I don't know whether I could get the Irish to assent--supposing that Mr. Gladstone does--but I should be sanguine of doing so. They have now so arranged their party that practically Healy, O'Brien, Harrington, and Parnell can do precisely what they like. Parnell I put last, because he will agree to the decisions of the other three.--Yours truly, H. LABOUCHERE. _P.S._--I write this, because I shall not be able to explain it to you this evening before Randolph Churchill. _Mr. Labouchere to Mr. Chamberlain_ 10 QUEEN ANNE'S GATE, Jan. 15, 1886. MY DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--I should have been delighted to {313} dine with you on the 31st, but I have already asked some people to dine with me on that day. Harcourt favoured me during an hour yesterday with his views. They are vague and misty. He has got it into his head that the Government mean a Coercion Bill. If they are wise, I should think that they would bring one in, and thus split up the Liberals at once. Mr. Gladstone is evidently meditating some coup on his own account, and to retire in a blaze of Irish fire-works. He does not want to wait, but if he acts, he holds that he must act at once. He is by no means in a good humour with his late colleagues.--Yours truly, H. LABOUCHERE. _Mr. Healy to Mr. Labouchere_ DUBLIN, Jan. 15, 1886. MY DEAR MR. L.,--Herbert Gladstone is totally wrong about me. I neither saw nor heard from nor communicated with Churchill or any member of the Government since the House rose--I except the Irish law officers whom I meet daily in Court, but whom I never exchange a word with on politics. I am now just of the same opinion I always held, but I don't see what we can do till your party move. It would play the devil with us were we to put the Liberals into office and then have them to turn round on us, by proposing a settlement we could not accept. We cannot buy a pig in a poke. You may say we could turn them out at a minute's notice. That seems very easy on paper by counting parties, but if we are going to play this game successfully the fewer ministries we turn out the better, as any naked exhibition of our power in a gratuitous way would be sure to get you a majority if you dissolved on that issue. No, we prefer instead of having to put you out, not to let you get in, until there's a straightforward arrangement made. At least this is what seems to me to be commonsense. I know nothing of the Tory plans. Of course, if they are fools enough to play your hand by proposing coercion our hands may be forced--I only write on the assumption that they have sense. What I say is let Mr. Gladstone satisfy Parnell and the whole thing is settled. {314} Was it from Grosvenor's experience and anecdotes of the Irish party that the Duke of Westminster called us _debauchees_? Were we too lax in our attendance on Parliament to please Lord Richard--prowling round St. John's Wood, when we ought to have been braking his coach? So we must please our fastidious