Editing Arthur Balfour (section)

==Prime minister<span class="anchor" id="Premiership"></span><!-- linked from redirects [[Premiership of Arthur Balfour]], [[Prime ministership of Arthur Balfour]] -->==
{{Further|Balfour ministry}}<!-- please do not change this link to [[Unionist government, 1895–1905]] -->
With Lord Salisbury's resignation on 11 July 1902, Balfour succeeded him as prime minister, with the approval of all the Unionist party. The new prime minister came into power practically at the same moment as the [[coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra]] and the end of the [[South African War]].<ref name=":1" /> The Liberal party was still disorganised over the Boers.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=252}}

In foreign affairs, Balfour and his foreign secretary, [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne|Lord Lansdowne]], improved relations with France, culminating in the [[Entente Cordiale]] of 1904. The period also saw the [[Russo-Japanese War]], when Britain, an ally of the Japanese, came close to war with Russia after the [[Dogger Bank incident]]. On the whole, Balfour left the conduct of foreign policy to Lansdowne, being busy himself with domestic problems.<ref name="Zebel1973" />

Balfour, who had known Zionist leader [[Chaim Weizmann]] since 1906, opposed Russian mistreatment of Jews and increasingly supported Zionism as a programme for European Jews to settle in Palestine.<ref>{{cite book|first=Milton |last=Viorst | author-link = Milton Viorst |title=Zionism: The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=frLPCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA80|year=2016|page=80|publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-1-4668-9032-9}}</ref> However, in 1905 he supported the [[Aliens Act 1905]], one of whose main objectives was to control and restrict Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe.<ref>{{cite book|first=Shlomo|last=Sand|title=The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland|location=London|publisher=Verso|date=2012|pages=14–15}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Sabbagh |first=Karl |title=Palestine : a personal history |publisher=Atlantic |location=London |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-84354-344-2 |page=103 |quote=Balfour warned the House of Commons in his speech of 'the undoubted evils that had fallen upon the country from an immigration which was largely Jewish'}}</ref>

The budget was certain to show a surplus and taxation could be remitted. Yet as events proved, it was the budget that would sow dissension, override other legislative concerns and signal a new political movement. [[Charles Thomson Ritchie]]'s remission of the shilling import-duty on corn led to [[Joseph Chamberlain]]'s crusade in favour of tariff reform. These were taxes on imported goods with [[trade preference]] given to the Empire, to protect British industry from competition, strengthen the Empire in the face of growing German and American economic power, and provide revenue, other than raising taxes, for the social welfare legislation. As the session proceeded, the rift grew in the Unionist ranks.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=252}} Tariff reform was popular with Unionist supporters, but the threat of higher prices for food imports made the policy an electoral albatross. Hoping to split the difference between the free traders and tariff reformers in his cabinet and party, Balfour favoured retaliatory tariffs to punish others who had tariffs against the British, in the hope of encouraging global free trade.
This was not sufficient for either the free traders or the extreme tariff reformers in government. With Balfour's agreement, Chamberlain resigned from the Cabinet in late 1903 to campaign for tariff reform. At the same time, Balfour tried to balance the two factions by accepting the resignation of three free-trading ministers, including Chancellor Ritchie, but the almost simultaneous resignation of the free-trader [[Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire|Duke of Devonshire]] (who as Lord Hartington had been the Liberal Unionist leader of the 1880s) left Balfour's Cabinet weak. By 1905 few Unionist MPs were still free traders ([[Winston Churchill]] crossed to the Liberals in 1904 when threatened with deselection at [[Oldham (UK Parliament constituency)|Oldham]]), but Balfour's act had drained his authority within the government.<ref name="Zebel1973" />

Balfour resigned as prime minister in December 1905, hoping the Liberal leader [[Campbell-Bannerman]] would be unable to form a strong government. This was dashed when Campbell-Bannerman faced down an attempt ("[[The Relugas Compact]]") to "kick him upstairs" to the House of Lords. The Conservatives were defeated by the Liberals at the general election the following January (in terms of MPs, a Liberal landslide), with Balfour losing his seat at [[Manchester East (UK Parliament constituency)|Manchester East]] to [[Thomas Gardner Horridge]], a solicitor and [[King's Counsel]]. Only 157 Conservatives were returned to the Commons, at least two-thirds followers of Chamberlain, who chaired the Conservative MPs until Balfour won a by-election for a safe seat in the [[City of London (UK Parliament constituency)|City of London]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=254}}

