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 Arthur James Balfour.
 
 MR. BALFOUR 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 by 
 
 E. T. RAYMOND 
 
 Author of ' Uncknsored Celebrities,' etc. 
 
 LONDON : 48 PALL MALL 
 
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 Copyright 1920
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The author wishes to acknowledge his indebted- 
 ness to Mr Alderson's Life for certain light on 
 the youth and early manhood of Mr Balfour. 
 Regarding the Tariff Reform period, he has derived 
 great assistance from Mr Holland's Life of the 
 Duke of Devonshire, letters from and to whom are 
 occasionally quoted in the text. On the same subject 
 he has found Mr Peel's animated sketch The Tariff 
 Reformers both stimulating and informative. For 
 the last chapter, in which an attempt is made to 
 appraise Mr Balfour's main contributions to 
 -^philosophy, the author has to thank Mr A. Wyatt 
 
 '^ 
 
 1= 

 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Most distinct as an individual, Mr Arthur James 
 Balfour belongs to an easily recognisable type, 
 represented both in England and France by a number 
 of statesmen who owe their fame less to any specific 
 performance than to the impression created by their 
 intellectual brilliance. 
 
 In State affairs the qualities above all necessary are 
 perception, energy, and judgment. The statesman 
 must see things as they are as well as know what he 
 wants to make of them. He must possess force, 
 either of command or of persuasion, to get rid of 
 obstacles. But besides he must have, in small matters 
 as well as great, a sense of the practical and the 
 expedient. He must take care neither to be before 
 nor after his time; he must know the limits of the 
 possible; he must avoid neutralising his effort by 
 the friction it creates. The true genius in states- 
 manship, like a great billiard player, gives an im- 
 pression of ease, and even of inevitability; it is the 
 mark of the second-rate man that he has, on occasion, 
 to do something obviously brilliant; if he had been 
 really first-rate the necessity would never have arisen. 
 When perception, energy, and judgment are 
 present in the same individual in the highest degree 
 and in perfect blending he becomes in any case a 
 considerable, and, if circumstances favour, an epoch- 
 making statesman: such men were Richelieu, Cavour, 
 and (in a somewhat coarser kind) Bismarck. Mr 
 Gladstone may be taken as an example of imper- 
 fect judgment (both of men and things) handi- 
 capping masterful energy and high intelligence. In 
 
 I
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 Mr Joseph Chamberlain energy predominated at the 
 expense of the other qualities; his judgment was 
 rather narrow and local; his parts were quick, but 
 he lacked the power of taking in all sides of a 
 problem of any great complexity. His habit was to 
 act on feeling, and afterwards to think out justifications 
 (to himself as well as to others) for his action. In 
 mind, as in temperament, he was almost the exact 
 opposite of the statesman whose character and career 
 I propose to discuss. 
 
 Mr Balfour typifies the man of action in whom 
 great powers of comprehension go with some 
 deficiency of judgment and a marked deficiency of 
 energy. The statement, of course, must be taken 
 with due qualification. Judgment Mr Balfour has 
 in large measure: few could compete with him in 
 rapidly seizing the nature of a sudden emergency, 
 while his views of more distant questions are often 
 sound. But he has always appeared to experience 
 some difficulty in getting all objects, near and remote, 
 simultaneously in a just focus; his is not the automatic 
 and almost infallible judgment of some great states- 
 men, contracting to the smallest details, expanding 
 to the largest demands. Energy, also, he has often 
 shown, energy fierce and impetuous, but it is a fitful 
 energy, requiring the stimulus of a great occasion 
 to arouse it; with success comes lethargy. Mr 
 Bdfour is constitutionally indolent — the eff^ect partly 
 of a too narrow margin of physical strength. But, 
 like so many indolent men, he is capable of considerable 
 periods of concentrated effort, and he is helped by 
 an almost feminine obstinacy and dislike of admitting 
 defeat. He lacks, however, that appetite for work, 
 that restless impatience of inaction, that keen positive 
 enjoyment of the exercise of power, which often 
 carry men of quite inferior abilities to great heights. 
 
 2
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 Statesmen of Mr Balfour's type seldom fail to 
 achieve a peculiar kind of eminence; they rarely 
 reach, and never maintain, the sort of power wielded 
 by those who, with perhaps less liberal mental endow- 
 ment, combine the shrewdest judgment with a 
 steady, untiring, unresting industry. They are, 
 however, often regarded more highly in their day 
 and generation than men of far completer practical 
 equipment. For contemporaries are unduly influenced 
 by that particular set of qualities which enables men 
 to excel in verbal contests. Large powers of compre- 
 hension and a good memory create an illusion of 
 superiority even where it does not exist. When, as 
 in the case under notice, they are combined with 
 genuine intellectual power, the tendency is to yield 
 quite irrational homage. Actual failure is not only 
 condoned, but admired. Throughout his long career, 
 Lord Rosebery was judged not by what he had done, 
 but by some quite imaginary standard of what he 
 might have done had he felt like it. To some extent 
 Mr Balfour's case is similar. He has always been 
 credited with an indefinable superiority over his 
 performances. They have been notable; but it is 
 vaguely felt that the man is more notable still; in the 
 midst of his greatest failures he was more interesting 
 than other men in their most triumphant success. 
 With others the ' might-have-been ' is a reproach; 
 with men like Mr Balfour it is a tribute: they please 
 in disappointing. 
 
 Arthur James Balfour was born at Whittinghame, 
 near Prestonkirk, on the twenty-fifth of July, in that 
 revolutionary annus mirahilis^ 1848. The Balfours 
 — the name is supposed to be derived from an estate 
 called of old in Gaelic ' Bal-Ore,' from its contiguity 
 to a little stream called the Ore — are a very ancient 
 
 3
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 Lowland race; there were Balfours who bled with 
 Wallace and triumphed with Bruce, and it is said 
 that the blood of that monarch mingles with other 
 aristocratic currents in the veins of Mr Balfour. 
 The Balfours of Whittinghame are not, however, 
 an old family in quite the same sense that the Paulets 
 or the Somersets are old. Their acres, though 
 broad and fair, are not ancestral acres; Whittinghame, 
 a large undistinguished block of masonry rather 
 resembling a section of one of the older squares of 
 Brighton, has no family ghost or Holbein ancestors; it 
 is only about a hundred years old, and what tradition 
 clings about the spot has no relation to the Balfours. 
 Whittinghame was built with the new gold brought 
 from India by Mr Balfour's grandfather, one John 
 Balfour of Balbirnie, who, going out to Madras, 
 made ^^300,000 in the course of a very few years 
 out of contracts for supplying the Navy with meat 
 and other provisions. Leaving a fellow-Scot to 
 manage the business for him at a salary of ^^6000 
 a year, he returned to these islands, bought one large 
 estate in the Lowlands and another in the Highlands, 
 and settled down at Whittinghame, almost before the 
 mortar was dry, to enjoy the lairdly dignity which 
 had been the lot of his ancestors. 
 
 In due course Whittinghame, with its goodly 
 rent-roll, its well-ordered park, its fine views of the 
 Lammermoors on the one side and of the Firth of 
 Forth on the other, descended to Mr James Maitland 
 Balfour, who married in her eighteenth year Lady 
 Blanche Gascoigne-Cecil, daughter • of the second 
 Marquess of Salisbury and sister of that Lord Robert 
 Cecil who was later to become the Victorian Burleigh. 
 Lady Blanche's mother, a great social figure in her 
 day, had enjoyed the close friendship of the Duke of 
 Wellington; Lady Blanche herself as a child had 
 
 4
 
 Mr, Balfouj^ 
 
 appealed strongly to all that was soft in that great 
 veteran; and it was after the Duke that she named 
 her first-born. Seven other children ^ were born 
 when the shadow of a great sorrow descended on 
 the sedately happy household. Of excellent abilities 
 and amiable character, Mr James Maitland Balfour 
 had been debarred by the delicacy of his constitution 
 from following the career of public usefulness for 
 which his short tenure of a seat in Parliament seemed 
 to suggest he was qualified. Ill-health at last became 
 complete invalidism; and escape to a less rigorous 
 climate only purchased a brief respite. In 1854 he 
 died in Madeira, and the care of the children and of 
 the family estates devolved on his widow. 
 
