'The friends with whom I have worked so long are many of them separated from me. The party is going blindly to its ruin, and everywhere there seems a want of courage and decision and principle which almost causes one to despair. I have hesitated to write to you again, but perhaps it is better that I should say what is in my mind. During all our years of intimacy I have never had a suspicion, until the last few weeks, that we differed on the Irish Question. You voted for Butt, and I assumed that, like myself, you were in favour of the principle of federation, although probably, like myself also, you did not think the time had come to give practical effect to it. The retention of the Irish representatives is clearly the touchstone. If they go, separation must follow. If they remain, federation is possible whenever local assemblies are established in England and Scotland. Without the positive and absolute promise of the Government that the Irish representation will be maintained, I shall vote against the second reading. You must do what your conscience tells you to be right, and, having decided, I should declare the situation publicly at once. 'It will do you harm on the whole, but that cannot be helped, if you have made up your mind that it is right. But you must be prepared for unkind things said by those who know how closely we have been united hitherto. The present crisis is, of course, life and death to me. I shall win if I can, and if I cannot I will cultivate my garden. I do not care for the leadership of a party which should prove itself so fickle and so careless of national interests as to sacrifice the unity of the Empire to the precipitate impatience of an old man--careless of the future in which he can have no part--and to an uninstructed instinct which will not take the trouble to exercise judgment and criticism. 'I hope you have got well through your meeting to-night. I send this by early post to-morrow before I can see the papers. 'Yours very truly, 'J. Chamberlain.' 'The meeting to which Chamberlain in his letter referred was that at Preece's Riding School, in which I announced that I had succeeded in inducing the Queen's Proctor to intervene.... The meeting was a very fine one, and the next day Chamberlain wrote to congratulate me on it and on my speech, and added: "Labouchere writes me that the Government are at last alive to the fact that they cannot carry the second reading without me, and that Mr. G. is going to give way. I hope it is true, but I shall not believe it till he has made a public declaration."' Sir Charles replied: '76, Sloane Street, S.W., '_Wednesday, May 5th_, 1886. 'My Dear Chamberlain,