The acute political crisis now maturing within the Liberal party had a special menace for Sir Charles Dilke. It threatened to affect a personal tie cemented by his friend's stanchness through these months of trouble.
On January 31st, 1886, he wrote:
'My Dear Chamberlain,
'I feel that our friendship is going to be subjected to the heaviest strain it has ever borne, and I wish to minimize any risks to it, in which, however, I don't believe. I am determined that it shall not dwindle into a form or pretence of friendship of which the substance has departed. It will be a great change if I do not feel that I can go to your house or to your room as freely as ever. At the same time confidence from one in the inner circle of the Cabinet to one wholly outside the Government is not easy, and reserve makes all conversation untrue. I think the awkwardness will be less if I abstain from taking part in home affairs (unless, indeed, in supporting my Local Government Bill, should that come up). In Foreign Affairs we shall not be brought into conflict, and to Foreign and Colonial affairs I propose to return.
'I intend to sit behind (in Forster's seat), not below the gangway, as long as you are in the Government.
'There is one great favour which I think you will be able to do me without any trouble to yourself, and that is to let my wife come to your room to see me between her lunch and the meeting of the House. The greatest nuisance about being out is that I shall have to go down in the mornings to get my place, and to sit in the library all day….
'Yours ever,
'Chs. W. D'
When the first trial of the divorce case was over (almost before Mr. Gladstone's Government had fairly assumed office), in the period during which Sir Charles designedly absented himself from the House of Commons,
'Chamberlain asked me to act on the Committee to revise my Local Government Bill, and to put it into a form for introduction to the House; and I attended at the Local Government Board throughout the spring at meetings at which Chamberlain, if present, presided…. It is a curious fact that I often presided over this Cabinet Committee, though not a member of the Government.'