Editing Arthur Balfour (section)

==Later career==
{{multiple image |total_width=300 |image1=Arthur Balfour, 1908.jpg |caption1=Painting by [[John Singer Sargent]], 1908 |image2=Arthur Balfour Vanity Fair 27 January 1910.jpg |caption2=Balfour caricatured by ''[[Vanity Fair (UK magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', 1910}}
[[File:British-Prime-Minister-Arthur-Balfour-with-Winston-Churchill.jpg|thumb|Balfour and [[Winston Churchill]] in 1911]]
After the [[1906 United Kingdom general election|general election of 1906]] Balfour remained party leader, his position strengthened by Joseph Chamberlain's absence from the House of Commons after his stroke in July 1906, but he was unable to make much headway against the huge Liberal majority in the Commons. An early attempt to score a debating triumph over the government, made in Balfour's usual abstruse, theoretical style, saw Campbell-Bannerman respond with: "Enough of this foolery," to the delight of his supporters. Balfour made the controversial decision, with [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne|Lord Lansdowne]], to use the heavily Unionist [[House of Lords]] as a check on the political programme and legislation of the Liberal party in the Commons. Legislation was vetoed or altered by amendments between 1906 and 1909, leading [[David Lloyd George]] to remark that the Lords was "the right hon. Gentleman's poodle. It fetches and carries for him. It barks for him. It bites anybody that he sets it on to. And we are told that this is a great revising Chamber, the safeguard of liberty in the country."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1907/jun/26/house-of-lords#S4V0176P0_19070626_HOC_294|title=HC Deb 26 June 1907 vol 176 cc1408-523|work=Hansard|access-date=12 May 2019}}</ref> The issue was forced by the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberals]] with Lloyd George's [[People's Budget]], provoking the constitutional crisis that led to the [[Parliament Act 1911]], which limited the Lords to delaying bills for up to two years. After the Unionists lost the general elections of 1910 (despite softening the tariff reform policy with Balfour's promise of a referendum on food taxes), the Unionist peers split to allow the Parliament Act to pass the House of Lords, to prevent mass creation of Liberal peers by the new King, George V. The exhausted Balfour resigned as party leader after the crisis, and was succeeded in late 1911 by [[Bonar Law]].<ref name="Zebel1973"/>

Balfour remained important in the party, however, and when the Unionists joined [[Asquith]]'s coalition government in May 1915, Balfour succeeded Churchill as [[First Lord of the Admiralty]]. When Asquith's government collapsed in December 1916, Balfour, who seemed a potential successor to the premiership, became [[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (UK)|foreign secretary]] in Lloyd George's new administration, but not in the small War Cabinet, and was frequently left out of inner workings of government. Balfour's service as foreign secretary was notable for the [[Balfour Mission]], a crucial alliance-building visit to the US in April 1917, and the [[Balfour Declaration]] of 1917, a letter to [[Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild|Lord Rothschild]] affirming the government's support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], then part of the [[Ottoman Empire]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Schneer |first=Jonathan |author-link=Jonathan Schneer |title=The Balfour Declaration: the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict|publisher=Bond Street Books|year=2010}}</ref>

Balfour resigned as foreign secretary following the [[Treaty of Versailles|Versailles Conference]] in 1919, but continued in the government (and the Cabinet after normal peacetime political arrangements resumed) as [[Lord President of the Council]]. In 1921–22 he represented the British Empire at the [[Washington Naval Conference]] and during summer 1922 stood in for the foreign secretary, [[Lord Curzon]], who was ill. He put forward a proposal for the international settlement of war debts and reparations (the [[Balfour Note]]), but it was not accepted.<ref name="Zebel1973" />

On 5 May 1922, Balfour was created [[Earl of Balfour]] and Viscount Traprain, of [[Whittingehame]], in the [[county of Haddington]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=32691 |date=5 May 1922 |page=3512 }}</ref> In October 1922 he, with most of the Conservative leadership, resigned with Lloyd George's government following the [[Carlton Club meeting]], a Conservative back-bench revolt against continuance of the coalition. [[Bonar Law]] became prime minister. Like many Coalition leaders, he did not hold office in the [[Conservative government, 1922–1924|Conservative governments of 1922–1924]], but as an elder statesman, he was consulted by the [[George V of the United Kingdom|King]] in the choice of [[Stanley Baldwin]] as Bonar Law's successor as Conservative leader in May 1923. His advice was strongly in favour of Baldwin, ostensibly due to Baldwin's being an MP but in reality motivated by his personal dislike of Curzon. Later that evening, he met a mutual friend who asked 'Will dear George be chosen?' to which he replied with "feline Balfourian satisfaction," "No, dear George will not." His hostess replied, "Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. He will be terribly disappointed." Balfour retorted, "Oh, I don't know. After all, even if he has lost the hope of glory he still possesses the [[Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston|means of Grace]]."<ref>{{cite book |last=Blake |first=Robert |title=The Conservative Party from Peel to Major |date=1997 |publisher=Arrow |location=London |page=213}}</ref>

Balfour was not initially included in [[Second Baldwin ministry|Baldwin's second government]] in 1924, but in 1925, he returned to the Cabinet, in place of the late Lord Curzon as [[Lord President of the Council]], until the government ended in 1929. With 28 years of government service, Balfour had one of the longest ministerial careers in modern British politics, second only to Winston Churchill.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22858351 |title=Chasing Churchill: Ken Clarke climbs ministerial long-service chart |work=BBC News |date=13 June 2013 |last=Parkinson |first=Justin }}</ref>