Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/351

 following year with a view to settling the question on conservative lines. Cecil spoke on 21 March 1859 in favour of the clause depriving the forty-sMlling freeholder, who voted in a borough, of the vote for the county which he had possessed as well. But the new government fell without being able to carry the measure, and from July 1859 to 1866 the conservatives were once more in opposition.

This period was 'the most interesting stage in Cecil's career'. Inside Parliament he was making a name by incisive attacks upon the liberal government. He crossed swords with Gladstone both by supporting the action of the House of Lords in refusing to repeal the paper duties (1860-1) and by opposing the taxation of charitable corporations (1863), and it was his motion charging the vice-president of the council with the mutilation of the reports of school-inspectors, which brought about the resignation of Robert Lowe (afterwards Viscount Sherbrooke) [q. v.] in 1864. By his speech of 8 Feb. 1861 on Villiers's motion for a committee to inquire into the relief of the poor he revealed an interest in and knowledge of social problems, and by that of 7 April 1862 a considerable mastery over finance. Outside Parliament his articles in the 'Quarterly Review' were making an effect upon a public opinion still responsive to such influences. Their trenchancy was such that both Russell and Gladstone paid them the compliment of uncomplimentary references (see Quarterly Review, July 1860, p. 292, and July 1866, p. 266), and they still constitute a formidable and independent criticism of the conduct of the leaders of both parties during the period as well as a lively review of the problems and politics of the time. Singularly free of literary artifice as well as of literary allusion, seldom if ever attaining any great height of eloquence, their style has long been recognised as a rare model of restrained, pungent, and vigorous English.

The Russell ministry fell in June 1866 owing to the opposition of the whigs and conservatives to their reform bill, and Cecil (who by the death of his elder brother on 14 June 1865 had become Viscount Cranborne and his father's heir) was appointed to the Indian secretaryship in the Derby government and sworn of the privy council (12 July 1866). Within a week of taking office it fell to his lot to bring in the Indian budget, and the ability which he displayed added considerably to his credit. Otherwise his nine months' administration was uneventful. In the counsels of the cabinet, however, he played an important part. The July riot in Hyde Park converted the parliamentary agitation for a reform bill into a popular movement, and Disraeli resolved to anticipate his opponents in giving effect to it. He hoped to do so without losing the support of his more conservative colleagues, and two bills, one to establish in the boroughs a conditional household suffrage, the other a 61. rating franchise, were submitted to the cabinet. On 23 Feb. 1867 Disraeli contrived by a judicious manipulation of statistics to get the more radical measure for household suffrage provisionally accepted by the whole cabinet. During the following day, however, which was Sunday, Cranborne had leisure to examine the figures more particularly, and by the evening had reached the conclusion that he could not support the measure. On the Monday morning he tendered his resignation to Derby, who was to address a party meeting the same afternoon. Peel and Carnarvon followed suit. To avoid a schism the ministry fell back, at the last minute, on the less violent project. But this manoauvre had no success with the House of Commons, and ten days later (4 March) Derby allowed his dissentient colleagues to withdraw, and proceeded with the household suffrage reform bill, which in due course became law, though not until it had been shorn of all its anti-democratic checks. Its passage was the occasion of some of Cranborne's most biting oratory and of the most famous of his 'Quarterly Review' articles 'The Conservative Surrender' in which he pressed home the great outrage upon political morality committed by the conservative leaders. A private letter (printed in the Life of Lord Coleridge, ii. 156) shows that he was near abandoning public life on the ground that his 'opinions were of the past,' and that the new constitution should be worked by those who believed in it. In any case the scene of his activities was bound to change, for the death of his father on 12 April 1868 had made him a member of the House of Lords. His last speech in the lower house was delivered on 30 March in opposition to Gladstone's motion for the disestablishment of the Irish Church.

He continued his defence of that church establishment in the upper house, and counselled the lords to reject Gladstone's bill which temporarily suspended the exercise of the Irish crown patronage. This course was taken, and the question referred to the