sentences:  Suffering from gout and neuralgia, Chamberlain took a two-month holiday in February 1904.Chamberlain decided that the Unionists were likely to lose the general election, and criticised Balfour for delaying the inevitable.Indeed, Chamberlain now hoped that Balfour would fail in promoting his guarded fiscal doctrine, probably with a strategy of eventually leading the Unionists on a purely protectionist platform after the expected defeat in the general election.