Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/221

 incorporated with the universities should be open to persons of all religious opinions.’

Over the army regulation bill of 1871, which, among other reforms, sought to abolish the purchase of commissions in the army, Harcourt came into sharp collision with Gladstone. While denouncing the custom of ‘purchase,’ he protested against Gladstone using the Royal Warrant in procuring its abolition. The government's attitude was strongly defended by the attorney-general, Sir Robert Collier, afterwards Baron Monkswell, and the solicitor-general, Sir John Duke (afterwards Baron) Coleridge, on two different grounds of argument, and Harcourt delighted the house by asking ‘in the language of Newmarket, whether the government was going to win with Attorney-General on Statute or with Solicitor-General on Prerogative.’ Again in July he opposed that clause of the elections bill which sought to impose election expenses upon the constituencies on the ground that ‘the people had long looked for the ballot as a boon; they were now going to give them the ballot as a tax.’ With persistence he urged law reform on the notice of the country and the house (cf. address as president of the jurisprudence section of the Social Science Congress meeting at Leeds, Oct. 1871, and The Times, 8 Dec. 1871 and 3, 18, 21, and 28 Dec. 1872). On 26 July 1872 he moved ‘that the administration of the law, under the existing system, is costly, dilatory, and inefficient. …’ and, after a long debate, his motion was defeated only by a majority of fifteen. His activity both in and out of parliament helped to shape the Judicature Act of 1873, in the discussion of which he took a large part.

In discussions on the ballot bill in 1872 Harcourt carried against the government by 167 to 166 an amendment substituting ‘with corrupt intent’ for the word ‘wilfully’ in the clause making it punishable for a man ‘wilfully’ to disclose the name of the candidate for whom he voted. On 5 July he moved the second reading of the criminal law amendment bill, which provided that picketing should not be subject to a criminal charge. During November Harcourt attacked as an infringement of the right of public meeting A. S. Ayrton's bill for enabling the office of works to regulate public meetings in the London parks.

With equal independence and persistency Harcourt urged in parliament and the country the need of reducing the public expenditure, especially that on armaments (cf. Hansard, 1 April 1873). At his instance Gladstone appointed early in 1873 a select committee, with Harcourt as one of its members, to consider civil service expenditure. In debate on the Irish University bill, on 13 Feb., he denounced the clauses which prohibited the teaching of philosophy and modern history, declaring them to be ‘the anathema of the Vatican against modern civilisation.’ On the defeat of the second reading of this bill (March) Gladstone resigned, but he resumed office owing to Disraeli's refusal to form a ministry. Later in the year (Nov. 20) Sir John Duke Coleridge, then attorney-general, was promoted to the bench. His place was taken by Sir Henry James [q. v. Supp. II], Harcourt's friend and companion in the House of Commons below the gangway, who had been made solicitor-general in the preceding September. Harcourt accepted Gladstone's offer of James's post of solicitor-general (20 Nov.). He deprecated receiving the customary honour of knighthood, but was overborne by Gladstone, and he was knighted at Windsor Castle on 17 Dec. He was returned unopposed for Oxford on 5 Dec.

Little opportunity was offered of testing his changed relations with a government of which he had been a somewhat rigorous critic and was now an official member. The dissolution of parliament, on 26 Jan. 1874, practically ended his first experience of office within three months. The liberals were heavily defeated in the country. The return of Disraeli to power on 21 Feb. placed Harcourt for the first time in opposition.

Re-elected for Oxford on 3 Feb. 1874, Harcourt proved a formidable enemy of the new conservative government. But his interest in the first session of the new parliament was concentrated on the public worship regulation bill, which, although not a government bill, was warmly supported by Disraeli. A staunch protestant throughout his career, Harcourt enthusiastically championed a measure which was designed to crush ritualism. Gladstone was no less vehement in opposition to the bill, and sarcastically twitted his follower with ‘displays of erudition rapidly and cleverly acquired’ (cf. in The Times, 11, 14, 20, 27, and 30 July 1874). But there was no permanent alienation. Through the sessions of 1875 and 1876 Harcourt was untiring in criticisms of conservative bills and policy, mainly on party lines. By his vigorous attack in ‘The Times’ of 4 and 5 Nov. (1875) on the Admiralty's ‘Slave Circular’ authorising the surrender of slaves taking refuge on British