On Monday appeared Lord Randolph Churchill's letter to the Times,
proposing to the Conservative Party to force the Government into a dissolution on the question of Procedure, which, ho said, might be very properly done, without even the appearance of obstruction, since the Government had avowed that it had no business, properly so called, to bring forward in the interests of the conntry,—no proposals which the Opposition could be charged with obstructing, by resisting these resolutions. A dissolution would double Mr. Parnell's Irish party—a party led by a " a profound politician "—and so make it impossible for the Government, even in the absence of any great Conservative gains, to pass these resolutions ; while Lord Randolph antici- pated great Conservative gains from a stand for "freedom of debate." The letter may have been wholly bond fide, though it frightened the Times fairly out of its composure at this prospect of its friends touting for Irish support against Mr. Gladstone. But if it were wholly bond fide, Lord Randolph Churchill might as well abandon politics at once, and take to ballooning or the divining-rod.
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