 Lady Blanche Balfour was, fortunately, equal 
 to her heavy responsibilities. Of a character always 
 rare, and still rarer now than then, she seems to have 
 been one of those women in whom pride of caste is 
 tempered by humble piety and a delicate soul is allied 
 with the shrewdest practical sense. In her breadth 
 and her narrowness, in her absorption in her family, 
 in her simple faith and imperious sense of duty, she 
 recalls the gentle but spirited chatelaines of Thackeray. 
 The story of the Whittinghame household, after the 
 death of the master, reads almost like a page from 
 Esmond or the early chapters of Pendennis. Calls 
 from the neighbouring magnates, an occasional 
 glimpse of the greater world when Lord Robert 
 Cecil paid, like ' my brother the Major,' one of his 
 
 - Cecil Charles, died at thirty-two years of age. 
 
 Francis Maitland, distinguished in science, killed in Alpine 
 climbing, 1882. 
 
 Gerald, afterwards Irish Secretary, President of the Board of 
 Trade, etc. 
 
 Eustace James. 
 
 Alice (Miss Balfour). 
 
 Eleanor Mildred, afterwards wife of Professor Sidgwick. 
 
 Lady Rayleigh. 
 
 5
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 visits, entertainments to the tenantry or the labourers 
 of the estate — such were the only variations in a 
 homely routine. An excursion was an event, a hair- 
 cutting an incident, a visitation of diphtheria almost 
 a tragedy. During the great cotton famine the 
 sufferings of the poor were impressed on the children 
 in a manner quite practical and quite Victorian; 
 they had to do their own work. * Our establishment,' 
 Mr Balfour once said, ' was reduced to the narrowest 
 limits; my sisters helped to cook the dinner, and I 
 helped to black the boots.* For the rest, the mother's 
 eye was ever on the nursery; she saw to all its wants, 
 material and intellectual, and it was through her 
 evening readings that the future Prime Minister 
 made his first acquaintance with the great romancers 
 of England and (with a certain care in selection) of 
 France. 
 
 At twelve the young heir made his first speech 
 at a gathering of tenantry — the local paper adds ' in 
 a most manly fashion '; and at fourteen he left his 
 preparatory school for the wider world of Eton. 
 Lord Salisbury was miserable there; his nephew 
 seems to have succeeded in enjoying himself quite 
 tolerably. His duties as fag to his future colleague, 
 Lord Lansdowne, do not seem to have troubled 
 him, and he got on well enough with both masters 
 and boys. With the rather fragile physique inherited 
 from both parents — the Cecils, like the Balfours, 
 tended to lung trouble — he could not, like his school- 
 fellow, Lord Dalmeny (afterwards Earl of Rosebery 
 and Prime Minister), play a distinguished part in 
 sport. But he passed muster at football; lessons 
 did not worry him; and he got through his school- 
 days pleasantly enough to retain a contented recollec- 
 tion and a faith, orthodox if not specially robust, 
 in the wisdom of the British public school system. 
 
 6
 
 Mr, Ba/four 
 
 At Cambridge, his record was equally removed from 
 brilliance or disgrace; he took his B.A. in 1870, 
 with second-class honours in Moral Science, and 
 left behind him at Trinity the memory of a young 
 man of excellent natural powers, of good looks, and 
 of pleasant manners (though rather shy), fond of 
 music (he once owned four concertinas, on which 
 he delighted to play Handel's oratorios when any 
 one could be found to accompany him), perhaps a 
 little effeminate, and certainly not a little lazy. He 
 was renowned for the hours he would lie in bed, and 
 for his passion for blue china and pleasant knick- 
 knacks. The irreverent called him * Pretty Fanny,* 
 and his rooms were really a trifle suggestive of the 
 bluestocking in their combination of the kind of 
 material elegance and the kind of literary refinement 
 which one may fairly call ladylike. 
 
 Two years later came the second great shock 
 of his life; at the age of forty-seven his mother died; 
 her body lies in Whittinghame Churchyard, and her 
 memory is still cherished among the older inhabitants 
 of the village. 
 
 If we are to understand the outlook of the wealthy, 
 languid, sauntering, rather delicate young man thus 
 early orphaned, we must revert to the fact that he 
 entered the world at a time when certain ideas of 
 much import to mankind were preparing to leave it. 
 Every man's career is the resultant of outside 
 influences acting on temperament. Our dispositions 
 admit of no constitutional change; while it is true 
 that a single event may change the whole current of 
 a life it is none the less true that at every stage what 
 is born in us affects the course and intensity of that 
 current. In the case of Mr Balfour both temperament 
 and circumstance tended in the same direction. 
 
 7
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 With little animal vigour, an intellect clear and 
 vigorous but rather critical than creative, a certain 
 coldness of imagination, a heart not over-responsive 
 to things which thrill the vulgar, he had been brought 
 up under conditions which permitted him little 
 contact with the rough-and-tumble of life. At 
 Whittinghame he moved amid a deference almost 
 amounting to worship. At Eton he developed a 
 dexterity in avoiding the kind of troubles most young 
 people seek. At Cambridge he moved, as far as 
 possible, in sybaritic isolation. He did not lack 
 open-air tastes; hard walking and even deer-stalking 
 appealed to him as a young man, and he nourished a 
 sensitive horror of becoming fiit or flabby; but his 
 poor health was always a sufficient excuse for not 
 joining in kinds of life for which he showed no 
 taste; and his early seclusion nourished to a 
 perhaps unwholesome degree the fastidiousness of 
 his mind and temper. Of family pride he inherited 
 a sufficiency; to it he added a curious intellectual 
 arrogance which is visible in his earliest speeches and 
 never quite absent from his more mature utter- 
 ances. A profound conviction that what is popular 
 must be vulgar seems to have been his from a very 
 tender age; it is discernible in some of the speeches 
 which a too zealous hero-worship has pre- 
 served. 
 
 On a temperament so little prone to enthusiasm 
 the general lowering of temperature, political and 
 theological, which characterised the latter half of the 
 nineteenth century must have had a further chilling 
 effect. The time of Mr Balfour's birth, roughly 
 corresponding with the consummation of a revolution 
 in English life, also witnessed the beginnings of a 
 world-wide wave of reaction. He first saw the light 
 two years after the repeal of the Corn Laws in England
 
 J[^r. Balfour 
 
 and a few months after the fall of Louis Philippe in 
 France. The great year of revolution, as it appeared 
 to contemporaries, is now seen rather as the expiring 
 flicker of an old conflagration. In every country 
 insurrectionary movements were defeated either by 
 force of arms or by adroit appeals to nationalistic 
 ideals. France was soon found merely to have 
 exchanged one irresponsible master for another; 
 in Hungary the sword of the Czar and the rope of 
 the Habsburg prepared the way for a more subtle 
 policy; the last remnant of Polish independence was 
 extinguished; in Germany a feeble democratic faith 
 was overwhelmed, through the art of Bismarck, by 
 a passion for empire without liberty. Every year of 
 Mr Balfour's youth saw the current quicken, and he 
 had scarcely reached full manhood when the ceremony 
 at the Palace of the old French Kings proclaimed 
 to those who had ears to hear that reaction, dis- 
 guised as progress and equipped with superlative 
 modern efficiency, was in the saddle, and would 
 ride. 
 
