1895 vote of no confidence in the Rosebery ministry

The vote of no confidence in the Rosebery ministry of 21 June 1895, also known as the Cordite vote, was the occasion on which the Liberal Government of the Earl of Rosebery was defeated in a vote of censure by the House of Commons. The motion was to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State for War as a censure over deficient supply of cordite to the Army, and when it was passed the Secretary of State Henry Campbell Bannerman offered his resignation. As Campbell Bannerman was the most popular Minister in a Government which was suffering internal division and whose members had grown tired of office, the Government chose to interpret the issue as one involving confidence in the Government and therefore resigned. The incoming Conservative government soon sought a dissolution of Parliament and won the ensuing general election. The vote is the last time in the History of the British Parliament that a government has been defeated on a confidence motion when it had a workable majority.

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery had become Prime Minister in March 1894, following William Ewart Gladstone's resignation, being the personal choice of Queen Victoria. Rosebery was told by the Queen's emissary (her physician, Sir James Reid) that he was "the only man of your party she likes and trusts". His choice over several other men with larger followings in the party, particularly Sir William Harcourt and John Morley led to inevitable tension, and Harcourt in particular did nothing to help the Government out of its difficulties. The Government was dependent on the Irish Parliamentary Party for its majority in the House of Commons, but could offer them little towards their goals as Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill had been defeated by the House of Lords in 1893.

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