for War When the Liberals regained power in 1880, Childers was appointed Secretary for War, a position he accepted reluctantly. He therefore had to bear responsibility for cuts in arms expenditure, a policy that provoked controversy when Britain began fighting; first the Boers in South Africa in 1880 and then the invasion of Egypt in 1882. Childers was also very unpopular with Horse Guards for the reinforcement and expansion of the Cardwell reforms. On 1 May 1881 he passed General Order 41, which outlined a series of improvements known as the Childers reforms. Chancellor of the Exchequer Childers became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1882, a post he had coveted. As such, he attempted to implement a conversion of Consols in 1884. Although the scheme proved a failure, it paved the way for the subsequent conversion in 1888. He attempted to resolve a budget shortfall in June 1885 by increasing alcohol duty and income tax. His budget was rejected by Parliament, and the government - already unpopular due to events in Egypt - was forced out of office. Childers's colleague the Earl of Rosebery commented resignedly: "So far as I know the budget is as good a question to go out upon as any other, and Tuesday as good a day." Home Secretary At the subsequent election in December 1885 Childers lost his Pontefract seat, but returned as an independent Home Ruler for Edinburgh South (one of the few Liberals who adopted this policy before Gladstone's conversion in 1886). Childers then served as Home Secretary in the short-lived ministry of 1886. He was critical of the financial clauses of the First Home Rule Bill, and their withdrawal was largely due to his threat of resignation. Nevertheless, the bill still failed to pass, and its rejection brought down the Liberal government. Retirement and the Childers Commission He retired from parliament in 1892, and his last piece of work was the drafting of a report for the 1894 "Financial Relations Commission" on Irish financial matters, of which he was chairman (generally known as the Childers Commission). This found that, compared to the rest of the United Kingdom, Ireland had been overtaxed on a per capita basis by some £2 or £3 million annually in previous decades. The matter was finally debated in March 1897. In the following decades Irish nationalists frequently quoted the report as proof that some form of fiscal freedom