Confidential.
Foreign Office: January 16, 1886.
My dear Randolph,—I cannot say how much touched I am by the great kindness and loyalty of your letter. I cannot help feeling how little I deserve it. I will tell you at once what my dominant feeling is. It is that we should be a united Cabinet—if possible with a united party. I have been throughout ready to postpone my individual opinion to this primary consideration. We have no right to the luxury of divided councils in a crisis such as this. It is evident that the great majority of the Cabinet—and, I believe, the great majority of the party—wish earnestly for a policy which will show that we do not shrink from the duty of government, and that we mean to stand by the Loyalists. The disaster I am afraid of is that we should be driven from office on some motion insisting on the necessity of a vigorous step, and our position in Opposition would then be very feeble and we should be much discredited.
I really feel very strongly and deeply all the kindness you have shown to me, and the great and most successful efforts you have made to sustain the Government. I should differ from you and Beach with the most extreme reluctance. But do not let us take any line which will brand us in the eyes of our countrymen—or will enable our opponents to do so—as the timid party, who let things float because they dared not act. The time is coming on us when people will long for government: do not let us get a character of shrinking from responsibility.
The question of the personnel of the [Irish] Government must be considered, but the Speech presses for settlement in the first instance. I should have thought that the notorious growth of this ‘second government’ throughout Ireland, overshadowing the law and the Queen’s authority and securing its power by organised terror, would have sustained a case for such a Bill as Gibson produced. If you remain of the opposite opinion, let us consider whether some such phrase as the enclosed could unite us.[50] It is merely a suggestion. I confess I have a heavy heart in the whole matter. I have serious doubts whether I am doing my duty. But my train is going. Perhaps I may write again from Hatfield.
Ever yours very truly,
Salisbury.
Lord Randolph now surrendered his view altogether. Never before or afterwards did the two men stand in such cordial relationship. A comradeship in anxiety had drawn these contrasted natures, each so vehement and earnest after its own fashion, very close together:—
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury.
India Office: January 16, 1886.
Dear Lord Salisbury,—I am very grateful for your letter, which enables me to enter more fully into the position from which you view things than I have been able hitherto to do. I greatly like the paragraph suggested, and believe firmly that it meets with wisdom, tact, and courage the necessities and the possibilities of the situation. But, after all, you are the head of the Government, and have had a very long experience of public affairs; and if you think it absolutely incumbent to go further—well, then, further we must go. A collapse of the Government at the present moment would be a catastrophe too hideous to contemplate.