WALTER LONG

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 7 October 1936, Page 12

WALTER LONG

COUNTRY SQUIRE IN POLITICS (By Air Mail—From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 3rd September. I hear that a biography is to appear shortly of Mr Walter Long, who is still best remembered by that name in spite of the peerage he reluctantly accepted when his health made it impossible for him to remain in the House of Commons. He* was a good specimen of a type now almost extinct—the country squire in politics. He filled many offices with competence, but perhaps his wisest act was his most unpopular at the time—the insistence that dogs from abroad must go into quarantine for six months. That stamped out rabies in this country. His greatest defect was a too abundant flow of words; his speeches would have been twice as good if they had been half as long. Perhaps he was unconsciously restoring the family account. He once told me that his two grandfathers gave 60 years’ service to the House of Commons. One never spoke; the other once spoke for three minutes; his subject was pigeon-shooting. Mr Long figures in one of the best stories of the late Lord Salisbury’s absent-min-dedness. He and Mr A. J. Balfour were walking down Whitehall one day and the latter saluted a gentleman who raised his hat to them. “Who is your ruddy-faced friend?” inquired the then Prime Minister. He was greatly, taken aback on being informed that he was the Minister for Agriculture in his own Cabinet.