Autograph signed letter by Joseph Chamberlain to the press 1895 election

CHAMBERLAIN, Joseph. Autograph letter signed to the Editor of the Birmingham Daily Gazette.
 
Highbury, Moor Green, Birmingham, 20 July 1895.
 
3 pp., 8vo, on personal headed paper with "Telegrams to Kings Heath, Nr. Birmingham" imprint; old horizontal folds, light toning, otherwise fine and clean.
 
A politically charged letter written by Chamberlain at the height of the 1895 general election, defending himself against accusations of division within the newly formed Conservative–Liberal Unionist alliance. Writing to the editor of the Birmingham Daily Gazette, he rebukes a local Conservative secretary for remarks that “keep apart the two wings of the great National Party,” insisting he has “never attempted to make invidious comparisons” as to the respective influence of the two sections. Chamberlain calls instead for the “cement of union” between Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, noting that his critics “will be fortunate if they do not make greater slips than the one of which I am accused,” and urging that Gladstonians alone be left to “make mischief in the ranks of those who are united by a common principle and who are working loyally for a common cause.”
 
Written from Highbury, his political and personal base in Birmingham, the letter captures Chamberlain’s tone of self-justification and his continuing anxiety about party unity during the campaign that brought Lord Salisbury to power.
 
A rare letter full of political content relating to the general election of that year, which saw the Conservative–Liberal Unionist alliance that Chamberlain helped forge win a decisive victory at the expense of the Liberals and Irish Parliamentary Party.