal of the Excise Duty 

 on Paper, the abolition of the Taxes on Knowledge, one of those great 

 financial measures of reform won by the matchless eloquence of Mr. 

 Gladstone, which became law 15th April, 1861, and thereby opened 

 the avenues of knowledge, of political information and instruction to 

 the great mass of the people, and conferred on the nation the in- 

 estimable blessings of a free and a cheap press. 



Such was the popular Act for Parliamentary Reform, the enfran- 

 chisement of the people, for securing to them the full possession and 

 the free exercise of their political rights ; a great measure of Con- 

 stitutional Reform, which passed into law August ist, 1867, that 

 has not only conferred the right of admission into the most ancient 

 legislative Assembly in the world, given permanency and security to 

 the Constitution, but has added lustre and dignity to the Crown of 

 England. 



Such was the legislative measure for the Disestablishment and 

 Disendowment of the Irish Church, which had long been a discredit 

 and a scandal to England, and that by the wonderful statesmanship 

 and genius of Mr. Gladstone on the 26th July, 187 1, ceased to exist 

 as the established Church of Ireland ; a great work of peace and 

 justice, enabling the Church of Ireland to enter on a new era, an era 

 bright with hope and potent for good, justifying the impressive words 

 of Mr. Bright when he claimed for the measure : 



"The support of all good and thoughtful people within the bounds 

 of the British Empire, and, above all, the blessing of the 

 Supreme ; for I believe it to be founded on those principles of 

 justice and mercy which are the glorious attributes of His 

 Eternal Reign." 



Such, too, were the equally great and beneficent Measures, the 

 Repeal of the Navigation Laws, which has thrown open the whole 

 of the navigation of England and her colonies, and thus secured 

 unrestrained commercial intercourse throughout the world ; the Irish 

 Land Bill, which conferred on the tenants of Ireland security of 

 tenure, facility of transfer, and the acquisition and cultivation of land 

 by statute; Elementary Education for England and Wales, which 

 brought education, undivorced from religion, within reach of the 



