His interest in Labour questions was, indeed, growing steadily. When the Eight Hours Bill for Miners was discussed that year in the Commons, he addressed a long private letter to Mr. Balfour praying for its considerate treatment. ‘I humbly advise, but pressingly; in the debate let Gorst have a little Labour fling. Keep your hand tight over Matthews and, if you can see your way to it, make one of those interesting and amicable speeches which you can do so well, not exactly saying that your mind is open, but, to use a Gladstonianism, that it is not altogether absolutely closed. You can realise,’ he added quaintly, ‘how much importance I attach to the question when I tell you that I am actually coming up from Lincoln and missing three important races in which our horses run, to vote for the Bill. I do not think I would do this for the Monarchy, the Church, the House of Lords or the Union.’

The General Election came at that period, July, dear to the hearts of Tory organisers, when democracy is supposed to be under the soothing influence of summer weather, and before villadom has departed on its holidays. Lord Randolph took little part in it. He stood for South Paddington as a Conservative and an opponent of Home Rule. He let it be understood that if he was not interfered with by the Liberal party he would not speak outside the limits of his own constituency. This bargain seeming sufficiently good, in view of the fact that the seat was impregnable, no opposition was offered him. The only speech he found it necessary to make, and his election address, dealt almost entirely with the maintenance of the Union, though the latter also contained the following paragraph:—

‘My views as to the reforms in the public service which public safety and economy alike urgently call for, are, I think, well known to you; they have undergone no change, save that I hold them more strongly than ever. You are also, I imagine, not unaware of my desire to meet with all legitimate sympathy and good-will the newly-formed but very articulate and well-defined demands of the labouring classes.’

To FitzGibbon he wrote:—

I cannot manage to get over for the Trinity College festivities. I have a great and increasing horror of anything in the nature of speeches and functions. We are all over here awaiting in suspense the result of the elections.... I have refused many invitations to speak. I do not think the time at all propitious for anything in the shape of a manifesto such as you suggest. Besides which, I have no contest in this constituency; and as the Radicals are not annoying me I do not want to provoke them. Nor do I feel called upon to take any action which may be of the slightest use to a Government and a party which for five years has boycotted and slandered me....

The Paddington election proceeded smoothly to an unopposed return. Parliament met only to change an Administration and separate for the holidays.

1893
Æt. 44

I am living [Lord Randolph wrote to FitzGibbon in November] a very quiet life in London, mainly occupied in reading books of one kind and another. I have two discourses to deliver, one at Macclesfield on the 30th inst. and one at Perth in December. Then tacebo. I hope John Morley will make a final adjustment of the grievances of those poor Christian Brothers. If I can usefully make any representations to him, instruct me. We have always been very good friends. Such Ministers as I have seen declare that they will soon be turned out; but I cannot see why this should be so. At any rate, beyond opposing their Home Rule Bill, I shall do nothing to bother them, as I very greatly prefer them to their predecessors.

This feeling of detachment was soon to be removed. The accession of Mr. Gladstone to power and the imminence of a Home Rule Bill was bound to unite in the most effective manner all sections of the Unionist party. Lord Randolph had, since his return from South Africa, accepted, though not without embarrassment, an invitation to dine with Lord Salisbury. ‘C’est le premier plat qui coûte,’ wrote Wolff, who highly approved of the proceeding. Now Chamberlain sent a very friendly letter, and this was soon followed by a long and agreeable conference. The meetings which Lord Randolph had consented to address at Perth and Macclesfield in the autumn must have made his antagonism to the new Government plain; and only the sudden death of his brother the Duke of Marlborough, in November, which was a great shock to him, caused those arrangements to fall through; so that Parliament met in January, 1893, without his having formally joined himself to the official leaders of the Opposition.

With the opening of the Session and the beginning of the fight came full and complete reconciliation. He was urged to take his place again upon the Front Bench. ‘If it had ever occurred to me,’ wrote Mr. Balfour (January 30, 1893), ‘that you could sit anywhere but on our bench, I would have spoken about it to you last night. Everyone desires you should do so, and most of all yours ever, A. J. B.’ At the meeting of the Conservative party in the Carlton Club to consider the resistance to the Home Rule Bill, he kept himself in the background at some distance from Lord Salisbury. But after all the worthies had spoken, the assembly still found the proceedings incomplete and loud cries were raised from all parts of the room for ‘Churchill.’ At first there was no response, but so continuous and insistent was the demand that Lord Randolph eventually came forward and in a few simple words, which evoked remarkable enthusiasm, declared his willingness to serve, to the best of his ability, in the House of Commons under his friend and political chief, Mr. Balfour. He was henceforward invited to attend the private meetings of the Unionist leaders which were held at Devonshire House during the passage of the Irish Bill, and he took his share in framing the amendments and deciding upon the policy of the Opposition.