Long, Walter

Long came from an old untitled nobility, his father is an Englishman from Wiltshire , his mother is an Irish from Derby . Having been born the first of ten children in the family, Long received a good education and in 1875 inherited his father's lands. From the elections of 1880 until the acquisition of the Viscount title in 1921, which gave Long a seat in the House of Lords , he was elected to the House of Commons of the English Parliament (totaling from seven different constituencies in England).

During the second premiership of Robert Salisbury, Long entered the executive branch, and in 1888 became one of the authors of the local government reform ( Local Government Act 1888 ), which established municipal councils at the county level. With the defeat of the Tories in the elections of 1892, Long began to represent the parliamentary opposition on issues of local self-government, and with the return of the conservatives in 1895, he became the head of the Board of Agriculture; in this position he became known for his merits in the fight against rabies . In 1900 he transferred to the post of Minister of Local Government, in 1905 he supported the law on unemployment , which established bodies for the employment and retraining of the unemployed.

In May 1905, Long was appointed Secretary General (Minister) for Ireland. Despite the fact that in December 1905, the Unionists ceded power to the supporters of Irish autonomy, Long held this post for two years, becoming both the leader of the Irish Unionist Party and the founder of the radical (pro-British) Ulster Defense League. In November 1911, after Balfour's resignation, Long had a chance to lead the Tory party nationwide, but chose to abandon the struggle that led to a split in favor of the little-known Andrew Bonar Lowe.

In May 1915, Long returned to public service at the Ministry of Local Government, focusing, inter alia, on the resettlement of thousands of Belgian refugees. During the First World War, he continued to actively oppose the supporters of Irish autonomy, preventing the reconciliation of unionists and supporters of autonomy. Thanks to Long, the plan for dividing Ireland into small Protestant and Catholic territories with self-government at the county and municipal levels, which could save the whole island as part of Great Britain, failed.

After a brief administration of the Ministry of Colonial Affairs in 1919-1921, Long headed the Admiralty as the First Lord. In fact, at that time he was again engaged in Irish affairs. Long, who chaired a special committee on Ireland (named after his committee Long), pursued the idea of ​​dividing the island into two parts, each of which would have its own unicameral parliament and limited autonomy (Home Rule) from the central government of Great Britain. Thus, the northern, Protestant, part of Ireland, where industry was concentrated, would be able to balance the political instability in southern Ireland. With Long's active participation, Parliament passed the 1920 Ireland Management Act , dividing the island into Northern (Ulster) and Southern Ireland. In December 1921, Southern Ireland received autonomy with the dominion status of the British crown, and only in 1949 became a fully independent state of Ireland.

Long, married in 1878, had five children; the eldest son, Brigadier General Walter Long, died in January 1917 in France .

• John Kendle Walter Long, Ireland, and the Union, 1905-1920. ISBN 978-0-7735-0908-5