 Sedan was a spiritual no less than a military 
 defeat, and the effects of that defeat were quickly 
 felt in England. The rise of Prussia to the first place 
 on the Continent killed the old Liberalism. Much 
 of its legislative fruit was gathered in the very year 
 the Prussian armies were marching on Paris, but, as 
 in the natural world, harvest coincided with the 
 exhaustion of creative force; and before bearing 
 time could come again the Bismarckian frost had set 
 firmly in. A new tone of pessimism in speculation 
 corresponded with the weakening of the reforming 
 spirit in action. By mere inertia the old formulae 
 persisted; but the men who grew up between the 
 fifties and the eighties were mainly a disillusioned 
 race, lacking in positive faith and scarcely capable 
 
 9
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 of a decisive negative. Their attitude to all that 
 commanded the respect of an earlier generation, 
 from the whiskers of John Bright to the economics 
 of Cobden, was an acquiescence without homage; 
 they had neither energy to oppose nor to admire; 
 all they could offer was a dubious and unconvinced 
 conformity. The fashionable young man wore a 
 wisp of hair under his ears — there are portraits of 
 Mr Balfour thus — and paid lip-service to the gospel 
 of free exchange. But he did so with reserve; the 
 fashions and the economics of the last age might be 
 respectable and true, since they were so very ugly 
 and so very dull, but who could be expected to be 
 enthusiastic over them } 
 
 Of this languid scepticism and exhausted acqui- 
 escence Mr Balfour was very fairly representative; 
 and his early temper, persisting throughout life, 
 explains much in his career. He has apparently 
 never believed in Free Trade; but left alone he 
 would never have challenged it. He has never fallen 
 a victim to those democratic enthusiasms which 
 occasionally cause alarm (happily quite transient) 
 to ducal parents; on the other hand it would be 
 wrong to describe him as ' reactionary.' In one 
 sense he is hardly a true Conservative; while anxious 
 to stand still as far as practicable, he has not hesitated 
 on occasion to suggest quite revolutionary courses. 
 His political philosophy is, indeed, not easily dis- 
 coverable. His chief belief seems to be that sleeping 
 dogs should be allowed to lie. ' The wise man,' he 
 once said, ' is content in a sober and cautious spirit, 
 with a full consciousness of his feeble powers of 
 foresight and the narrow limits of his activity, to 
 deal as they arise with the problems of his own 
 generation.' This has been his rule. But when the 
 dogs decline to sleep he cares little as to the particular 
 
 lo
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 manner in which he disposes of them. Mr Balfour 
 has generally elected to stand still unless pushed; 
 when pushed beyond a certain point, he has acted 
 always with decision, occasionally with recklessness. 
 At times he showed himself so near to greatness 
 that one wondered what he might have been with 
 more robustness and an animating faith. At the 
 end of his career one is still left wondering. 
 
 II
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Mr Balfour entered Parliament in 1874 as member 
 for the Borough of Hertford, which was then almost 
 the property of the Cecil family. He was unopposed, 
 and happened to be the first member declared elected. 
 The event has a certain symbolical significance. The 
 man who was to spend so much of his public life 
 blocking Liberal programmes began it as a member 
 of the first House after the Reform Bill which could 
 be classed as at once fundamentally and intelligently 
 anti-Liberal. 
 
 There had been some Tories in power, and plenty 
 of Whigs, whose chief aim was to avoid or postpone 
 change; the great peculiarity of the Disraelian regime 
 from 1874 to 1880 was that it fought Liberalism 
 not by the ' Everlasting Nay ' but by an eager and 
 even shrill affirmative of its own. It did not propose 
 at all to stand still; its whole strategic conception 
 was dynamic. It reproached Gladstone with being 
 behind, instead of before, the times. Repudiating 
 the title of the * Stupid Party,' it sought to fasten 
 that reproach upon the enemy. It professed the 
 liveliest sympathy with the working man, tried (and 
 with some success) to convince him that the Liberalism 
 of men like Bright was a purely middle-class conception, 
 and (this with less conspicuous triumph) argued 
 that the welfare of the poor had been a constant 
 object of Tory policy. Liberalism had always a 
 cosmopolitan side; it believed in free trade in Liberal 
 doctrines, and Manchester tenets were as much an 
 article of export as Manchester cotton. The new 
 Conservatism was passionately national, or (more 
 
 12
 
 uMr, Balfour 
 
 accurately) imperial. It drew a line of division as 
 sharp as that of Mr Micawber. * On the one side 
 of this line,' said Mr Micawber, * is the whole range 
 of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; 
 on the other is that exception; that is to say the 
 affairs of Messrs Wickfield and Heep, with all 
 belonging and appertaining thereto.' The affairs 
 of humanity were left (with a sneer) to Mr Gladstone 
 or his caretakers; the affairs of the Imperial firm, 
 with all belonging and appertaining thereto (the 
 Turkish Empire and so forth), were the exclusive 
 concern of Mr Disraeli. 
 
 The new Conservatism judged everything from 
 the standpoint of purely British interest, and it defined 
 British interest in a manner at once materialistic and 
 imaginative. The chief idea of Disraelian Imperialism 
 was expansion; concrete gain in territory, money- 
 making facilities, and prestige. But its eyes were 
 rather too much at the ends of the earth, and it 
 could not always distinguish — a failing common to 
 all Imperialism — between solid advantage and showy 
 but unsubstantial successes. The Disraelians grasped, 
 as the Liberals never did, the truth that, given a 
 highly militarised Continent and the precise form 
 of industrial and commercial polity then established 
 in the United Kingdom, the price of safety for 
 Great Britain must be eternal vigilance. They saw 
 that the Empire was not a naturally buoyant structure, 
 like one of Nelson's frigates, which could stand 
 a good deal of knocking about, but an extremely 
 sinkable though mighty assemblage of machinery, 
 like a modern battleship, only kept afloat by constant 
 cunning and effort, and always liable to be sent to 
 the bottom by a sudden or treacherous blow. That 
 is to say, the leaders of the school saw all this; but 
 their main strength was derived from the support of 
 
 13
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 those who held, in the crudest form, the comforting 
 faith that the inherent superiority of the Briton was 
 sufficient warrant against harm, however he might 
 care to irritate or alarm his neighbours. 
 
 It would be unjust, however, to judge Mr 
 Disraeli by the Jingoism he encouraged and used. 
 The great master might often be misled by mere 
 ignorance of facts, and his whole conception might 
 be open to criticism; but it was a sure instinct which 
 led him, thinking as he did, to scorn most of the 
 dogmas of Liberalism, and especially its anti-militarist 
 tradition. Given his standpoint, the rest was 
 inevitable. If Great Britain was to pursue her 
 Imperialist mission, if she was to expand at the present 
 expense of one neighbour, and peg out claims to 
 the future detriment of another, then she must expect 
 and provide against the hostility of all at whose cost 
 such development took place. Practically interpreted, 
 such provision meant that she must abandon the 
 Liberal idea of non-intervention in Continental affairs. 
 She must take her seat at the gambling table and 
 trust to her skill in finesse and bluff". She must 
 permit nothing to happen on the Continent without 
 her concurrence. She must pit one Power against 
 another; especially she must contrive combinations 
 against any Power threatening her Eastern possessions; 
 and generally she must give up the pose of moral 
 superiority and pursue a policy of long-sighted 
 opportunism, without reference to any consideration 
 but that of the country's influence and material 
 greatness. 
 
 The election of 1874 proved that the nation was 
 in more than one sense under the influence of the 
 German victory of three years before. A large part 
 of the electorate was by no means pleased by the 
 attitude of Mr Gladstone's Government towards 
 
 H
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 the belligerents. Sympathy at first had been rather 
 with Germany than with France, but the current of 
 public opinion took a new turn when the completeness 
 of the French defeat became apparent; and there 
 was a considerable disposition to blame Mr Gladstone 
 for his failure to proclaim Great Britain's interest 
 and authority by intervening to secure a mitigation 
 of the peace terms. But the main effect of the German 
 triumph was due to what the Doctor in Dickens 
 called ' the imitative instinct in the biped man.' 
 While many were found to reprobate, there were 
 still more to admire, the skill shown by Bismarck 
 in provoking and steering to a highly profitable 
 conclusion three successive wars. It was vaguely 
 felt that a Bowdlerised version of such dexterity 
 might have its uses in this country; in any case it 
 would be no bad thing to oppose to unscrupulous 
 foreign ability the subtlest brain among native 
 statesmen. 
 
