I should be strongly in favour of the latter if Royal sanction could be obtained. If the Government resign, Gladstone succeeds in forming an Administration and carrying a Bill through the Commons by great majorities. Then will crop up again the eternal question of resistance of the House of Lords to the will of the people, and an appeal to the people on that ground will cause the essential question of Repeal or no Repeal to be obscured or perhaps altogether lost sight of. By dissolution, a clear issue is presented to English and Scotch constituencies, and the House of Lords is kept out of the battle.
Then there is no reason, it is true, why the agricultural labourers, revolving many things in their anxious minds, should not gladly agree to Repeal in order to obtain three acres and a cow, and therefore no great change in the state of parties might result, and the Tories would be definitely and decisively beaten on a distinct issue. Well, what then? We should have fought our battle as well as it could be fought, and the Repeal of the Union would be the work of the people, the responsibility resting absolutely upon them and not upon us.
This is my own way of looking at the situation, and why I adhere to the policy, which you think will be ‘brushed aside,’ of changes in County Government, &c. That policy may fail, but at any rate it is a Conservative policy; the surrender to Home Rule, no matter how you disguise it, is the reverse of conservative as you will be the first to admit. The Disraeli epoch of constant metamorphoses of principles and party has passed away.
Radical work must be done by Radical artists; thus less mischief will arise.
Yours sincerely,
Randolph S. Churchill.
‘I cannot say,’ wrote Lord Salisbury, to whom this correspondence had been referred (December 6), ‘how heartily I agree in the tone of your letter to Morris.’
The whole political situation was considered at a Cabinet Council on the 16th. Decision was taken to go on with the Government, to meet Parliament and await results. The outlines of the Queen’s Speech were considered. Lord Randolph was most anxious to assign a foremost place to the reform of Parliamentary Procedure, as described in his memorandum. The Cabinet, having listened to long speeches on Irish matters, were tired and disposed to be irritable. The subject was one with which they were very familiar and on which many of them had already committed themselves. One Minister whom Lord Randolph thought he had conciliated the day before, pronounced absolutely against it. Lord Salisbury practised what he called ‘the decorous reserve proper to one who had been so long out of the House of Commons.’ The whole question was abruptly postponed. This defeat filled Lord Randolph with mortification. He loved his own plans ardently. He cared too much for the objects at stake to be skilful in personal diplomacy. He could fight; he could lead; he could drive; but a stolid junta of Cabinet Ministers—‘holy men,’ as he called them, vexed his soul. He was grievously disappointed at what he took to be the summary dismissal of a most important subject. He wrote in deep despondency to the Prime Minister. Lord Salisbury consoled him in a letter almost affectionate in character. All would come right if he drafted his proposals and chose a better opportunity of taking the sense of the Cabinet upon them.
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury.
India Office: December 17, 1885.
Dear Lord Salisbury,—I am very grateful for your kind letter, and intensely relieved to learn that you consider the question of giving to Procedure a prominent place in our programme as still quite open. I shall do as you tell me, and place on paper elaborated proposals for the more efficient and speedy transaction of ‘business.’ You are, I know, quite right in blaming me for having been precipitate on Tuesday. I cannot help it, and shall never be able to attain to that beatific state of chronic deliberation which is the peculiarity of * * *, * * * & Co., and also of the Turk.