aborer, who had been educated by hunger and
toil, succeeded in establishing a national union among men of his
class (1872). In 1884 Mr. Gladstone, the Liberal Prime Minister,
secured the ballot for agricultural laborers by the passage of the
third Reform Act, which gave all residents of counties throughout the
United Kingdom the right to vote on the same liberal conditions as the
residents of the towns.

It is estimated that this last law added about two and a half millions
of voters; this gave one voter to every six persons of the total
population, whereas, before the passing of the first Reform Bill in
1832, thre was not over one in fifty. When the new or so-called
"People's Parliament" convened (1886), Joseph Arch and several other
candidates took their seats in the House of Commons as representatives
of classes of the population who, up to that date, had no voice in the
legislation of the country.

The next step may bring universal "manhood suffrage." The County
Council and Parish Council acts (1888, 1894) greatly extended the
power of the people in all matters of local government, so that now
every village in England controls its own affairs.

601. Compulsory Church Rates abolished; Disestablishment in Ireland
(1869).

While these great reforms were taking place with respect to elections,
others of great importance were also being effected. From its origin
in 1549 the established Protestant Church of England (S362) had
compelled persons of all religious beliefs to pay rates or taxes for
the maintenance of the Established Cuhrch in the parish where they
resided. Methodists, Baptists, and other Dissenters (SS472, 496, 507)
objected to this law as unjust, since, in addition to the expense of
supporting their own form of worship, they were obliged to contribute
toward maintaining one with which they had no sympathy. So great had
the opposition become to paying these "church rates," that in over
fifteen hundred parishes in England (1859) the authorities could not
collect them. After long debate Mr. Gladstone carried through a bill
(1868) which abolished this mode of taxation and made the payment of
these rates purely voluntary.[1]

[1] Church rates were levied on all occupiers of land or houses within
the parish. The Church of England is now supported by a tax on
landowners, by its endowments, and by voluntary gifts.

A similar act of justice was soon after granted to Ireland (1869).[2]
At the time o