the intimidation of employers, made unions legal, and protected their funding from lawsuits. The Protestant Church of Ireland was disestablished. Catholics no longer had to pay taxes to it. While the Navy was in fine shape, the Army was not. Its organization was confused, its policies unfair, and its punishments were based chiefly on flogging. At the county level, politicians named the officers of the county militia units, preferring connections in class over capacity. The regular army called for enlistments for 21 years, but with reforms initiated by Edward Cardwell, Gladstone's War Secretary, enlistments were reduced to six years, plus six years in the reserves. Regiments were organized by territorial districts, and advanced with modern rifles. The complex chain of command was simplified, and in wartime the county militias were under the control of the central war office. The purchase of officers' commissions was abolished, as was flogging in peacetime. The reforms were not quite complete, the Duke of Cambridge, as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, still had great authority, despite his mediocre abilities. Historians have given Gladstone high marks on his successful reform programme. Salisbury Historians agree that Lord Salisbury as foreign minister and prime minister in the late 19th century was a strong and effective leader in foreign affairs. He had a superb grasp of the issues, and proved: Conservative Prime Minister Lord Salisbury was a "talented leader who was an icon of traditional, aristocratic conservatism". Salisbury was "a great foreign minister, [but] essentially negative, indeed reactionary in home affairs". Another historian's estimate is more favourable; he portrays Salisbury as a leader who "held back the popular tide for twenty years." "[I]nto the 'progressive' strain of modern Conservatism he simply will not fit." One historian pointed to "the narrow cynicism of Salisbury". One admirer of Salisbury agrees that Salisbury found the democracy born of the 1867 and 1884 Reform Acts as "perhaps less objectionable than he had expected—succeeding, through his public persona, in mitigating some part of its nastiness." Early 20th century 1901–1918 Prime Ministers from 1900 to 1945: Marquess of Salisbury, Arthur Balfour, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, H. H. Asquith, David Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. The Liberal Party was in power from 1906 to 1915, when it formed a wartime coalition. It passed the welfare reforms that created a basic British welfare state. It weakened