Balfour: Intellectual Statesman

Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930) is widely remembered in connection with the British Declaration on Palestine in 1917. Otherwise, he is associated with a great electoral defeat in January 1906. Did his constructive work as Prime Minister (1902-1905) justify his clinging to office after his party was split by Joseph Chamberlain's thrust for Tariff Reform in 1903? This biography, by focusing on his work in education and defence, presents a fresh appreciation of Balfour as a statesman. It also afford new insights into British foreign policy at a critical time (1903-1905), showing how reluctant was the shift away from Germany and towards France and Russia, which began in those years. Balfour's exceptional contribution to the making of defence policy, from the 1890s to the later 1920s, is for the first time fully elucidated.

This biography charts the development of a remarkable debater who rose, despite lingering backward glances at philosophy and the academic life, to be leader of the Unionist Party in 1902, and who, due to his unique qualities of mind and character, was restored to high office in war and peace after the apparent end of his political career in 1911.

It is not commonly recognized that Balfour held cabinet rank for longer than Winston Churchill, or Lord Liverpool, or Gladstone, or Lord Palmerston, or the younger Pitt. The number of years served on that level by the statesmen mentioned are: Balfour 27, Churchill 26, Liverpool 25, Gladstone 24, Palmerston 23, and Pitt 22. This count alone testifies to Balfour's calibre as a statesman. The unique character of his career is further emphasized by the fact that none of the others listed, having ended their prime-ministerial careers, came back, as it were, from the political dead to hold other high ministerial office.