Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As foreign secretary in the Lloyd George ministry, he issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917 on behalf of the cabinet, which supported a "home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, and later issued the Balfour Declaration of 1926 as Lord of the Privy Council, which announced a co-equal relationship between the United Kingdom and its Dominions, laying the groundwork for the Statute of Westminster 1931 which granted full independence to the former colonies.
Entering Parliament in 1874, Balfour achieved prominence as Chief Secretary for Ireland, in which position he suppressed agrarian unrest whilst taking measures against absentee landlords. He opposed Irish Home Rule, saying there could be no half-way house between Ireland remaining within the United Kingdom or becoming independent. From 1891 he led the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, serving under his uncle, Lord Salisbury, whose government won large majorities in 1895 and 1900. An esteemed debater, he was bored by the mundane tasks of party management.
In July 1902, he succeeded his uncle as prime minister. In domestic policy he passed the Land Purchase Act 1903, which bought out most of the Anglo-Irish landowners. The Education Act 1902 had a major long-term impact in modernising the school system in England and Wales and provided financial support for schools operated by the Church of England and by the Catholic Church. Nonconformists were outraged and mobilised their voters, but were unable to reverse it. In foreign and defence policy, he oversaw reform of British defence policy and supported Jackie Fisher's naval innovations. He secured the Entente Cordiale with France, an agreement that paved the way for improved relations between the two states. He cautiously embraced imperial preference as championed by Joseph Chamberlain, but resignations from the Cabinet over the abandonment of free trade left his party divided. He also suffered from public anger at the later stages of the Boer War and the importation of Chinese labour to South Africa. He resigned as prime minister in December 1905 and the following month the Conservatives suffered a landslide defeat at the 1906 election, in which he lost his own seat. He soon re-entered Parliament and continued to serve as Leader of the Opposition throughout the crisis over Lloyd George's 1909 budget, the narrow loss of two further General Elections in 1910, and the passage of the Parliament Act 1911. He resigned as party leader in 1911.
Balfour returned as First Lord of the Admiralty in Asquith's Coalition Government. In December 1916, he became foreign secretary in David Lloyd George's coalition. He was frequently left out of the inner workings of foreign policy, although the Balfour Declaration on a Jewish homeland bore his name. He continued to serve in senior positions throughout the 1920s, and died in 1930, aged 81, having spent a vast inherited fortune. He never married. Balfour trained as a philosopherhe originated an argument against believing that human reason could determine truthand was seen as having a detached attitude to life.
Background and early life
Arthur James Balfour was born on 25 July 1848 at Whittingehame House, East Lothian, Scotland, the eldest son of James Maitland Balfour and Lady Blanche Gascoyne-Cecil.The name of Balfour is an ancient one in Scotland which was probably derived from a settlement near Markinch in Fife.
His father was a Scottish MP, as was his grandfather James; his mother, a member of the Cecil family descended from Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, was the daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Salisbury and his first wife, Mary Frances Gascoyne, and she was a sister of the 3rd Marquess, the future prime minister. Arthur's godfather was the Duke of Wellington, after whom he was named. He was the eldest son, third of eight children, and had four brothers and three sisters: His elder sisters Eleanor and Evelyn, his younger siblings Cecil, Alice, Francis Maitland Balfour, Gerald and then his youngest brother Eustace, who became an architect. Arthur Balfour was educated at Grange Preparatory School at Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, and Eton College, where he studied with the influential master, William Johnson Cory. He then went up to the University of Cambridge, where he read moral sciences at Trinity College.
Personal life
Balfour met May Lyttelton in 1870 when she was 19. After her two previous serious suitors had died, Balfour is said to have declared his love for her in December 1874. She died of typhus on Palm Sunday, 21 March 1875; Balfour arranged for an emerald ring to be buried in her coffin. Lavinia Talbot, May's older sister, believed that an engagement had been imminent, but her recollections of Balfour's distress were not written down until thirty years later.Historian R. J. Q. Adams points out that May's letters discuss her love life in detail, but contain no evidence that she was in love with Balfour, nor that he had spoken to her of marriage. He visited her only once during her serious three-month illness, and was soon accepting social invitations again within a month of her death. Adams suggests that, although he may simply have been too shy to express his feelings fully, Balfour may also have encouraged tales of his youthful tragedy as a convenient cover for his disinclination to marry; the matter cannot be conclusively proven.
In later years mediums claimed to pass on messages from hersee the "Cross-Correspondences".
Balfour remained a lifelong bachelor. Margot Tennant wished to marry him, but Balfour said: "No, that is not so. I rather think of having a career of my own." His household was maintained by his also unmarried sister, Alice. In middle age, Balfour had a 40-year friendship with Mary Charteris, Lady Elcho, later Countess of Wemyss and March.
