1 February. Historians point to his age as an explanation for his inflexibility. He minimized the Radical role in his cabinet, with only Joseph Chamberlain representing that faction. The result was internal feuding that so weakened the cabinet that solid achievements were lacking. The historian Donald Southgate argues: Gladstone, age and ailing, had lost his effectiveness....The party was suffering because the desire to preserve it took precedence, even with the leading Radicals, over the desire to employ it for any particular purpose, such as the grant of local representative institutions to Ireland. The historian Robert Ensor wrote: Never in the modern era has a triumphant House of Commons majority achieved so little....The reason was not merely the continuing economic unrest outside, nor the new phenomena of two oppositions—an Irish as well as a conservative. It was that... there persisted a hidden [conflict] within the majority itself, which palsied the government's consuls and zigzagged its policy.... His own method of adjustment, which was to be radical in the open and whiggish behind the scenes, allowed neither side to feel secure. Now, too, that he was past 70, mere egotism grew on him; and within a habit of playing this mystery—man and puzzling his followers by unexpected moves. Gladstone turned to Ireland. The First Home Rule Bill was introduced to Parliament on 8 April and the Land Purchase Bill on 16 April. Joseph Chamberlain and George Otto Trevelyan resigned from the Cabinet when Gladstone told them that he intended to introduce the bills. The Land Purchase Bill enabled landlords in Ireland—mostly Protestants—to sell their land to their tenants for the price of 20 years' rent. The purchases were to be financed by government loans funded by £120,000,000 secured on British credit at 3%. The bill was a shock to Liberals and brought down Gladstone's government in a matter of months. Irish nationalist reaction was mixed, Unionist opinion was hostile, and the election addresses during the 1886 election revealed English radicals to be against the bill also. Among the Liberal rank and file, several Gladstonian candidates disowned the bill, reflecting fears at the constituency level that the interests of the working people were being sacrificed to finance a rescue operation for the landed elite. The Land Purchase Bill was criticised from all sides and was dropped. The Home Rule Bill was defeated by 343 votes to 313, with 93 Liberals voting against. Thus nothing was accomplished except the permanent disruption of the Liberal Party. Men who left the Liberal Party now formed the Liberal Unionist Party. Gladstone dissolved Parliament and called a general election which resulted in a Unionist (Conservative and Liberal Unionist) landslide victory under Salisbury. Fourth government (1892–1894) The general election of 1892 returned more Liberals than Unionists but without an overall majority. The Unionists stayed in office until they lost a motion of no confidence moved by H. H. Asquith on 11 August. Gladstone became Prime Minister for the last time at the age of 82, and was both the oldest ever person to be appointed to the office and when he resigned in 1894 aged 84 he was the oldest person ever to occupy the Premiership. Gladstone was the first Prime Minister to make it a condition of ministers to resign directorships of public companies in 1892. This was abandoned by Salisbury in 1895 and Arthur Balfour after him but was restored by Liberal Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1905 and was observed ever since. Having to rely on Irish Nationalist votes, Gladstone introduced the Second Home Rule Bill in February 1893, passing second reading on 21 April by 43 votes