But to quit apostrophe (which you must pardon) what are we to do? Can we expect Mr. Gladstone to bear the battle on his single shield? Is it not plain that if we plunge into Home Rule plans just now before your intelligent public apply their enlightened minds to it we shall get far less than what we should get by waiting and worrying you for a few years? We are all young, and though British saws won't bear me out, you are a very fickle and unstable people, while ours has the tenacity of 700 years to carry us through. We can wait awhile and see who gets the worst of it, and if we are beaten in our time--well, there are plenty of young men and young women in Ireland to breed future difficulties for you. Some of us thought as Nationalists we were making a great sacrifice in being willing to give up our ideals, but the spirit in which we are met shows how much our surrender is appreciated by the individuals who subscribed for cartridges for the Hungarians, Italians, and Poles. The curse of being the sport of your two parties is in itself the best argument for the necessity of Home Rule. {285} As for Churchill, a great deal of what he told you I take to be bluff--told for the purposes of intimidation. I don't believe they'd dissolve, and if they are so inclined we ought not to give them the chance but help them over the stile, in order to trip them up at some better opportunity. When we beat them a few times, say on their estimates, and worry them on adjournments and motions, they will be in a much less heroic mood than they are now. Slow poison is a better medicine for them than the happy dispatch! By hanging on their skirts for a few weeks, snubbing them and humiliating them at every opportunity, they will be in a much more reasonable frame of mind than they are now, and meantime perhaps your young lions could be reduced to reason and your old ones have their claws trimmed. It is no good talking about the details of Home Rule, when the very mention of the word gives half the Liberal party the shivers. The men that won't take Mr. Gladstone for a leader to-day will have to take Mr. Parnell to-morrow, for assuredly things cannot rest as they are. Mr. Gladstone's enemies just now are England's and Ireland's worst enemies also. He alone can settle the question moderately and satisfactorily, yet he is assailed by his own party as if he were some reckless junior acting not from the ripeness of knowledge and sagacity, but through some adolescent's lust of untasted power! Your party ought to get up an altar to Mundella and put his long nose in the tabernacle. It is sweet to know that he has controlled the education of British youth. A happy Christmas to you, my dear Labouchere. T. M. HEALY. _Mr. Chamberlain to Mr. Labouchere_ HIGHBURY, MOOR GREEN, BIRMINGHAM, Dec. 23, 1885.