[1] But many men and women who belong to the Dissenting Denominations complain that the Educational Acts of 1870-1904 compel them to pay taxes for the support of a great number of public elementary schools which are under the control of the English Church, and furthermore, that teachers who are members of Dissenting societies, such as the Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, etc., can seldom, if ever, get appointments in the class of schools mentioned.  Quite a number of these Dissenters who call themselves “Passive Resisters” have refused to pay the school tax and have had their property seized or have been sent to jail year after year. [2] A.L.  Lowell’s “The Government of England,” II, 323.

Meanwhile (1871) the universities and colleges, with most of the offices and professorships connected with them, were thrown open to all persons without regard to religious belief; whereas, formerly, no one could graduate from Oxford or Cambridge without subscribing to the doctrines of the Church of England.

603.  The First Irish Land Act, 1870.

In 1870, the same year that the Government undertook to provide for the education of the masses (S602), Mr. Gladstone, who was still Prime Minister and head of the Liberal Party (S601), brought in a bill for the relief of small Irish farmers, those who had to support themselves and their families from the little they could get from a few hired acres.  Since the union (S562) much of the general policy of England toward Ireland had been described as “a quick alternation of kicks and kindness.”  Mr. Gladstone did not hesitate to say that he believed the misery of the island sprang mainly from its misgovernment.  He thought that the small farmer needed immediate help and that it was the duty of the Liberal Party to grant it.

The circumstances under which the land was held in Ireland were peculiar.  A very large part of it was owned by Englishmen whose ancestors obtained it through the wholesale confiscations of James I, Cromwell, and later rulers (SS423, 453).  Very few of these English landlords cared to reside in the country or to do anything for its improvement.  Their agents or overseers generally forced the farm tenants to pay the largest amount of rent that could be wrung from them, and they could dispossess a tenant of his land whenever they saw fit, without giving a reason for the act.  If, by his labor, the tenant made the land more fertile, he seldom reaped any additional profit from his industry, for the rent was usually increased, and swallowed up all that he raised.  Such a system of extortion was destructive to those who tilled the soil, and if it brought in more money for the landlord, it produced nothing but misery and discontent for his tenant.

Mr. Gladstone’s new law endeavored to remedy these evils by the following provisions: