The letters and documents in this volume were written between April 1921 and November 1922, the period covered in the third part of Volume IV of the Churchill biography. For Churchill, this period was dominated by the search for peace and reconciliation in Ireland, the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, the intensification of conflict with Turkey, and the political crisis that ended the peacetime coalition and Churchill’s own ministerial career.
Bishop Welldon to Winston S. Churchill, 24 November 1922:
“My dear Churchill,
You will, I think, allow me as an old friend to express my regret, I could almost say indignation, at your loss of your seat in the House of Commons. Ingratitude, I am afraid, is apt to be one of the vices of the democracy. But it is sometimes an advantage to a statesman that he should be temporarily excluded from the House of Commons: He is missed then, as I suppose Mr Bonar Law has been missed, and I do not doubt that your star will rise again and will shine even more brightly than before.”
“For every individual mentioned in the documents I have prepared a short biographical note, which appears on the first occasion he or she is mentioned in the text. I have also used footnotes to elaborate the historical background, and to provide relevant material not explicit in the documents themselves.”
“Mr Gilbert has performed a heroic feat in editing these letters and memoranda, quite a few of which were unsent or uncirculated …. Here is the stuff on which historians will work for many years to come.” Kenneth Lindsay, Contemporary Review
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