 For the rest, the prestige of Gladstone's greatest 
 administration had worn itself out. The country 
 was in one of those conservative moods which rarely 
 fail to follow a great burst of reforming activity. 
 The Government's work, much of it exceedingly 
 valuable, had yet offended more than it pleased. 
 There was no great popular enthusiasm for com- 
 pulsory education, Irish disestablishment, abolition 
 of purchase in the army, the ballot, and licensing 
 reform; on the other hand, each and all of these 
 measures had created powerful and pertinacious 
 enemies. The clergy were Conservative agents 
 almost to a man. The military men, except for a 
 few young soldiers, harboured keen resentment over 
 what they regarded as high-handed interference 
 with their rights. Every public-house was a centre 
 of proselytising energy. Lowe's match tax had 
 
 ^5
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 wantonly created one of those small popular grievances 
 of which Liberal Governments in particular should 
 beware. There was point, if there was not truth, 
 in Disraeli's sneer as to ' Plundering and Blundering,' 
 ' harassing every trade and worrying every profession.' 
 Moreover, the late Government had suffered from 
 those dissensions which are perhaps a Liberal law 
 of nature, but to which Gladstonian administrations 
 were certainly liable in a peculiar degree. Every 
 Radical was against all Whigs, and one Whig was 
 against another. The Government had sustained 
 a serious defeat over its extraordinarily tactless Irish 
 University Bill. Having dealt the Ministry a fatal 
 blow, Disraeli let it bleed to death like a smitten 
 calf, conscious that he would not have long to wait, 
 and that the veal would be all the whiter on the table. 
 He was right. In an atmosphere of defeat the dis- 
 ruptive forces within the Ministry rapidly increased, 
 and at the moment of dissolution Mr Gladstone 
 was in acute difference with his two most powerful 
 subordinates over his plan (it now seems marvellously 
 Utopian) for the abolition of the income-tax. If the 
 British people had really liked the income-tax, they 
 could not have chosen a better means to ensure its 
 permanence. Mr Disraeli promptly took measures 
 which set all question at rest as to the abolition of 
 this impost. 
 
 Sir William Harcourt had long seen the smash 
 coming. It was a very complete smash when it came. 
 It was not alone that Mr Disraeli commanded a 
 powerful majority. The opposition had almost 
 disappeared. Mr Gladstone went into retirement; 
 Lord Hartington, reluctantly assuming titular leader- 
 ship, found himself less the chief of a party than the 
 butt of a number of mutually hostile factions, only 
 agreeing in repudiating his authority. Complete 
 
 i6
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 apathy succeeded to the stirring atmosphere of con- 
 tention which had so long reigned; Disraeli ostenta- 
 tiously withdrew himself, much as a modern statesman 
 has done, from the debates, and left in charge a knot 
 of men whose main distinction was their utter lack 
 of it. Sir Stafford Northcote, gentle and fair-minded, 
 but rather lacking in vigour. Sir Michael Hicks- 
 Beach, hard-headed and not specially soft-hearted, 
 were almost the only figures on the Conservative 
 side that rose above the level of the commonplace; 
 the Liberal Front Benches were scarcely inore 
 distinguished; Mr Bright had ceased to take 
 much share in debate, and Mr Gladstone hardly 
 ever entered the House. Two men who were to 
 make history in the next decade had not yet appeared 
 at Westminster: in 1875 ^^ Parnell was elected 
 for Meath and Mr Chamberlain was returned for 
 Birmingham in 1876. 
 
 Mr Balfour took little interest in this tepid 
 assembly. To most people the House of Commons 
 is an acquired taste, and young men, especially, are 
 apt to be repelled equally by its boredom and its 
 bustle: the boredom is always so self-evident, the 
 meaning of the bustle is often so obscure. Mr 
 Balfour, too, carried to rather excessive length the 
 exhaustion fashionable among the youth of the period. 
 He was a member, if not the actual inventor, of the 
 Society called ' the Souls,' and his manner was that 
 of those laboriously nonchalant young men of whom 
 Dickens made fun, sometimes kindly and sometimes 
 malicious. His first year was spent as a silent member; 
 in 1875 ^^ went on a tour of the world, and it was 
 not until 1876 that he made his maiden speech; 
 the subject was bi-metallism, a matter which has 
 always interested him and which cast early doubts 
 on his economic orthodoxy. 
 
 17
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 There is generally little profit in disinterring the 
 early utterances of eminent men, but two characteristic 
 examples may be noticed. Much to the amusement 
 of his uncle, Mr Beresford Hope, Mr Balfour argued 
 for equality between men and women regarding 
 University degrees, but opposed woman suffrage 
 on the conventional grounds then common; that 
 politics were not * women's sphere,' that the vote 
 would give rise to regrettable controversies in the 
 home circle, that women were influenced by sentiment 
 rather than reason, and so forth. On another occasion 
 Mr Balfour showed liberality in advance of his party 
 in protesting against the burial disabilities to which 
 Nonconformists were then subject; he showed so 
 much pertinacity in pressing a measure of his own 
 to remove this grievance that an honest Tory, referring 
 to the Ground Game Bill, which was being discussed 
 at the same time, growled ' He cares a dashed deal 
 more for a dead Dissenter than for a live rabbit.* 
 In the course of a closely argued speech Mr Balfour 
 warned the Church against maintaining an arrogant 
 attitude which would deprive it of the sympathy of 
 broad-minded people otherwise not unfriendly. 
 
 These speeches serve to show that the young 
 member's mind was, in essentials, what it remained 
 in later life. Illiberal in the true sense Mr Balfour 
 has never been; intellectually, indeed, he has always 
 indulged a scorn for any kind of narrowness. A 
 Nonconformist being dead, Mr Balfour was extremely 
 willing for him to be buried in a polite and tolerant 
 manner; to any single Dissenter, to any class of 
 Dissenter, to any number of Dissenters, he was 
 ready to accord this privilege. But he was less ready 
 to consider the claims of Nonconformists who were 
 inconveniently (and perhaps unwarrantably) alive. 
 Again, he had no objection to a woman calling herself 
 
 i8
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 M.A., because that did no particular harm, if it did 
 no particular good. But she must not call herself 
 M.P., or even vote to make an M.P., because that 
 meant the one thing Mr Balfour has always resisted 
 — it meant a difference. 
 
 Mr Balfour at this time is described as very- 
 long, very thin, a little languid, a little affected, with 
 an extremely agreeable voice (not yet, however, 
 with quite the full and rich timbre of a later period), 
 a manner which could be at will extraordinarily 
 winning and slightly offensive, and a trick, already 
 noticeable, of saying nasty things neatly. His political 
 bias had thus early declared itself with sufficient 
 decision, but he had as yet given no serious thought 
 to particular questions, and his occasional interventions 
 in debate were still marked by a debating society 
 ingenuousness. He was content to follow the lead 
 of his distinguished uncle, who gave him at this 
 time (it is Mr Balfour himself who speaks) ' words 
 of encouragement which live and germinate and 
 affect the whole future life and character of those to 
 whom they are addressed.' Lord Salisbury, once 
 bitterly critical of Mr Disraeli, had become completely 
 reconciled to his leadership, and Mr Balfour had 
 already attracted the notice of the Prime Minister, 
 whose shrewd eye had detected the talent that lay 
 concealed behind his exhausted manner. ' Arthur 
 Balfour will be a second Pitt,' is said to have been 
 Mr Disraeli's remark on one occasion. Lord 
 Salisbury's nephew could not be altogether a cipher 
 in the political society of the day, and the years 
 between 1874 and 1880 — barren as they are in the 
 record — must have had a great educational influence. 
 But Mr Balfour was in no sense a Parliamentary 
 figure when, in 1878, he had his first glimpse into 
 the larger political life. Lord Salisbury took him as 
 
 19
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 his private secretary to the Berlin Conference, anJ 
 though the real business had been secretly transacted 
 beforehand, there was plenty, in the way of personali 
 ties and stage effects, to occupy an observant, reflective 
 and ironical mind. Its ironical side must have fully 
 appreciated the sequel to the junketings of Berlin 
 and the delirious triumph of London. 
 
