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 290 THE CECILS

claims of Portugal, the frontiers of Rhodesia were denned and Nyasaland secured for Great Britain.

" The best justification of Lord Salisbury's policy between 1885 and 1892," says a writer in the Quarterly Review? " is that he found Great Britain confronted by a hostile European coalition, a prey to innumerable humiliations and perplexi- ties and on the brink of war, and that he left her at peace, enjoying the friendship of all the great Powers, and pursuing her Imperial course with unfettered hands and undiminished lustre."

The Conservative Government came to a natural end at the close of the session of 1892, and at the general election the Opposition were returned with a majority of forty. Lord Salisbury accordingly gave place to Gladstone, whose second Home Rule Bill was passed by the House of Commons in 1893 and rejected by a majority of 419 against 41 in the House of Lords. Gladstone did not venture to appeal to the country, which heartily approved of the action of the Peers, and the Liberal Government remained in office until 1895, when it was defeated on a snap division on the Cordite Vote (June 2ist). Lord Rosebery, who had succeeded Gladstone as Prime Minister in the previous year, at once resigned, and Lord Salisbury was summoned to form an administration for the third time.

He was now able to secure the co-operation of

1 October 1902, p. 665,

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