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Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, (, ; 25 July 184819 March 1930), also known as Lord 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. 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 (Ireland) Act 1903, which bought out most of the Anglo-Irish land owners. 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 alliance that ended centuries of intermittent conflict between the two states and their predecessors. 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 (counter-insurgency warfare characterised as "methods of barbarism") and the importation of Chinese labour to South Africa ("Chinese slavery"). 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.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.”
— Letter to Mary Gladstone Drew (17 May 1891), in Some Hawarden Letters, 1878–1913, Written to Mrs. Drew (Miss Mary Gladstone) Before and After Her Marriage, chosen and arranged by Lisle March-Phillipps and Bertram Christian (London: Nisbet & Co., 1917), p. 248.
“Those who look forward to a period of continuous and, so to speak, inevitable progress, are bound to assign some more solid reason for their convictions than a merely empirical survey of the surface lessons of history. ...Humanity, civilisation, progress itself, must have a tendency to mitigate the harsh methods by which Nature has wrought out the variety and the perfection of organic life.”
— A Fragment on Progress (1891)
“Most terrible of all the terrible Turks.”
— His comment about Mustafa Kemal Pasha, later known as Atatürk, in THE TWO KEMALS; The Polished Aristocrat of European Circles in Contrast With the Ruthless Commander of Fanatical Turks, New York Times, 1 October 1922
“The General Strike has taught the working classes more in four days than years of talking could have done.”
— Speech (7 May 1926), reported in The Observer (14 November 1926), quoted in Robert Andrews, The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations (2003)
“Biography should be written by an acute enemy.”
— Observer (20 January 1927)
“Our whole political machinery presupposes a people so fundamentally at one that they can safely afford to bicker.”
— Introduction to Walter Bagehot's The English Constitution (London: Oxford University Press, 1928), p. xxiv.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Notable quotes

“It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.”
— Letter to Mary Gladstone Drew (17 May 1891), in Some Hawarden Letters, 1878–1913, Written to Mrs. Drew (Miss Mary Gladstone) Before and After Her Marriage, chosen and arranged by Lisle March-Phillipps and Bertram Christian (London: Nisbet & Co., 1917), p. 248.
“Those who look forward to a period of continuous and, so to speak, inevitable progress, are bound to assign some more solid reason for their convictions than a merely empirical survey of the surface lessons of history. ...Humanity, civilisation, progress itself, must have a tendency to mitigate the harsh methods by which Nature has wrought out the variety and the perfection of organic life.”
— A Fragment on Progress (1891)
“Most terrible of all the terrible Turks.”
— His comment about Mustafa Kemal Pasha, later known as Atatürk, in THE TWO KEMALS; The Polished Aristocrat of European Circles in Contrast With the Ruthless Commander of Fanatical Turks, New York Times, 1 October 1922
“The General Strike has taught the working classes more in four days than years of talking could have done.”
— Speech (7 May 1926), reported in The Observer (14 November 1926), quoted in Robert Andrews, The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations (2003)
“Biography should be written by an acute enemy.”
— Observer (20 January 1927)
“Our whole political machinery presupposes a people so fundamentally at one that they can safely afford to bicker.”
— Introduction to Walter Bagehot's The English Constitution (London: Oxford University Press, 1928), p. xxiv.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Overview

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Arthur Balfour

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Arthur Balfour

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Where does Arthur Balfour rank?

Arthur Balfour across IJR

Overview

Notable quotes

Notable quotes

Overview

Arthur Balfour across IJR

Where does Arthur Balfour rank?