Sold – Churchill Affirms the Right of Parliament to Publicly Question the Government

Churchill’s rise in Parliament was a rapid one, in part because of the fame of his father and in part as a result of his own political and oratorical abilities. First elected in 1900 as a Conservative, he crossed the floor to join the Liberals and in 1905 and was rewarded by them with his first ministerial post, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Your acceptance of the piece of paper on wh[ich] it was written would not have invalidated your right to ask that it should be answered publicly across the floor of the House

Walter F. Faber was a Conservative member of Parliament from 1906 until 1918. In 1907, he asked about a new line of steamships that proposed to run between Germany and Canada in the event of a favorable tariff arrangement. Churchill responds that ‘I have nothing to add to my answers to a similar question on 30th May’, but promised to make further enquiry. Faber was not satisfied with this evasive answer, and notwithstanding receipt of it, wanted to confront the government in Parliament.

Autograph Letter Signed on House of Commons letterhead, three pages, London, June 10, 1907, to Faber, reaffirming Faber’s right to question the government that day in the House of Commons. “Let me thank you for the courtesy of your note, which entirely removes from my mind the impression it had sustained. The Prime Minister had asked me to reply to your question, not because he was himself unable to be present, but because it falls properly within the sphere of the Colonial Office. It was because I thought you did not realise this, that I offered you the answer. But your acceptance of the piece of paper on wh[ich] it was written would not have invalidated your right to ask that it should be answered publicly across the floor of the House, if you so desired it, on a future occasion.” This is our first Churchill ALS in quite some time.