Although Adams writes that "it is difficult to say how far the relationship went", her letters suggest they may have become lovers in 1887 and may have engaged in sado-masochism, a claim echoed by A. N. Wilson. Another biographer, Ruddock F. Mackay, believes they had "no direct physical relationship", although he dismisses as "unlikely" suggestions that Balfour was homosexual, or, in view of a time during the Boer War when he was seen as he replied to a message while drying himself after his bath, Lord Beaverbrook's claim that he was "a hermaphrodite" whom no-one saw naked.
Balfour was a leading member of the social and intellectual group The Souls.
Early career
In 1874 Balfour was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Hertford until 1885. From 1885 to 1906 he served as the Member of Parliament for Manchester East. In spring 1878, he became private secretary to his uncle Lord Salisbury. He accompanied Salisbury to the Congress of Berlin and gained his first experience in international politics in connection with the settlement of the Russo-Turkish conflict. At the same time he became known in the world of letters; the academic subtlety and literary achievement of his Defence of Philosophic Doubt suggested he might make a reputation as a philosopher.Balfour divided his time between politics and academic pursuits. Biographer Sydney Zebel suggested that Balfour continued to appear an amateur or dabbler in public affairs, devoid of ambition and indifferent to policy issues. However, in fact he actually made a dramatic transition to a deeply involved politician. His assets, according to Zebel, included a strong ambition that he kept hidden, shrewd political judgment, a knack for negotiation, a taste for intrigue, and care to avoid factionalism. Most importantly, he deepened his close ties with his uncle Lord Salisbury. He also maintained cordial relationships with Disraeli, Gladstone and other national leaders.
Released from his duties as private secretary by the 1880 general election, he began to take more part in parliamentary affairs. He was for a time politically associated with Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff and John Gorst. This quartet became known as the "Fourth Party" and gained notoriety for leader Lord Randolph Churchill's free criticism of Sir Stafford Northcote, Lord Cross and other prominent members of the Conservative "old gang".
Service in Lord Salisbury's governments
Irish Secretary
In 1885, Lord Salisbury appointed Balfour President of the Local Government Board; the following year he became Secretary for Scotland with a seat in the cabinet. These offices, while offering few opportunities for distinction, were an apprenticeship. In early 1887, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, resigned because of illness and Salisbury appointed his nephew in his place. The selection was much criticised. It was received with contemptuous ridicule by the Irish Nationalists, for none suspected Balfour's immense strength of will, his debating power, his ability in attack and his still greater capacity to disregard criticism. Balfour surprised critics by ruthless enforcement of the Crimes Act. The Mitchelstown Massacre occurred on 9 September 1887, when Royal Irish Constabulary members fired at a crowd protesting against the conviction under the Act of MP William O'Brien and another man. Three were killed by the RIC's gunfire. When Balfour defended the RIC in the Commons, O'Brien dubbed him "Bloody Balfour". His steady administration did much to dispel his reputation as a political lightweight.In Parliament he resisted overtures to the Irish Parliamentary Party on Home Rule, which he saw as an expression of superficial or false Irish nationalism. Allied with Joseph Chamberlain's Liberal Unionists, he encouraged Unionist activism in Ireland. Balfour also helped the poor by creating the Congested Districts Board for Ireland in 1890. Balfour downplayed the factor of Irish nationalism, arguing that the real issues were economic. Regarding ownership and control of the land, he believed that once violence was suppressed and land was sold to the tenants, Irish nationalism would no longer threaten the unity of the United Kingdom. The slogan "to kill home rule with kindness" characterised Balfour's new policy toward Ireland. The Liberals had begun land sales to Irish tenants with the Land Law Act 1881 and this was expanded by the Conservatives in the land purchase scheme of 1885. However the depression in agriculture kept prices low. Balfour's solution was to keep selling land and in 1887 lowering rents to match the lower prices, and protected more tenants against eviction by their landlords. Balfour greatly expanded the land sales. They culminated in the final Unionist land purchase programme of 1903, when Balfour was prime minister and George Wyndham was the Irish secretary. It encouraged landlords to sell by means of a 12% cash bonus. Tenants were encouraged to buy with a low interest rate, and payments drawn out over 68 years. In 1909, Liberal legislation required compulsory sales in certain cases. As the landlords sold out, they relocated to Great Britain, giving up their political power in Ireland. Tensions in the countryside dramatically declined as some 200,000 peasant proprietors owned about half the land in Ireland. However, the Irish Parliamentary Party recovered after its bitter post-Parnell split was healed and became the dominant political force in Ireland once again, eventually using its position as Westminster kingmaker to secure the passage of a Home Rule Act when the Liberals returned to power. This led in turn to the Home Rule crisis, the formation of the Ulster Volunteers and Irish Volunteers, and a period of growing nationalist and unionist radicalisation that culminated in the Easter rebellion of 1916 and the subsequent War of Independence.