Autograph letter signed by cabinet member and M.P Baron Brabourne dated 1881

KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN, Edward, 1st Baron Brabourne. (1829-1893) Autograph letter signed “Brabourne”, 32 Westbourne Terrace, London, W., 3 May 1881.
 
Single sheet, bifolium, written on headed paper of the Metropolitan Railway Company; 170mmx130mm. Original folds; light browning and handling creases, mounting residue to the reverse. Overall very good. 
 
A short letter of political content, written shortly after Brabourne’s elevation to the peerage and his defection from the Liberal Party to the Conservatives. Responding to correspondence about a pamphlet he had circulated, Brabourne comments critically on current Liberal policy, referring to William Gladstone in connection with South Africa and the First Boer War, where he suggests events are ongoing and far from resolved. He goes on to denounce the Irish Land Bill in forthright terms, arguing that it is sufficient to alarm anyone concerned with the rights of property, and that the defence of those rights is as essential to working men as to any other class of the community.
 
The letter offers a clear expression of Brabourne’s political realignment and his opposition to Gladstonian reform, after serving in Gladstone's cabinet on two occasions in the past.