"CHEQUERS"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 96, 27 April 1929, Page 20

"CHEQUERS"

POLITICAL WEEK-ENDS

i Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald refused rej cently to say .anything about the references to' himseif by Lord Haldane's autobiography, writes the political correspondent of the "Daily Chronicle." ! The allusion to Mr. Mac Donald's f ond-ness-for Chequers—the official country seat of Prime. Ministers—is generally rogarded as lacking in fairness and understanding. Lord Haldane suggested that owing to the Labour Premier's "passion for Chequers" two days wore lost each week—Saturday and Sunday—in which colleagues might be interviewed or business done. It is rather unkind to blame Mr. Mac Donald, who ■ held the two offices of Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, for spending the | week-end in the lovely retreat in Buckinghamshire which Lord Lee presented to the nation. Mr. Lloyd George used to make frequent use of Chequers at week-ends, and Mr. Mac Donald and Mr. Baldwin have followed suit. What Lord Haldane omitted to say is' that such week-ends are largely occupied in conversations with colleagues and visitors from abroad, for which no time can be found during the week.. Moreover, a Prime Minister has such a mass of correspondence to read and so many questions to settle that a week-end, wherever spent, brings little relaxation. Mr. MaeDoriald, like other Prime Ministers, found the Saturday and Sunday at, Chequers tho best means of keeping abreast of his work. Lord Lee of .Fareham, who gave Chequers to the nation for the use of Prime Ministers, said on inquiry, that he was very glad-to learn from so distinguished an authority as Lord Haldane that the idea embodied in the pre-

ainbie to the Chequers Estate Act had worked'out so admirably in practice.! "I have always felt that if was not good for Prime Ministers, Ministers, or anyone!, else to be" always talking shop," he said. ■" "The main features, to this scheme," says the preamble to which Lord Lee referred, "are" designed not merely to make Chequers available as the official country residence of. the Prime . Minister of' the day,'but to tempt him to. •visit: it regularly.". „...■. • .