Between Waterloo and Gladstone's first ministry, Britain underwent a series of rapid and complex changes. At home repression gave way to reform of the franchise, local government, education, poor relief, and the factory and legal systems. Further agitation was to arise over the Corn Laws, the People's Charter, and the Irish Question before Britain was able to bask in the glow of the mid-Victorian supremacy forged by its economic might and the foreign policy pursued by Castlereagh, Canning, and Palmerston, which maintained the balance of power and extended the colonial empire.