Two autograph letters signed by Henry Labouchere to a liberal colleague c1897

LABOUCHERE, Henry (1831-1912). Two autograph letters signed to Liberal colleague, R. W. Campbell. 5 Old Palace Yard, S.W., July [1897], about the South Africa Committee.
 
A pair comprising: (1) Autograph letter signed, one page, on headed paper “5, Old Palace Yard, S.W.”, dated simply “July 7,” written in ink; horizontal fold, light creasing and minor staining, legible throughout. (2) Autograph note card signed, headed “H. Labouchere, 5, Old Palace Yard, S.W.”, dated “July 10,” with rounded corners, light surface marking and foxing. Both addressed to “R. W. Campbell Esq.” Overall very good condition.
 
In the longer letter Labouchere writes: “I certainly think that the proceedings of the S A Committee have been most unsatisfactory. A good deal more evidence ought to be obtained. When Court, Society, finance, & forces are all determined to hush up a matter, it is difficult to get to the bottom of things.” The accompanying card authorises publication of a statement “as soon as the Report of the Committee is out,” adding a brief remark concerning cigarette duty and timing.
 
The “S A Committee” referred to is almost certainly the South Africa Committee established in the aftermath of the Jameson Raid (1895–96), whose report appeared in 1897. Labouchere was an active and outspoken participant in the committee, and a persistent critic of both Liberal and Conservative imperial policy. His language here—suggesting the combined influence of “Court, Society, finance, & forces” in suppressing full inquiry—reflects the atmosphere of suspicion and factionalism surrounding the Raid, Cecil Rhodes, and the role of Joseph Chamberlain in imperial administration.
 
Henry Labouchere (1831–1912), Radical Liberal MP and founder-editor of the journal Truth, was one of the most combative and controversial parliamentarians of his generation. He sat on inquiries into South African affairs and was closely associated with radical opposition to aspects of British imperial policy. His career, however, was marked by notoriety as much as reform: he was accused in the 1890s of financial improprieties connected with his journalism, and his name remains attached to the 1885 “Labouchere Amendment” to the Criminal Law Amendment Act, later used in the prosecution of Oscar Wilde. A fierce anti-establishment figure, he was admired by some as an exposer of corruption and criticised by others for opportunism, abrasive rhetoric, and at times inflammatory polemic.