No amendments will be moved by any of us, but some have been drawn and will be given to others. James’ amendments to the fifth clause are very ingenious. But I shall send you a paper of amendments marked after next Friday. We are to meet on Fridays when the H. R. Bill is in Committee. Government will not get their Committee Thursday: at the earliest not before Monday. I have not been very well lately, and the last three days have had a dreadful cough, which would quite have incapacitated me from speaking. I hope now it is yielding to treatment, and fortunately I have had no speeches to make. I am full of hope. There is much rumour that Mr. G. will go to the House of Lords. Harcourt is certainly very unwell. Belfast seems to have settled down. I have several speeches in the country before me in May. Write to me when you have time, but not in those horrid envelopes.
50 Grosvenor Square.
I have just delivered a twenty minutes’ speech in the House of Commons on the case of the Christian Brothers. We had a large majority against the Ulster Bill. You will find a passage in Morley’s speech in which he said that he still hoped for an arrangement, and that if he was a member of the Board [of National Education] he should expect to be able to discover a method. The Tories are, I expect, very cross with me.
I think you can now go to work again.
50 Grosvenor Square, W.: July 11, 1893.
I wish you had not written in so uncomplimentary a strain about Rosebery. I would have shown it him but for that. I have the very highest opinion of his work,[76] and always describe it as a literary diamond. Now please write me another letter, more complimentary. You can bring out all the views which have occurred to you without accusing him of absolute ignorance of Ireland. Remember, he was in a very awkward position, and Mr. Gladstone was very cold to him after the work appeared. After all, he made one of the most luminous expositions of the benefits of the Union and that covers every error. Do do what I ask, for I am very fond of Rosebery and very intimate with him, and I always look forward to being in a Government with him. He likes you very much, and knows on what intimate terms you and I are. Write me a review, not longer than your letter, fair and raisonné. It will not take you long, and it might do a great deal of good.
This is not the place to describe the stormy and protracted Session of 1893. The ruthless persistency of the Government; the stubborn resistance of the Conservative party; the inch-by-inch struggle in Committee; Chamberlain’s keen and unceasing attack from below the gangway; the venerable figure of the Prime Minister, erect and unflinching, at the table; the mutilated procedure of Parliament; and the rising storm of partisanship on both sides contribute to an account which seems to approach by sure gradations a violent climax. Lord Randolph has left a record, in the form of a private letter to the Speaker, of the explosion:—
Lord Randolph Churchill to the Speaker.[77]
50 Grosvenor Square: July 29, 1893.