THE LEADER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 101, 30 April 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE LEADER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

The leader of the House of Commons is always an interesting personality, arid; consequently, his home life and habits, equally.-with his Parliamentary careeir, present features of interest to all political parties. London 'Sketch' says that Whittinghame, Mr A. J. Balfpur's home in Scotland, is a Saxon word, said to signify 'the abode of the white man,' and in his quiet retreat there, if one may, judge from the character of his library—-we. have Mr Balfour's ownconfession that he does not read the newspapers—arid the books on his stady table and lying about in his room, the First Lord varies his reading, the heavy philosophical, treatise giving place to Mr Kipling's 'In Black and White,' or Hutchinson's 'British Golf Links,' books which were foundby a visitor to Whittinghame'side by side with the ■'Messiah' on the grand piano. Mr Balf our is, by the way, not only a lover of music, but a more than ordinarily accomplished executant, and a writer, moreover ,on musical subjects. At. the head of Mr Balfour's simple bed in his country residence there hangs a small repiica or 'Ecce Homo,' and from above the fireplace the beautiful face of the stateman'smother looks down on>her son. In the great staircase at Whittinghame portraits of Cecils and Balf ours adorn the walls, and in the diningroom hang the two pictures presented to Mr Balf our in 1892 by the Manchester Unionists. The estimate in which the leader of the House is held by his retainers is finely expressed in the following remark to a visitor by one of them—'lf ye saw the laird wi' the old- la,ddie look on his face gangin' bare-heided doon by the burnside, ye wad 'maist forget he was sic a great man.';,. ,V': ,' ".... ;' ■'•., „. ... : ,..-...,, .■ ■,