I really don't believe that you will get more. It will fully recognise the paramount character of the Imperial Parliament, enable Irish to vote on taxation, Imperial matters, etc., and I doubt whether the feeling is in favour of their voting on English issues. Anyhow, you get your principle recognised. The Bill, if it passes here, will be thrown out in the Lords. We shall go to {337} the country, not on details of any Bill, but on a domestic legislature for Ireland, and many things may happen before next year.--Yours truly, H. LABOUCHERE. _P.S._--Don't say anything about this yet, for it is not definite, and won't be until to-morrow's Cabinet. _Mr. Labouchere to Mr. Chamberlain_ HOUSE OF COMMONS, May 7, 1886. MY DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--The Cabinet yesterday was not a formal one; there is to be one to-morrow. Some, I understand, are in favour of cutting out the clause respecting the exclusion of the Irish, and leaving the matter to future legislation--others suggest alternative schemes. Of this I am certain, it may be that terms will not be agreed to before the discussion on the Second Reading, but, provided that the Bill cannot be carried without you and your friends, the point will be yielded. I regard therefore the matter as done, so don't pray act as though it were not. Any one takes a certain time to make grimaces before he consumes his humble pie, and does not gulp it down, so long as he has any hope of being able to avoid doing so.--Yours truly, H. LABOUCHERE. _Mr. Labouchere to Mr. Chamberlain_ 10 QUEEN ANNE'S GATE, May 8, 1886. MY DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--I have just been reporting progress at Downing Street. Wolverton, who was there, quite agreed that if you want ninety Irish, you ought to have them; and, in fact, the simplest thing is to leave the lot as they are. It was admitted that the Bill would require modifications, if the Irish are to sit. Objection was taken to our collecting all revenues on the score that the presence of the hated Saxon throughout the country would put the backs of the Irish up. You will perhaps remember that Parnell entirely objects to the amount of the quota, and so, by showing him that he will lose by the whisky system, we might get him to unite in insisting upon an alteration. {338} The idea of Herschell--which I put forward as mine, and said that you did not seem to object--took. If they can hit it off in the Cabinet by four o'clock, they are to let me know, and I will send you a telegram. Things being as they are, I go to Hastings, with _Thérèse Raquin_ to read in the train, with the hope that we are again a happy family. Don't with Herschell make it too clear that the food on which our friends are browsing is humble pie. The substance is everything, and no sooner will it be known that you mean to vote for the Second Reading, and that Mr. Gladstone knocks the bottom out of his tub as regards the exclusion of the Irish, than the Tories and the Whigs will point the moral.