 If 1870 was the high-water mark of Gladstonian 
 Liberalism, 1878 saw Disraelian Imperialism at the 
 climax of its glory. When the Prime Minister 
 returned with his sheaves, and all England shouted 
 for * Peace with Honour,' few could have been 
 prepared for the swift reaction which was to follow. 
 Liberalism seemed at the lowest depths of impotence 
 and disrepute. Mr Gladstone was so unpopular in 
 London that he once had actually to take refuge from 
 the resentment of a Jingo crowd. But in British 
 politics the most dangerous moment for a public man 
 is that at which all that is vocal sings his praises. 
 London is not England, still less Britain; and 
 while the Metropolitan clubs and music-halls were 
 still attributing to Mr Disraeli a degree of infallibility 
 many Roman Catholics were then risking excommuni- 
 cation rather than concede to the Pope, the provinces 
 were moodily reckoning up the cost of Imperialism 
 and grudgingly weighing its visible fruits. Small 
 but expensive wars were placed against illusory gains 
 like that of Cyprus; the depression in trade and 
 increased taxation were compared with the golden 
 plenty of the early seventies; it was recalled, with a 
 due sense of the satire of things, that Mr Gladstone 
 had fallen while meditating the abolition of the 
 income-tax. 
 
 Taking advantage of this revulsion, the veteran 
 Liberal chief embarked, nominally as a private 
 individual, really as the head of a rejuvenated party, 
 
 20
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 on the famous Midlothian campaign. The Liberal 
 Party, which seemed in 1874 to have fallen into 
 permanent dissolution, quickly regained tone and 
 aggressiveness; and the first few days of the General 
 Election of 1880 showed that the chapter of Disraelian 
 Imperialism had closed. When it was all over the 
 Liberals had a maiority of forty-one over all parties, 
 and at the age of seventy, despite the wishes of the 
 Crown and of the retiring Prime Minister, Mr 
 Gladstone again assumed office. 
 
 Mr Balfour had this time to fight the borough of 
 Hertford against Mr E. E. Bowen, a Harrow master 
 and brother of Lord Bowen. On a total poll of 964 
 he had 164 votes to spare; the majority happened 
 to correspond almost exactly with the number of 
 houses owned by Lord Salisbury in Hertford. During 
 the last two years he had taken a somewhat more 
 conspicuous part in debate, and had been entrusted 
 with one or two speeches in defence of the Govern- 
 ment's foreign policy. In the performance of this 
 duty he crossed swords for the first time with one 
 who was destined to determine much of his political 
 life. Mr Joseph Chamberlain, who lost no occasion 
 to denounce Imperialism, and had called Mr Disraeli 
 ' a man who never told the truth except by accident,* 
 attacked the British plenipotentiaries at the Berlin 
 Conference as being the * ready and willing champions 
 of great despotisms ' and * as repressing the aspirations 
 and limiting the claims of subject nationalities.' 
 Mr Balfour complained of Mr Chamberlain's ' most 
 bitter harangues,' and stigmatised him as one of 
 those who ' remembered too much that they belonged 
 to different parties, and too little that they belonged 
 to the same country.' The keenest political prophet 
 of the time could hardly have foreseen the day when 
 Mr Chamberlain, as the great missionary of Empire, 
 
 21
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 would serve under the uncle and nephew whom he 
 censured for their part in the last great settlement 
 of Europe before the war of 19 14. Nor could Mr 
 Balfour, though long-sighted as most, have had the 
 smallest presentiment of the ultimate effects of the 
 policy he then defended. To statesmen the art of 
 shorthand reporting, which embalms their confident 
 utterances for the easy ridicule of later generations, 
 must seem indeed an invention of the evil one. 
 
 22
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The House in which Mr Balfour now found himself 
 was in many respects widely different from any of 
 its predecessors. For the first time the more modern 
 type of Radicalism was represented on the Front 
 Bench — at the Board of Trade by Mr Chamberlain, 
 and at the Foreign Office by Sir Charles Dilke, whose 
 position as Under Secretary was the more important 
 since Lord Granville was now by no means the man 
 he had been ten years earlier. 
 
 At this distance it is not a little difficult to realise 
 the distrust respectable people felt concerning Mr 
 Chamberlain. He was a highly substantial man, 
 respectable and religious, with all his ' h's ' and a 
 decided * stake in the country.* In the last Parliament 
 his spruce appearance and ' freedom from provincial- 
 ism ' — many good people really seemed to envisage 
 the Radical Mayor as a sort of Keir Hardie — had 
 abated apprehensions of personal misbehaviour. But 
 he was still generally regarded not only as a Republican, 
 which was perhaps serious, but as a Socialist, which 
 was very serious indeed; Socialism was then less an 
 economic heresy than a moral taint; and to most 
 good men and women Mr Chamberlain's real con- 
 stituency was not Birmingham but ' a city much like 
 London.' Moreover, he expressed views which were 
 then thought extreme with a vigour which would 
 perhaps always be thought excessive. Mr Balfour 
 himself seems to have seen in Mr Chamberlain little 
 but a demagogue with an itch for destruction. * His 
 object,' he said, ' is to make Whiggism impossible 
 and moderate Liberalism impossible. . . . All the 
 
 ^3
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 elements — the valuable and useful elements — which 
 now prevent it being homogeneous and exclusively 
 Radical — he means to drive out. If he means to 
 do it, depend upon it he will succeed in doing it. . . . 
 As soon as Mr Gladstone retires from the cares of 
 political life, then it will be that Mr Chamberlain 
 will, as I have said, make Whiggism an impossibility 
 and an anachronism. ... I fear both good feeling 
 and moderation may vanish in the political struggles 
 of the future.' If such were really the view of Mr 
 Balfour, with his cool temper and clear understanding, 
 can it be matter for surprise that the impression Mr 
 Chamberlain made on more fervid minds was that 
 of a dangerous character ? 
 
 The proper-minded were further scandalised by 
 the return for Northampton of Mr Charles Bradlaugh, 
 a militant atheist of a type now unfamiliar, who 
 refused to take the oath like more accommodating 
 infidels, and whose pertinacity was destined to worry 
 Mr Gladstone far more than many more weighty 
 matters with which the next few years were to perplex 
 him. Mr Parnell, already de facto and soon to become 
 de jure leader of the Irish Nationalists, had behind 
 him a solid phalanx to whom his will was law; he 
 ruled them by the power of a mysteriously frigid 
 personality, in which no Irish characteristic could 
 be detected. 
 
