Randolph says he is only going to Ireland, as he has done on previous years, to pass Christmas with Fitzgibbon.--Yours truly, H. LABOUCHERE. _P.S._--Healy and I have elaborated a letter containing the Irish minimum. _Lord Randolph Churchill to Mr. Labouchere_ INDIA OFFICE, Dec. 25, 1885. DEAR LABOUCHERE,--My correspondent with whom you thought you might correspond with advantage does not wish now to be drawn. _Very Private_. G.O.M. has written what is described to me as a "marvellous letter" to Arthur Balfour, to the effect that he thinks "it will be a public calamity if this great question should fall into the line of party conflict," and saying that he desires the question should be settled by the present Government. He be damned!--Yours ever, RANDOLPH S. C. _Mr. T. M. Healy to Mr. Labouchere_ DUBLIN, Xmas, 1885. MY DEAR L.,--It may be that Brett is the go-between, and therefore that Gladstone could use the views of others to head off Parnell. Now as I believe we should speak with one voice and chime the same note, I don't think it would be well for me to say anything at present beyond thanking you for all your kindness. I mean anything to any one but yourself. Harcourt's views quite interest me, and he is quite right, for if our people are disappointed after the visions held out to them, they cannot be held in. This country could easily be made ungovernable so far as the collection of rent or legal process is concerned, and the obstructors would find they were not dealing with playboys but {290} with resolute men. It is because I am for peace and feel the necessity for it that I am willing to accept any reasonable settlement, as things could not go on as they are for very long. If prices next year are as bad as this the country will not be habitable in any case for rackrenters. I can hardly believe the Tories would dissolve if your party shows itself united. It is on your divided counsels they reckon. If a big vote goes against them it will knock the bottom out of their mutterings. Besides supposing the dissolution goes against them, they must count the cost. Defeat would mean the instant carrying of any schemes Gladstone liked to put forward and no nonsense from the Lords. The Peers could not reject it, and if they did and Gladstone threatened to dissolve against their existence--_bon soir_! I am firmer therefore in my opinion that Randolph's talk was mere funkee-funkee, a train laid to explode in Hawarden, and I shall be surprised if it goes off.