A Spectator's Notebook
EVERYONE, I think, whatever his political persuasion, is going to regret the announcement that Lord Samuel is ceasing to lead the Liberals in the House of Lords. Lord Samuel is one of the few politicians of this century who remind one that some People really do go into politics in pursuit of ideals. Apart from Sir Winston Churchill, he has had a longer political career than any man alive. At any moment during the Twenties or the Thirties, he could have joined the Conservative or the Labour Party and been assured of office. He was never tempted. I know two stories of him which confirm that in saying these things I am not overestimating him. The first is the answer which he gave when I once asked him why he did not join the Lloyd George government in 1916. He replied that he thought that Lloyd George's kind of leadership was desirable at that time, but that he could not be a party to the kind of methods by Which Lloyd George had got power. On another occasion I asked him to what he attributed the Liberal defeat in 1929. He replied that he could attribute it to one man, but since the relations of that man were still living he would not allow his name to be mentioned in that context outside the room we were sitting in. A friend said to me of his broadcast on the railway Strike: 'Samuel spoke as a Prime Minister.' I would only add that he might well have been a Prime Minister, but he would have been a much lesser man if he had been. I hope that this note about him has none of the tone of an obituary notice. Lord Samuel may be eighty-four and may have resigned the leadership of the Liberals in the House of Lords. But we will, I am sure and hope, hear from him a lot more.
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