 An odd sympathy and co-operation grew up 
 between this dictator and one who, differing in most 
 other things, resembled him in losing no chance of 
 flouting his titular chief. Lord Randolph Churchill, 
 a younger son of the Duke of Marlborough, and 
 member for the family borough of Woodstock, 
 believed in applying to his party leaders what, in the 
 slang of a later day, has been called ' ginger.' He 
 was backed by Sir Henry Drummond Wolff and 
 
 24
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 Mr John Gorst, both attached to the Disraehan 
 tradition, and inclined to attribute its decay to the 
 lukewarmness or worse of what Lord Randolph called 
 the * old gang ' of Conservatism. These three received 
 the nickname of the Fourth Party. Apart from the 
 Irishmen, they supplied the only effective opposition 
 to the Government, which they harried with an ability 
 most practically recognised by Mr Gladstone, one 
 of whose weaknesses was that he could always be 
 ' drawn ' by anybody bold enough to face batteries 
 which were terrifying enough for most people, but 
 which Lord Randolph treated with nonchalant 
 disdain. The worst excesses of regular warfare are 
 mild as compared with the cruelties of internecine 
 strife, and the most venomous attacks of the Fourth 
 Party, their bitterest scorn, their most biting invec- 
 tive, their most industrious spite, their most potent 
 malice, were reserved for the gentle-mannered Sir 
 Stafford Northcote, who led the regular opposition. 
 Mr Balfour is generally included in the member- 
 ship of the Fourth Party. But he was a distinctly 
 irregular auxiliary. ' We did not take him very 
 seriously,' said Sir John Gorst in a reminiscent mood. 
 * His aesthetic tastes and love of music were something 
 of a joke among us.' Lord Randolph Churchill, 
 indeed, used to call him Postlethwaite, after the 
 aesthete in Patience, and, though there was some 
 intimacy between them, their tastes were too far 
 apart for them to become exactly friends. Lord 
 Randolph used sometimes to say to Mr Balfour, ' Go 
 and take my wife to a concert while I stay and talk 
 real business.' The truth was probably spoken, as 
 far as an epigrammatic generalisation can express it, 
 by the Irish Member who said, 'Drummond Wolff 
 started the Fourth Party; Gorst made it; Churchill 
 led it ; Balfour adorned it.' The same witness, 
 
 25
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 Mr F. H. O'Donnell, adds that, ' Balfour was a mem- 
 ber of the Fourth Party in the body, while always 
 communing in the spirit with the Conservative Front 
 Bench. Witty, judicious, observant, latent, uncom- 
 promised, not too much of an insurgent ever to draw 
 the lightning, enough of an objector to heighten the 
 value of his approbation, he trod with graceful 
 freedom the via ?j?edia between decorous independence 
 and official responsibility. . . . With all his judicious 
 reluctance he was a good comrade to the Fourth 
 Party, without ceasing to maintain his succession 
 to more permanent honours.' 
 
 Not policy alone but temperament prevented 
 Mr Balfour from throwing in his lot without 
 reservation with the Frondeurs. He was not 
 sufficiently fond of hard work, and had far too 
 much impatience of detail — a continuing character- 
 istic — to undertake all the labour and minute 
 investigation the character of the complete Fourth 
 Party man demanded. For the others no drudgery 
 was too great if Ministers could be made to look 
 foolish, if a squirm could be induced in the 
 sensitive Sir Stafford Northcote or the solid Mr 
 W. H. Smith. They used the pick and the spade 
 as joyfully as the blunderbuss and the broadsword. 
 Mr Balfour, then as always, hated to ' prepare.' 
 The thing that could be evolved out of his inner 
 consciousness, with the aid of a few facts from 7!^*? 
 Times or a Bluebook that came handy — that he would 
 say, and say with effect. But he revolted from the 
 patient sapping and mining which were pure joy to 
 Lord Randolph and his confederates. He could 
 declare off-hand, with equal relish and effect, that 
 Mr Chamberlain's criticisms of the House of Lords 
 ' consisted in about equal proportions of bad history, 
 bad logic, and bad taste,' or suggest that certain 
 
 26
 
 jMr. Balfour 
 
 speeches of that pushing politician would have earned 
 him, in Ireland, a plank bed and prison cocoa. He 
 could say witty things like that not unjustified sneer 
 at John Bright, who ' calls the electorate the residuum 
 when he disagrees with them and the people when 
 they agree with him.' But he could not hunt through 
 Hansard for 'what Mr Gladstone said in 1872.' 
 Occasionally, however, his contributions to debate 
 suggested to the discerning that the lackadaisical 
 young laird had much more in him than any of the 
 party, with the possible exception of Lord Randolph 
 himself. 
 
 Such a speech was that in which he denounced 
 the so-called ' Kilmainham treaty,' by which, it was 
 alleged, Mr Parnell and other Irish members had 
 been released from prison on the understanding 
 that, if they would work for peace in Ireland, the 
 Government would bring in a Bill with regard to 
 arrears of rent, as a preliminary to dealing with 
 larger Irish questions. The Government had denied 
 that there was any such compact. ' It appears to 
 me,' said Mr Balfour, ' that it is very much a matter 
 of words.' He then quoted the * Bourgeois Gentil- 
 homme,' whose father was not a merchant, but being 
 * very officious ' and having a good taste in cloth, kept 
 a lot of stuffs in his house, and let his friends have 
 them, they in their turn giving him. presents of money. 
 ' There was no sale; simply an exchange of gifts. 
 In the same way the Government have not entered 
 into a compact; they have only given the honourable 
 gentlemen behind them something they very much 
 desired, and the honourable gentlemen have, on their 
 part, given the Government something they very 
 much desired. ... I do not think any such trans- 
 action can be quoted from the annals of our political 
 history. It stands alone in its infamy.' 
 
 27 C
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 To this attack, which first suggested to some 
 political observers the probable lines of Mr Balfour's 
 future career, Mr Gladstone replied with a heat and 
 an emphasis which, while witnessing to his indignation, 
 could also be interpreted as a sort of inverted 
 compliment. Mr Gladstone, in fact, had a good 
 deal of liking for Mr Balfour, whom he frequently- 
 singled out for compliment as * a man of great ability, 
 who may look to obtain further distinction in the 
 councils of the Empire.' A generous appreciation 
 of young talent, especially of young aristocratic 
 talent, was one of the most touching characteristics 
 of Mr Gladstone; and, though he seems to have 
 been genuinely hurt by the strength of Mr Balfour's 
 language, he did not let many suns go down on the 
 wrath evoked by this slashing attack. The old 
 Parliamentary hand, indeed, would soon have 
 succumbed had he allowed such minor matters to 
 disturb more than momentarily his equanimity. 
 Ireland, where Mr Forster's government (' almost 
 as unpopular as it is inefficient,' as Mr Balfour 
 described it in a sentence which did more harm 
 among Liberals than many volumes of denunciation) 
 nearly brought about a dissolution of society, was 
 saved from total ruin by Earl Spencer's judiciously 
 firm handling. But what hope of settlement there 
 might have existed when Mr Parnell left Kilmainham 
 had been dashed by the Phcenix Park murders, 
 and Irish national feeling was never more bitterly 
 inflamed against England than when Earl Spencer 
 could report that the country was, as compared 
 with its state in 1882, almost peaceful. But, 
 apart from Ireland, the Government was almost 
 perpetually in trouble. Egypt, the Sudan, Gordon 
 — these were words of terror to a Prime Minister 
 who had come into office largely through disgust 
 
 28
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 over foreign complications and mismanaged military 
 affairs; and it was almost with eagerness that Mr 
 Gladstone resigned when his Budget was defeated 
 on June 8, 1885, on the question of an increase of 
 the beer duty. 
 
 Pallas te hoc viilnere. It was the Parnellites, 
 acting in unison with Lord Randolph Churchill (of 
 whom, righdy or wrongly, they had high hopes), 
 who dealt the fatal blow. Lord Randolph's exultant 
 shout, and the cry of * coercion ' from the Irish 
 Benches, had point for those who had watched, during 
 many months, the curious growth of relations between 
 the Third (or Home Rule) Party and the Fourth. 
 
