In 1884 Gladstone introduced a bill for enfranchising two million agricultural voters and divorced it from the large re arrangement of seats which such an unequally distributed addi tion to the electorate would require. Salisbury saw in this pro cedure an intention of manipulating the constituencies in a party sense and invited the House of Lords to compel an appeal to the country on the question by refusing to pass one bill without the other. They did so and a tempestuous campaign of protest against their action followed. It was responded to by a similar campaign in their favour, in which Salisbury took a prominent part. The recurrent climax of his speeches was a challenge to the Government to dissolve parliament and so obtain the verdict of the electors on the issue. Through the Queen's mediation the controversy was closed by Gladstone's giving the required guaran tee of impartiality in the Redistribution bill by inviting Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote to assist in drawing it up.
On June 8, 1885, the Liberals, disorganized by Sudanese dis aster, allowed their Government to be defeated on a Budget vote and Mr. Gladstone resigned. The passage of the Franchise Act had made a dissolution impossible until the new registers were completed in November, and there were patent reasons why Salisbury, whom the Queen summoned, should refuse to take office. It would lose for his party all the advantage of attack in the approaching elections, and it would place on it the invidious responsibility of governing Ireland without the Crimes act, whose necessity it had urged and which was due to expire that summer. But the state of affairs abroad which the Queen revealed to him decided Salisbury upon acceptance. England was at that moment without friends or authority in Europe; perennial antagonists— Russia and Austria—France and Germany—had been negotiating reconciliation at her expense; if present conditions were suffered to continue it seemed to him that any catastrophe was possible. He kissed hands as prime minister and foreign secretary on June First Ministry.—His tenure of office this time was too short for the testing of any policy, but he achieved one sensational success. That September, the southern Bulgarians, who had been left under Turkish rule by the Treaty of Berlin, revolted and proclaimed union with their northern brethren. These and their Prince, Alexander of Battenberg, had in the intervening seven years quarrelled hopelessly with their Russian patron and Russia was now foremost in vindication of the treaty and insistence upon an immediate reversal of the achieved union. A conference of the Powers was called and the rest of the Continent rallied to the Russian demand. Salisbury alone refused. Now that the union had become an accomplished fact, he declared, the Bulgarians would never willingly surrender it and to force surrender, as the Imperial Governments proposed, by means of a Turkish military "execution," was unthinkable. For weeks he was argued with,
pressed, objurgated for stultifying the united authority of Europe. He refused to give in and on Nov. 25 the conference broke up. Meanwhile Serbia, outraged at the accretion of territory illicitly secured by her neighbour, had invaded Bulgaria. Her unexpected and crushing defeat by Prince Alexander converted the great Powers to a depressed recognition of the facts upon which Salis bury had insisted. In December he was appealed to for help in discovering some face-saving compromise and the sultan was induced to come to a direct agreement with Prince Alexander, in which the union was recognized. The Treaty Powers had only to acquiesce, while the continental press turned round and con gratulated the British minister upon the prescience and firmness which had saved Europe from a disastrous blunder.
Before this settlement was finally consummated Salisbury had left office. The general election in November had resulted in giving the Irish party the casting vote in the House of Commons. In December Gladstone had announced his adhesion to Home Rule and Salisbury's ministry was defeated on an amendment to the address on Jan. 26,1886. Gladstone introduced his Home Rule bill which, with the assistance of 90 dissident Liberals, was re jected, on June 8. Parliament was dissolved; the Unionists gained a decisive victory though not one giving a majority to the Con servatives independently of their allies. On July 20, the Queen sent for Salisbury who, with her leave, pressed Hartington to take the premiership in his stead. But the Liberal-Unionist chief refused, promising independent support, and Lord Salisbury formed his second Government which remained in power for six years,— c886-92.