"It is very difficult for us to adopt a piecemeal policy, although it certainly is the intention to issue instructions that in regard to half a dozen Liberals, they shall be supported at all hazards, but so far as I can gather the working of Parnell's mind up to the present, it is not certain that he will go against the Liberals bald-headed, if at all. T. P. O'Connor is strong for supporting the Tories. If we could have an understanding with the leaders, it would settle this and every other question. It seems to me curious that we are now to be asked to define our demands, on a question on which English Statesmen do not need much instruction, seeing that in 1881, when the agrarian question was certainly complicated, nobody dreamed of asking our opinion, but on the contrary the beauty of the measure was that it was supposed to be disapproved by the Nationalists. I cannot, therefore, help feeling that this demand for a plan from us is simply a desire for our discomfort, and the profit of the English. If there is really earnestness in the Liberal {267} Party next Session (should they be in a majority) to settle the Irish question, I do not think they will find us unreasonable. God knows it is time we were at peace, but if they insist on forcing on us a Bill, which we denounce, and which we shall wreck in the working, the contest between the two countries will grow more aggravated than ever. Spencer and Forster were hit a thousand times more than Trevelyan, and yet they never went pushing about, spitting gall as he has done. The G.O.M. is the father of them all, and I do urge him to develop a little the lines of his first speech which I have just read." And then he goes into a puff of the G.O.M.'s Article against Darwin, which, it seems, delights the Roman Catholics. Could you not give them a few smooth words in a speech, particularly in regard to land. They have taken it into their silly heads that you are now their enemy, and as they have eighty votes it is just as well to clear this illusion away.--Yours truly, H. LABOUCHERE. _Mr. Labouchere to Mr. Chamberlain_ 10 QUEEN ANNE'S GATE, Nov. 16, 1885. MY DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--This is the proposal to the Irish, which I forward.[8] It is in reply to Healy's last communication. You will see that the question of the land etc., being under the control of the Irish Chamber, is shirked.--Yours truly, H. LABOUCHERE. _Mr. Chamberlain to Mr. Labouchere_ HIGHBURY, BIRMINGHAM, Nov. 22, 1885. MY DEAR LABOUCHERE,--You see, Parnell has gone against the Liberals. I felt certain he would. He has been playing with those around him and has intentionally deceived some of his own friends. I really think he will force us all, Radicals and {268} Liberals, to reject all arrangements with him. If we had a good Speaker with dictatorial powers he could stop Irish obstruction and P.'s power in Ireland would be shaken as soon as the people saw he was impotent in Parliament.