 It had begun over the Bradlaugh controversy. 
 The English Tories of the Extreme Right, no doubt 
 highly scandalised as Churchmen, but perhaps even 
 more ready as politicians to make the best use of a 
 convenient stick with which to hit the Government, 
 discovered a fellow-feeling among the Irish Roman 
 Catholics, who were genuinely appalled by the free- 
 thinker and all his works. To the Irish Bradlaugh 
 was, not just an ordinary infidel, but a dirty fellow; 
 he had been associated with certain publications 
 which, to the Irish mind (so sensitive on all questions 
 of sex morality) were merely abominable. It was 
 with difficulty that Mr Parnell and Mr T. P. O'Connor 
 could persuade a fraction of the Irish Party to vote 
 with the Liberals in favour of relaxing the oath test 
 in Bradlaugh's favour; the rest followed Lord 
 Randolph Churchill. Egyptian affairs extended 
 the singular alliance thus singularly begun. Lord 
 Randolph championed Arabi Pasha, and declared 
 that we had embarked on a ' bondholders' war,' 
 and, coached by Mr Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, was able 
 to make things uncomfortable for Mr Gladstone, 
 to whom the very name of Egypt was nauseous. On 
 
 29
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 the Irish side nothing was known about Arabi except 
 that he had declared for ' Egypt for the Egyptians,' 
 but that was enough; it was sufficiently like ' Ireland 
 for the Irish ' to make Nationalist hearts beat with 
 responsive emotion. Perhaps fortunately for Mr 
 Baltour, in view of his subsequent policy, he had 
 very little to do with this particular ' union of hearts.' 
 In all these intrigues, if such they can be called, the 
 part played by him was insignificant. He was not 
 in the inner councils of the Fourth Party, and his 
 co-operation was always sufficiently non-committal. 
 Referring to the ' cordial relations ' existing between 
 the Third and Fourth Parties, the Irish witness 
 above quoted interjects: * Cordial might be too 
 warm an adjective to Mr Balfour, who never failed 
 to maintain a semi-aloofness suitable to the heir- 
 presumptive of the Conservative leadership.' Else- 
 where he likens Churchill to the deadly D'Artagnan, 
 and Mr Balfour to the ' exquisite Aramis ' — who, 
 readers of Dumas will remember, kept high company, 
 and always had his own little private affairs which 
 he kept quite distinct from the general interests of 
 the quartet. 
 
 By this time, indeed, Mr Balfour had, in Aramis's 
 own way, gone some considerable distance on Aramis's 
 road of ambition. In the House of Commons he 
 was still far from a commanding figure. Certain 
 speeches, like that cited above, and like his indictment 
 of the Government for failing to relieve Gordon, 
 had elicited the favourable comment of competent 
 judges, and he had acquired a special reputation 
 for stinging but ' good form ' retort. But though 
 he gave some promise for the future, he could not 
 yet be called a good speaker or dependable debater. 
 This judgment, of course, was formed at a time 
 when the level of House of Commons speaking was 
 
 30
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 generally far higher than to-day; Mr Balfour at 
 his best could hardly have dominated the Chamber 
 of the eighties as he did that of a more recent period. 
 His status behind the scenes was, however, more 
 considerable than that which he occupied on the 
 lighted stage. He received the confidence of Lord 
 Salisbury, and was the chief agent by whom that 
 statesman kept in touch with the Lower House. 
 He began to know everything and everybody; was 
 entrusted with delicate negotiations; and enjoyed 
 the fullest opportunities of improving talents which 
 in truth fitted him more for the silent service of an 
 autocrat than for the control of a popular assembly. 
 ' Arthur thinks us a vulgar lot,' said Sir William 
 Harcourt; and there was some point in his jocularity. 
 Mr Balfour got to know well all the ways of the 
 House of Commons, and could play with it adroitly. 
 But he never gained that perfect understanding 
 which (as of a lover with his mistress) implies also 
 perfect trust, and always seemed to resent as slightly 
 wanting in taste the House's questioning of the 
 divine right of ministries. 
 
 The situation produced by the defeat of the 
 Government was singular. Mr Gladstone was the 
 only statesman (since the death of Lord Beaconsfield) 
 who had occupied the position of Prime Minister, 
 and there was then no leader of the Conservative 
 Party as a whole. Queen Victoria, passing over the 
 claims of Sir Stafford Northcote, as senior statesman 
 and leader of the House of Commons, at once sent 
 for Lord Salisbury, who, after raising difficulties, 
 consented on terms to accept office. The Queen's 
 choice was important to Mr Balfour's career. He 
 could hardly have been persona grata to the victim 
 of his vivacious friends. On the other hand he was 
 doubly sure of consideration from his uncle, who, 
 
 31
 
 AJr, Balfour 
 
 even if he were disposed to be unresponsive to the 
 call of blood and the claims of rapidly developing 
 ability, could not ignore the great services of the 
 Fourth Party. Those services were in truth hand- 
 somely recognised, especially when count is taken 
 of the youth and inexperience of its members. Lord 
 Randolph entered the Cabinet as Secretary for India; 
 Sir John Gorst was made Solicitor-General; and 
 Mr Balfour became President of the Local Govern- 
 ment Board; while a diplomatic appointment was 
 accepted by Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, much to 
 the surprise of many who imagined that this cynical 
 and brilliant man, the virtual founder of the Primrose 
 League, had much higher game in view. The 
 Salisbury Government was of course simply a company 
 of caretakers; its business was to wind up the session, 
 and dissolve. In the election, which took place in 
 the late autumn of 1885, the Liberals fared badly 
 in the Boroughs, and especially in London, but 
 in the counties the newly-enfranchised agricultural 
 labourers, going to the poll in thousands in support 
 of the Radical agricultural policy renowned in the 
 slang of the day as ' three acres and a cow,' more 
 than redressed the balance. The eventual Liberal 
 majority was eighty-five, not counting the Irish 
 Nationalists either way. If the Nationalists were 
 counted against the Government the Liberal majority 
 disappeared. 
 
 Mr Balfour in this election successfully contested 
 the Eastern Division of Manchester against Professor 
 Hopkinson, of Owens College; his majority was 
 824. It is interesting, in view of subsequent events, 
 to note one point in his address after the declaration 
 of the poll. ' Glad,' he said, ' as the Radical Ministers 
 would be to purchase office at any moment by yielding 
 to Irish pressure, there is not one cardinal point of 
 
 32
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 J. 
 
 their policy that they hold in common with the Irish 
 people. That is not the case with the Conservatives. 
 There is one principle which the Conservatives hold 
 as earnestly as the party to which Mr Parnell belongs, 
 and for which they may well be found fighting side by 
 side, and that is the principle of religious education. 
 On that question the Tory Party and the Roman 
 Catholic Party and the Parnellite Party are absolutely 
 at one. The Irish policy and the foreign policy of 
 the late Government were wholly without excuse, 
 and so long as Mr Parnell and his friends confine their 
 attacks to the Irish policy and the foreign policy they will 
 find no great difference between themselves and the 
 Conservative Party.' 
 
 These words certainly suggest no such implacable 
 hostility to Home Rule and the Home Rule Party as 
 Mr Balfour's speeches of a slightly later date imply. 
 They are rather friendly than otherwise. But it 
 must be remembered that Mr Balfour spoke at an 
 early stage in the elections, when it looked as if Lord 
 Salisbury's Government would be maintained in 
 power. Mr Parnell had advised Irish voters 
 in British constituencies to vote for Conservative 
 candidates; Lord Salisbury had made speeches which 
 might be interpreted, and certainly were in some 
 quarters interpreted, as not hostile at least to an 
 examination of Home Rule; Lord Carnarvon, who 
 had advanced views on Ireland, had been appointed 
 Irish Viceroy; ' cordial relations ' had existed in 
 the last Parliament between Lord Randolph Churchill, 
 now a powerful Conservative Minister, and the 
 Parnellites. The Cabinet did not know, but Mr 
 Balfour may have known (as Lord Salisbury certainly 
 did) that Lord Carnarvon had met Mr Parnell in a 
 private house in London, and had discussed with 
 him a plan for the creation of an Irish Parliament.
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 Exactly what was said at the meeting was never 
 known, but the Irish were certainly under the im- 
 pression, first that Lord Carnarvon was in favour 
 of some sort of Home Rule (in which they were right), 
 and secondly that he had behind him the support of 
 the Cabinet (in which they were wrong). In whatever 
 degree he may have been privy to these proceedings, 
 Mr Balfour was evidently seized of knowledge which 
 compelled him, in his Manchester campaign, to sit 
 on the fence, with his feet on the Irish side. 
 