===Achievements===
According to historian [[Robert Ensor]], Balfour can be credited with achievement in five major areas:<ref name="Ensor1936">{{cite book|first=R. C. K. |last=Ensor|author-link=Robert Ensor|date=1936|title=England, 1870–1914|location=Oxford|publisher=Clarendon|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.108175/page/n5}}</ref>{{rp|355}}
# The [[Education Act 1902]] (and a similar measure for London in 1903);<ref>{{cite journal|first=Wendy |last=Robinson|title=Historiographical reflections on the 1902 Education Act|journal=Oxford Review of Education|volume=28|issue=2–3 |pages=159–172|date=2002|jstor=1050905 |doi=10.1080/03054980220143342|s2cid=144042590}}</ref>
# The [[Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903]], which bought out the [[Anglo-Irish]] landowners;<ref name="Bull2016">{{cite journal|last1=Bull|first1=Philip|title=The significance of the nationalist response to the Irish land act of 1903|journal=Irish Historical Studies|volume=28|issue=111|year=2016|pages=283–305|issn=0021-1214|doi=10.1017/S0021121400011056|s2cid=159230052 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|first=Charles F.|last=Bastable|title=The Irish Land Purchase Act of 1903|journal=Quarterly Journal of Economics|date=1903|volume=18|issue=1|pages=1–21|jstor=1882773|doi=10.2307/1882773}}</ref>
# The [[Licensing Act 1904]];<ref>{{cite journal|first=Paul|last=Jennings|title=Liquor licensing and the local historian: the 1904 Licensing Act and its administration|journal=The Local Historian|volume=9|issue=1|date=2009|pages=24–37|url=https://www.balh.org.uk/uploads/tlh-downloads/The_Local_Historian_39.1_text.pdf#page=24}}{{Dead link|date=February 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> 
# In military policy, the creation of the [[Committee of Imperial Defence]] (1904) and support for Sir [[John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher|John Fisher]]'s naval reforms. 
# In foreign policy, the Anglo-French Convention (1904), which formed the basis of the [[Entente Cordiale]] with France.

The Education Act lasted four decades and eventually was highly praised. Eugene Rasor states, "Balfour was credited and much praised from many perspectives with the success [of the Education Act 1902]. His commitment to education was fundamental and strong."<ref name="Rasor1998">{{cite book|first=Eugene L.|last=Rasor|title=Arthur James Balfour, 1848–1930: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TtkyzM3nj1kC&pg=PA20|year=1998|publisher=Greenwood|isbn=978-0-313-28877-7}}</ref>{{rp|20}} At the time it hurt Balfour because the Liberal party used it to rally their Noncomformist supporters. Ensor said the Act ranked:
{{blockquote|among the two or three greatest constructive measures of the twentieth century....[He did not write it] but no statesman less dominated than Balfour was by the concept of national efficiency would have taken it up and carried it through, since its cost on the side of votes was obvious and deterrent....Public money was thus made available for the first time to ensure properly paid teachers and a standardised level of efficiency for all children alike [including the Anglican and Catholic schools].<ref name="Ensor1936" />{{rp|355–56}}
}}

For most of the 19th century, the very powerful political and economic position of the [[Church of Ireland]] (Anglican) landowners opposed the political aspirations of Irish nationalists. Balfour's solution was to buy them out, not by compulsion, but by offering the owners a full immediate payment and a 12% bonus on the sales price. The British government purchased 13 million acres (53,000 km2) by 1920, and sold farms to the tenants at low payments spread over seven decades. It would cost money, but all sides proved amenable.<ref name="Ensor1936" />{{rp|358–60}} Starting in 1923 the Irish government bought out most of the remaining landowners, and in 1933 diverted payments being made to the British treasury and used them for local improvements.<ref name="Lee1989">{{cite book|first=J. J. |last=Lee|title=Ireland 1912–1985: politics and society|date=1989|page=71}}</ref>

Balfour's introduction of Chinese coolie labour in South Africa enabled the Liberals to counterattack, charging that his measures amounted to "Chinese slavery".<ref name="Ensor1936" />{{rp|355, 376–78}}<ref>{{cite journal|first=Scott C.|last=Spencer|title='British Liberty Stained:' Chinese Slavery, Imperial Rhetoric, and the 1906 British General Election|journal=Madison Historical Review|volume=7|issue=1|date=2014|pages=3–|url=http://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=mhr}}</ref> Likerwise Liberals energised the Nonconformists when they attacked Balfour's Licensing Act 1904 which paid pub owners to close down. In the long run it did reduce the great oversupply of pubs, while in the short run Balfour's party was hurt.<ref name="Ensor1936" />{{rp|360–61}}

Balfour failed to solve his greatest political challenge{{snd}}the debate over tariffs that ripped his party apart. Chamberlain proposed to turn the Empire into a closed [[trade bloc]] protected by high tariffs against imports from Germany and the United States. He argued that tariff reform would revive a flagging British economy, strengthen imperial ties with the dominions and the colonies, and produce a positive programme that would facilitate reelection. He was vehemently opposed by Conservative free traders who denounced the proposal as economically fallacious, and open to the charge of raising food prices in Britain. Balfour tried to forestall disruption by removing key ministers on each side, and offering a much narrower tariff programme. It was ingenious, but both sides rejected any compromise, and his party's chances for reelection were ruined.<ref name="Goodlad2010" /><ref name="PearceGoodlad2013">{{cite book|first1=Robert|last1=Pearce |first2=Graham|last2=Goodlad|title=British Prime Ministers From Balfour to Brown|date=2013}}</ref>{{rp|4–6}}

