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Private
Newlands Corner Merrow Guildford
Saturday 21 May 1904
My dear Buchan
Townsend I am glad to say is better but his illness has been making me think things over & I want you to do the same.
If he died or retired you would then have to decide whether you would
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or would not like to take his place. The first thing for you to consider is whether you are in sufficient sympathy with my views to work with me in the whole hearted way which you would I know want to work. This is not a matter of inclination but of fact. I know you would like to do so but could
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you? I should want as you will realize not a benevolent acquiesence in Free Trade, but an aggresive Free Trade attitude. I see clearly that it is to be be war to knife & a long one & I should want someone who will be able to help me to carry the war into the enemy's country & exhaust every artifice literary & political to bring Balfour & Joe into ridicule
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& contempt, & to give all the support I could to the other side who however wrong I may think them on many things would to me be sound on the essential & with whom I should be in alliance. And while I am in alliance though I may know that such alliance is temporary I mean to be loyal & cooperative. I cant as you know be a Free Trader of the type of the Attorney General. I shall want you in fact to spare neither age nor sex in the fight!!! Can you feel you could
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do this considering your views? Remember it might not be pleasant for you with your friendships on the other side, when once I take off the gloves.
If this would be all right & you could feel prepared to go any lengths & to help me smite Ammon hip & thigh we come to the next point.
If you took Townsend's place I should have to make it a condition that you gave up the Bar & devoted yourself to the Spectator
