CHURCHILL, Winston S.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Autograph letter signed, on Britain's prospects. Then a young MP on the rise, Churchill writes optimistically about the nation's post-Boer War future. "I have not forgotten our wager, but I do not feel uneasy at present. In spite of the deplorable drain of the war the country is teeming with wealth; and trade & employment are everywhere good and brisk".The recipient was the Minnesota industrialist James Carleton Young (1856-1918). Churchill dined at Young's Minneapolis home during his American lecture tour. On 23 January 1901, the day after Queen Victoria's death, Young bet Churchill £100 that within ten years the British Empire would have substantially diminished, losing at least a quarter of India, Canada, or Australia. Whether Churchill ever collected is unknown (Roberts, p. 79).Churchill also responds to a request for signed books by Young, who was a prominent book collector: "I shall be happy to write in 'The River War' as you desire... I am shy of asking Lord Rosebery to inscribe his 'Napoleon' as he is a very formidable person". He instead sends Young "the hieroglyphic which [Rosebery] uses for a signature & which may perhaps serve your purposes".Churchill tells Young to "make allowances" for the "vivid cartoons" of the Minneapolis Journal, which had been reproduced recently in Britain - "of which I often laugh". He concludes, "I am quite confident of the future - tho there is much in our present policy with which I disagree. Strong breeds must prevail".Provenance: the

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