Throughout all the campaign, as the time for
the general election was approaching, only one question was submitted to
the electors, "Do you approve or condemn Lord Beaconsfield's system of
foreign policy?" And the answer was given at Easter, 1880, when the
Prime Minister and his colleagues received the most empathic
condemnation which had ever been bestowed upon an English Government,
and the Liberals were returned in an overwhelming majority of fifty over
Tories and Home Rulers combined. Mr. Gladstone succeeded in ousting Lord
Dalkeith from the representation of Midlothian by a respectable
majority. He was also elected at Leeds, but this seat was afterwards
given to his son, Herbert Gladstone. At the conclusion of the election
all the journals joined in admiring the indomitable energy and vigor of
the orator, who could carry out this great enterprise when he had
already passed the age of three-score years and ten. Edinburgh was
illuminated in the evening, and everywhere were to be witnessed signs of
rejoicing at Mr. Gladstone's victory. The result of the elections
throughout the country exceeded the most sanguine expectations of the
Liberals. So large a proportion of Liberal members had not been returned
to the House of Commons since the days of the first Reform Bill.
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