ABSTRACT
When William Ewart Gladstone kissed hands in April, 1880, as Prime Minister for the second time, he looked like a man at the summit of his power. He had overthrown a statesman and a policy, both of them apparently popular and firmly established. Gladstone, fresh from his triumph as an orator, stepped into the office of Prime Minister with his mind full of the problems that had absorbed him during his campaign. Gladstone, his mind on Bulgaria, Afghanistan, the Zulus, and the Boers, gave them little of his attention. He thought that all that was needed was some reform of his Land Act of 1870, restoring the remedies that had been forbidden by the Lords. Gladstone’s strength was illusory, and to understand the disasters that overwhelmed his second Government it is necessary to glance at the causes of his weakness.
