Arthur James Balfour

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, FRS, FBA, DL (July 25, 1848 – March 19, 1930) is a British Conservative statesman who serves as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905.

As Foreign Secretary in the Lloyd George ministry, he issues the Balfour Declaration in 1917 on behalf of the cabinet.

Entering Parliament in 1874, Balfour achieves prominence as Chief Secretary for Ireland, in which position he suppresses agrarian unrest while taking measures against absentee landlords.

He opposes Irish Home Rule, saying there can be no half-way house between Ireland remaining within the United Kingdom or becoming independent.

From 1891 he leads the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, serving under his uncle, Lord Salisbury, whose government wins large majorities in 1895 and 1900.

An esteemed debater, he is bored by the mundane tasks of party management.

In July 1902 he succeeds his uncle as Prime Minister.

In domestic policy he passes the Irish Land Act 1903, which buys out most of the Anglo-Irish land owners.

The Education Act 1902 has a major long-term impact in modernizing the school system in England and Wales and provides financial support for schools operated by the Church of England and by the Catholic Church.

Nonconformists are outraged and mobilize their voters, but are unable to reverse it.

In foreign and defense policy, he oversees reform of British defense policy and supports Jackie Fisher's naval innovations.

He secures the Entente Cordiale with France, an alliance that isolates Germany.

He cautiously embraces imperial preference as championed by Joseph Chamberlain, but resignations from the Cabinet over the abandonment of free trade leave his party divided.

He also suffers from public anger at the later stages of the Boer war (counter-insurgency warfare characterized as "methods of barbarism") and the importation of Chinese labor to South Africa ("Chinese slavery").

He resigns as Prime Minister in December 1905 and the following month the Conservatives suffer a landslide defeat at the 1906 election, in which he loses his own seat.

He soon re-enters Parliament and continues 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 resigns as party leader in 1911.

Balfour returns as First Lord of the Admiralty in Asquith's Coalition Government (1915–16).

In December 1916 he becomes Foreign Secretary in David Lloyd George's coalition.

He is frequently left out of the inner workings of foreign policy, although the Balfour Declaration on a Jewish homeland bears his name.

He continues to serve in senior positions throughout the 1920s, and dies on 19 March 1930 aged eighhty-one, having spent a vast inherited fortune.

He never married.

Balfour had trained as a philosopher—he originated an argument against believing that human reason could determine truth—and was seen as having a detached attitude to life, epitomized by a remark attributed to him: "Nothing matters very much and few things matter at all".

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