Letter from [Joseph] Austen Chamberlain (Highbury, Moor Green, Birmingham) to WSC, thanking him for a letter of 30 November, and saying that their fathers had been friends in spite of political differences, and hoping that he and WSC could remain the same. Chamberlain explains that WSC's letter [on Home Rule] had only reached him on the previous night, but he did not think he could have spoken differently, even if he had received the letter before. He adds that if the position of the Prime Minister [Herbert Asquith, later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith] was unchanged, then his words were "singularly unhappy", though he had managed to convey the opposite impression, while the outburst by David Lloyd George [Chancellor of the Exchequer] was "beyond characterization". He refers WSC to his speech of the previous day, and explains that although he was always delighted to see him and 1st Lord Morley, he would rather not meet Lloyd George, at least for the present. In a postscript Chamberlain says that he had just received more letters from WSC, and accepts an invitation to dine with him, Morley and F E Smith [later 1st Lord Birkenhead], but adds that if Lloyd George was coming, then he could not meet him just now. Signed manuscript.