In 1874 the Bill for the Regulation of Public Worship was passed. In the following year Mr. Plimsoll, by the exercise of that dogged determination and gallant defiance of Parliamentary conventions, by means of which Parliament can sometimes be goaded into acts of justice, forced the Government to pass the Merchant Shipping Bill. Mr. Cross, the Home Secretary, introduced the useful Artisans' Dwellings Bill, which was passed. Upon 25th November, 1875, the Government, at the suggestion of Mr. Frederic Greenwood, purchased from the Khedive of Egypt, 176,000 Suez Canal shares for the sum of £4,000,000.
In the same year, the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, went to India, whither he was accompanied by Commander Lord Charles Beresford, M.P., as A.D.C. (Lord Charles was promoted to the rank of commander on 2nd { 124} November, 1875.) The Prince received a telegram informing him of the purchase of the Suez Canal shares when his ship was passing through the Canal on the way to India. Lord Lytton was appointed Viceroy of India. In 1876 it was announced that the Queen was to assume the additional title of "Empress of India."
In July, 1875, there was trouble in the Near East, which, nearly two years later, in April, 1877, resulted in the declaration by Russia of war against Turkey. The Mediterranean Fleet was ordered to pass the Dardanelles. In March, 1878, Lord Derby resigned, and Lord Salisbury succeeded him at the Foreign Office. Mr. Gathorne Hardy went to the India Office, Colonel Stanley to the War Office, and Mr. James Lowther became Chief Secretary for Ireland. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had already succeeded Lord Carnarvon at the Colonial Office.
In the Parliament of 1875-80, young Mr. Parnell began his career. Indomitable, subtle, cold and inscrutable, he speedily became a power. A Protestant in faith, he had his foot on the necks of the Irish Roman Catholic Nationalist members; half an Englishman by birth, he was an implacable enemy of England. Utilising the tactics of obstruction, he succeeded in bringing discredit upon a Government which was powerless to control him and his led captains. He forced the Government to pass a Bill for University Education in Ireland; and as the measure was no better, if no worse, than the Gladstonian scheme which had been rejected, so the result upon the Conservative administration was equally injurious.