ARTHUR BALFOUR: Scots in UK Politics (5)

Arthur James Balfour was Britain’s Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905 and held high office for much of his long political career. He was born a Scotsman and ruled Britain in its Edwardian heyday but he inhabited his own esoteric and aloof philosophic Cathay. His contemporaries respected but did not understand him: he remains an enigma. He famously remarked: “Nothing matters much and very little matters at all”, not a sentiment we expect from our driven modern politicians.

The Younger Balfour

Balfour was born in Whittinghame House, East Lothian in 1848 with a mouth crammed with silver spoons. He was the son of James Maitland Balfour who was an MP who bought up the land around Whittinghame comprising 25 farms to create a great estate. His own father had made a large fortune in India. Arthur, the first son of eight children, was named after his godfather, the great Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington. His mother was Lady Blanche Gascoigne-Cecil, daughter of the 2nd Marquis of Salisbury, one of the most illustrious aristocratic families in the land - her brother Robert was to become the 3^rd Marquis and Prime Minister of Britain. His father died when he was 8 but his mother was a powerful influence, an evangelical Christian often seen distributing tracts to passengers at nearby East Linton railway station and imbuing Arthur with her religious beliefs and a later rather useful interest in the geography of the Holy Land.

Arthur was predictably educated at Eton and progressed to Trinity College, Cambridge, studying moral sciences graduating with 2^nd class honours in 1869. His interest in philosophy was aroused and there was a conflict with his interest in politics. Smoothly entering parliament in 1874 he worked on his Defence of Philosophic Doubt published in 1879. In 1878 he was for two years private secretary to his uncle Lord Salisbury, then Foreign Secretary, whom he accompanied to the Congress of Berlin to rearrange matters after Ottoman Turkey had lost a war with Russia. Balfour would have seen Prime Minister Disraeli (Beaconsfield) and Bismarck in action, a master-class in diplomacy.

When the Tories lost office in 1880 to Gladstone’s Liberals, Balfour joined Lord Randolph Churchill and two others in the “Fourth Party”, the small Tory group harassing the Liberals at every turn and raising Tory morale.

When Gladstone fell in 1886 over his failed attempt to introduce Irish Home Rule, Balfour joined Salisbury’s cabinet, first as Secretary for Scotland but in 1887 as Secretary for Ireland – an appointment which provoked ribald jeers of “Bob’s your Uncle!”, now part of the English vocabulary. Salisbury had declared that Ireland needed “20 years of resolute government” and to the surprise of his detractors, Balfour provided it. He introduced a Coercion Act banning boycotting,  unlawful assemblies and rural intimidation: the Irish came to call him “Bloody Balfour” and he applied his mind to  schemes for land reform which culminated in the a much improved system to relieve the poor and the streamlining of local government.. Ireland was relatively quiet until the eve of the First War, as the Tories had the support of the Liberal Unionists led by Joe Chamberlain and the Irish Nationalists were split following the disgrace of their leader Parnell.

Balfour as Prime Minister

Balfour had won his spurs and held various senior offices in Salisbury’s ministries, notably Leader of the House of Commons. It was no surprise that Balfour succeeded his Uncle Robert when Salisbury retired as Prime Minister in 1902.

Balfour inherited a strained exchequer after the cost of finally winning the Boer War. In conjunction with his friend and Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne, Balfour approved the closer links with France known as the Entente Cordiale. He had also inherited a coalition arrangement with the Liberal Unionists led by the mercurial Radical Joseph Chamberlain, in cabinet as the Colonial Secretary. When Balfour introduced his sensible Education Act replacing school boards with local education authorities and increasing finance to Anglican and Catholic education, his government was split as Chamberlain was viewed as the champion of the Nonconformists, who often served on school boards and resented financing faith establishments. The Act passed but with many misgivings.

Much more serious was the schism caused by Chamberlain’s espousal of the cause of Tariff Reform. Chamberlain argued that Germany and the USA already protected their industries with high tariffs: Britain and its Empire should do likewise and the new revenues could finance many radical causes. The great parties had hitherto supported Free Trade and risked an electoral. rout if they allowed food to rise in price. Winston Churchill defected from the Conservatives to the Liberals on this issue and there were many other unhappy Tories. Chamberlain was allowed to leave the cabinet and barn-storm around the country in the Tariff Reform cause, but he did not prevail. Balfour’s position weakened, and believing he could win a subsequent election he resigned in 1905 handing over to the Liberal leader Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Balfour had miscalculated as CB’s rivals unified around him and in 1906 the Liberals won a stunning electoral triumph. Tory representation melted and Balfour lost his own seat, though he soon returned to Parliament, remaining Party Leader.

The Liberal tide was irresistible and the only way Conservatives could fight back was (unwisely) using their built-in majority in the Lords to veto Government legislation.  In Lloyd George’s phrase “The House of Lords is not the watchdog of the Constitution, it is Mr Balfour’s Poodle”. A crisis broke over the “Peoples Budget” and after two more elections, the power of the Lords was much curtailed by the Parliament Act of 1911. Balfour had failed and resigned the leadership to Andrew Bonar Law.

Balfour with Chaim Weizmann

But Balfour’s political career was by no means over. He rejoined the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915 and then served as Foreign Secretary from 1916 – 19, in a momentous period. In 1917 Balfour signed the letter now known as the Balfour Declaration, stating that the British Government was in favour of the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, then occupied by British forces. It has been alleged that  the Declaration was just a cynical exercise aimed at moving US opinion to join the War or another British land-grab on the lines of Sykes-Picot. The truth may be simpler; Balfour had known and befriended Chaim Weizmann (then a Manchester University academic) since 1905. Weizmann became the President of the World Zionist Organisation - and much later Israel’s first President. Balfour admired the Jews as a talented biblical people and believed they had the right to live in their ancestral home and took due cognisance of Arab rights. Much good and much evil flowed from this Declaration.

Balfour loved being at the centre of affairs, attending Versailles, and remained in Lloyd George’s coalition cabinet until 1922; he lingered on as an elder statesman, and an Earl, in Baldwin’s cabinet, usually as Lord President of the Council, up to 1929. He managed to visit the Holy Land in 1925 narrowly missing the attentions of an angry Arab mob in Damascus. Ill-health dogged him in 1928 and he died of phlebitis aged 82 in 1930. Nominally an Anglican he insisted that his funeral be at Whittinghame according to the practices of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

Tall and impressive, Balfour never married; a beloved cousin died early and Balfour communicated with her through mediums. Bizarrely in a philosopher he was heavily involved in the affairs of the Society for Psychical Research. His long friendship with Lady Elcho has been noticed and Lord Beaverbrook, a satyr himself, called Balfour a hermaphrodite. Suffice it to say, Balfour led a private and discreet life.

Balfour the Elder Statesman

Balfour was not indolent. He had a Scotsman’s passion for golf and was an enthusiastic tennis player. He wrote a serious philosophical work The Foundations of Belief in 1895 and delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures in 1915 on Theism and Humanism. He had a refined mind, yet he could be genial to voters and party workers. There was an element of noblesse oblige in this geniality and probably in his inner heart Balfour believed he was superior to such people. This superiority was real and yet our democratic spirit makes it hard for us to acknowledge such inconvenient truths.

SMD

6.05.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013.