Historians generally praised Balfour's achievements in military and foreign policy. {{harvnb|Cannon|Crowcroft|2015}} stress the importance of the Anglo-French Entente of 1904, and the establishment of the Committee of Imperial Defence.{{sfn|Adams|2002|p=199}} Rasor points to twelve historians who have examined his key role in naval and military reforms.<ref name="Rasor1998" />{{rp|39–40}}<ref name="Ensor1936" />{{rp|361–71}} However, there was little political payback at the time. The local Conservative campaigns in 1906 focused mostly on a few domestic issues.<ref>{{cite book|first=A.K. |last=Russell|title=Liberal landslide: the general election of 1906|date=1973|page=92}}</ref> Balfour gave strong support for [[John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher|Jackie Fisher]]'s naval reforms.<ref>{{cite journal|last=French|first=David|title=Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and British Defense Policy, 1899–1915|journal=English Historical Review|volume=109|issue=434 |date=1994|pages=1324–1326|doi=10.1093/ehr/CIX.434.1324}}</ref>

Balfour created and chaired the [[Committee of Imperial Defence]], which provided better long-term coordinated planning between the Army and Navy.<ref name="Mackintosh1962">{{cite journal|first=John P. |last=Mackintosh|title=The role of the Committee of Imperial Defence before 1914|journal=English Historical Review|volume=77|issue=304|pages=490–503|date=1962|doi=10.1093/ehr/LXXVII.CCCIV.490|jstor=561324}}</ref> [[Austen Chamberlain]] said Britain would have been unprepared for the [[First World War]] without his Committee of Imperial Defence. He wrote, "It is impossible to overrate the services thus rendered by Balfour to the Country and Empire....[Without the CID] victory would have been impossible."<ref name="Young1975">{{cite book|editor-first=Herbert |editor-last=Van Thal|title=The Prime Ministers: From Sir Robert Walpole to Edward Heath|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=duE_AAAAYAAJ|year=1975|publisher=Stein and Day|isbn=978-0-04-942131-8|pages=173|volume=2|chapter=Arthur James Balfour|first=Kenneth|last=Young}}</ref> Historians also praised the Anglo-French Convention (1904), which formed the basis of the [[Entente Cordiale]] with France that proved decisive in 1914.<ref name="MacMillan2013">{{cite book|last=MacMillan|first=Margaret |title=The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sc_iAAAAQBAJ|year=2013|publisher=Profile|isbn=978-1-84765-416-8|pages=169–171}}</ref>

Balfour may have been personally sympathetic to extending suffrage, with his brother [[Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour|Gerald]], Conservative MP for [[Leeds Central]] married to women's suffrage activist [[Constance Lytton]]'s sister [[Elizabeth Balfour, Countess of Balfour|Betty]],<ref name=":0" /> but he accepted the strength of the political opposition to women's suffrage, as shown in correspondence with [[Christabel Pankhurst]], a leader of the [[WSPU]]. Balfour argued that he was "not convinced the majority of women actually wanted the vote", in 1907. A rebuttal which meant extending the activist campaign for women's rights.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Rise up, women! : the remarkable lives of the suffragettes|last=Atkinson|first=Diane|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2018|isbn=978-1-4088-4404-5|location=London|pages=8, 76–77, 137, 169, 184, 201, 209, 253, 267|oclc=1016848621}}</ref> He was reminded by Lytton of a speech he made in 1892, namely that this question "will arise again, menacing and ripe for resolution", she asked him to meet WSPU leader, Christabel Pankhurst, after a series of hunger strikes and suffering by imprisoned suffragettes in 1907. Balfour refused on the grounds of her militancy.<ref name=":0" /> Christabel pleaded direct to meet Balfour as Conservative party leader, on their policy manifesto for the General Election of 1909,{{dubious|date=August 2023}} but he refused again as women's suffrage was "not a party question and his colleagues were divided on the matter".<ref name=":0" /> She tried and failed again to get his open support in parliament for women's cause in the 1910 private member's [[Conciliation Bill]].<ref name=":0" /> He voted for the bill in the end but not for its progress to the Grand Committee, preventing it becoming law, and extending the activist campaigns as a result again.<ref name=":0" /> The following year Lytton and Annie Kenney in person after another reading of the Bill, but again it was not prioritised as government business.<ref name=":0" /> His sister-in-law Lady Betty Balfour spoke to Churchill that her brother was to speak for this policy, and also met the Prime Minister, [[H.H. Asquith]] in a 1911 delegation of the women's movements representing the Conservative and Unionist Women's Franchise Association<ref name=":0" /> but it was not until 1918 that (some) women were given the right to vote in elections in the United Kingdom, despite a forty-year campaign.<ref name=":0" />