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 Lord Derby's illness, an amendment to raise the lodger qualification from 10l. to 15l. The government accepted this, but afterwards, on Earl Russell's motion, the 10l. qualification was restored in committee and accepted by Lord Derby on 6 Aug. Cairns also carried, by 253 to 204, a motion in favour of the protection of minorities by means of the cumulative vote. In the same session he made an important speech, being always a champion of the protestant church in Ireland, against Earl Russell's motion for an address for a royal commission on the revenues of the Irish church. In February 1868 Lord Derby resigned office through ill-health, and Mr. Disraeli became prime minister, and in forming his ministry summarily passed over Lord Chelmsford and appointed Cairns lord-chancellor. Although this was according at any rate to the spirit of Lord Derby's agreement with him in 1866, Lord Chelmsford was exceedingly indignant, complained of being dismissed ‘with less courtesy than if he had been a butler,’ and appealed to Lord Derby, who, however, confirmed Mr. Disraeli's view of the matter. In 1877 Cairns, as a sort of reparation, appointed Lord Chelmsford's son, Alfred Henry Thesiger [q. v.], a lord-justice of the appeal court. On the defeat of the conservatives at the general election, Cairns resigned with Mr. Disraeli, and after Lord Derby's death (23 Oct. 1869) led the opposition in the House of Lords. His resistance to the disestablishment of the Irish church was vigorous and tenacious. His speech on Mr. Gladstone's Suspensory Bill was printed and widely circulated, and in 1868 the bill, although carried by large majorities in the House of Commons, was thrown out by the lords by 192 to 97. On 20 July 1869, when the Irish Church Bill was returned to the lords, as re-amended by the commons, Cairns moved and carried by a majority of seventy-eight that the lords do insist on their amendments to the preamble of the bill, to which the commons had disagreed. But the resulting constitutional strain was great, and when on the 22nd Cairns heard, within an hour of the debate, that the government was willing to offer then and there acceptable concessions, which must be taken or refused before the debate began and could not afterwards be renewed, he took upon himself the responsibility of ending the struggle between the houses, and agreed with Lord Granville to withdraw his opposition. This, however, had to be done without consulting his party, and they were much aggrieved at this apparent vacillation, until Cairns cleared the matter up by sending round to his followers a circular on 24 July. Not long after this he resigned the leadership of the conservative party in the House of Lords, but he resumed it in 1870, Lord Salisbury being then too little in harmony with his party to lead it with success, and he energetically opposed the Irish Land Bill in that year. He was at this time acting also as a law lord on House of Lords' appeals, although on resigning in December 1868 he had declined Lord Hatherley's invitation to him to resume his place as a lord-justice of appeal. He also acted as arbitrator, in conjunction with Lord Salisbury, under the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company's Act, and also in another most intricate arbitration upon the affairs of the Albert Life Insurance Company in 1871. Consequently about this time he found his health considerably impaired, and was obliged to spend some time at Mentone, and during his absence the leadership of the conservative peers was undertaken by the Duke of Richmond. He was in his place, however, to speak upon the triple treaty of England, France, and Prussia to secure the independence of Belgium (August 1870), and he also very energetically opposed the appointment of Sir Robert Collier to a seat on the judicial committee of the privy council as a colourable evasion of the law. Although he was in opposition when the Judicature Act was passed, he had been chairman of the committee on judicature reform, which reported in 1869, and was lord chancellor when the act came into operation, and had a large share in the passing of the act. It was on his initiative that Lord Selborne's bill of 1873, which had displaced the House of Lords as the ultimate court of appeal, was amended by allowing an appeal from the supreme court to the House of Lords. The name of the supreme court, however, remained unchanged, so that though in name supreme it is not so in fact. In this as in much other legislation Cairns and Lord Selborne, who had always been rivals in politics and at the bar, worked together with mutual trust and confidence. It was practically by their agreement that the Married Women's Property Act of 1882 was passed; and with Lord Selborne's sanction Cairns brought to a successful issue the Conveyancing Acts of 1881 and 1882 and the Settled Land Act of 1882. Though thus responsible for most important legal changes, the only act which bears Cairns's name is one, now repealed, to enable the court of chancery to give damages in lieu of specific performance or an injunction.

When the conservatives took office after the general election of 1874, Cairns was lord-chancellor in Mr. Disraeli's government. In that year he introduced the Real Property