 What would have happened had the counties 
 gone the way of the Boroughs, and Lord Salisbury 
 had found himself, as Mr Gladstone did, dependent 
 on the Irish vote .'' The speculation, however 
 tempting, is idle. We know what did happen. 
 Finding that Mr Gladstone had decided for Home 
 Rule, while Lord Hartington and other influential 
 Liberals were invincibly hostile to that policy, the 
 Conservative leaders pursued a course which might 
 or might not have been theirs had circumstances 
 been reversed; and soon Lord Randolph Churchill, 
 forgetting his own immersion in ' Parnellite juice,' 
 was shouting that ' Ulster would fight and Ulster 
 would be right.' Mr Gladstone's intentions became 
 known through a communication in two newspapers 
 just before Christmas, and immediately Lord 
 Hartington wrote to the Chairman of his Committee 
 announcing his adhesion to all that he had said during 
 the election, things excessively uncomplimentary to 
 the Irish, and uncompromisingly adverse to any 
 suggestion of Home Rule. A few days later Mr 
 Balfour and Mr Gladstone were fellow-guests of the 
 Duke of Westminster at Eaton Hall. Mr Gladstone, 
 a little innocent for his age, and honestly anxious 
 for an Irish settlement irrespective of party politics, 
 sounded the younger statesman as to the possibility 
 
 34
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 of co-operation with the Prime Minister, in accordance 
 with the precedent set by Peel in regard to the repeal 
 of the Corn Laws in 1846. Mr Balfour, very old 
 for his age, and fully aware of the plight in which 
 Mr Gladstone found himself, was perfectly polite 
 but perfectly inscrutable. While expressing no 
 opinion on the proposal, he agreed to communicate 
 it. Whether it was ever considered may well be 
 doubted; Mr Gladstone, with all his experience, 
 had under-rated the strength of party feeling and 
 the temptations of party advantage. At any rate 
 the invitation was rejected with decision; the Prime 
 Minister merely replied that the Government's policy 
 would be stated when Parliament met. With the 
 opening of Parliament all was made clear; Lord 
 Carnarvon retired; the Queen's speech contained 
 an emphatic pronouncement against any disturbance 
 of that * fundamental law ' — the ' legislative union 
 between that country (Ireland) and Great Britain *; 
 it was evident that the Prime Minister, if he had 
 ever entertained doubts as to his course of action, 
 entertained them no longer. Meanwhile it had 
 become daily more certain that the Liberal Party 
 must be rent in twain; and when Mr Gladstone 
 took office, after the defeat of the Government on 
 the ' three acres and a cow ' motion, everybody 
 foresaw the split which took place a few months 
 later. It is unnecessary here to trace the negotiations 
 between Gladstonian Liberals and Liberal Unionists 
 which proceeded through the spring and early summer 
 of 1886 before the defeat of the first Home Rule 
 Bill. The verdict of the House of Commons was 
 more emphatically repeated by the country in the 
 succeeding General Election, and Lord Salisbury 
 became, for a second time, Prime Minister. 
 
 Mr Balfour was opposed in East Manchester, 
 
 35
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 but retained the seat by a majority of 644. In the 
 new Government he accepted the post of Secretary 
 for Scotland, and in the following November was 
 admitted to the Cabinet. A month later Lord 
 Randolph Churchill resigned his new post of 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, because Lord Salisbury 
 would not support him in his demand for the reduction 
 of naval and military estimates; and with him went 
 the whole plan of ' Tory democracy.' It was a 
 severe blow to the Government, and the Prime 
 Minister momentarily yielded to something like 
 panic; fortunately he remembered (after sending 
 post-haste to the Duke of Devonshire in Italy), what 
 Lord Randolph had forgotten, namely Mr Goschen. 
 The sensation had hardly died away when another 
 retirement gave Mr Balfour his great opportunity. 
 Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, affected with a temporary 
 failure of eyesight, sought relief from the thankless 
 and heavy labours of the Irish Secretaryship, and 
 Mr Balfour was announced, on March 6, 1887, ais 
 his successor. 
 
 36
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister was much of a 
 dormouse. Engrossed in his duties as Foreign 
 Secretary, he took little continuous interest in matters 
 of domestic concern, and the details of the Irish 
 tangle he surveyed with mingled disgust and bewilder- 
 ment. At the Foreign Office he was absolute; he 
 took nobody into his confidence, and managed the 
 country's correspondence much as he might have 
 done that of the Cecil estates. The rest he was only 
 too glad to leave to anybody he could trust. It is 
 said that he did not know some members of his 
 Cabinet except by sight; he certainly could not 
 have given a list of the personnel of the administration. 
 It was, therefore, a main consideration with him, in 
 filling the Irish Secretaryship, that he should have 
 a Minister who knew his mind, who would not 
 bother him with details, and with whom he could 
 always maintain close touch without too much trouble. 
 His own recipe for Ireland was simplicity itself: 
 * Twenty years of resolute government — government 
 that does not flinch, that does not vary, government 
 that they cannot hope to beat down by agitation, 
 government that does not alter with party changes 
 at Westminster.* This recipe he believed Mr Balfour 
 better capable than any other statesman of carrying 
 into effect. He had long conceived a strong admiration 
 for his nephew's qualities. He knew, as no one else 
 did, how much experience of the hidden side of 
 public affairs Mr Balfour had been quietly accumu- 
 lating during his Fourth Party and early ministerial 
 days. He had a shrewd idea of a side of the young 
 
 37
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 statesman's character that was not then visible to 
 the world; his discretion, his tenacity, the obstinacy 
 of which he was capable when his interest was fully 
 engaged and his self-love implicated. The appoint- 
 ment, in short, was no doubt a bold experiment, 
 but it was certainly not a rash one. Lord Salisbury 
 had carefully considered his own comfort of mind, 
 as well as what he conceived to be the public interest, 
 before he made his decision. 
 
 On Mr Balfour's side the acceptance of the offer 
 denoted political courage of the highest order. The 
 state of Ireland was, indeed, far less menacing than 
 when Lord Spencer set forth on his desperate enter- 
 prise; Ireland was at this time comparatively free of 
 crime. But the situation was still sufficiently serious. 
 The National League had in its grip all Southern 
 and Western Ireland, and a large part of Ulster. 
 Though quickly declared an illegal conspiracy, the 
 ' Plan of Campaign ' (a combination which aimed 
 at fighting the landlords with their own rents) had 
 made great headway. Organised assassination had 
 ceased, but there was still agrarian crime here and 
 there, and the processes of ordinary law were rendered 
 futile by the impossibility of getting Irish juries to 
 convict. The work of directing Irish Government 
 in such circumstances was sufficiently formidable; 
 but administration was only one part of the Irish 
 Secretary's duties. His further task was to deal 
 with the House of Commons, containing a large 
 body of Gladstonian Liberals hostile and suspicious, 
 a smaller body of Liberal Unionists not a little 
 doubtful concerning the new alliance, and eighty- 
 six Parnellite members: men experienced in every 
 form of obstruction, of inexhaustible ingenuity in 
 attack, led with great ability by a chief who had in 
 his own opinion reason to regard the head of the 
 
 38
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 Government as having tricked him, and all working 
 for a common purpose with the fury of Crusaders and 
 the discipline of Guardsmen. 
 
 Every statesman who had held the office since 
 the rise of Parnell had failed. Most of them had 
 retired broken in health and bankrupt in public 
 reputation. The overbearing Mr Forster had fared 
 no better than the mild Sir George Trevelyan; the 
 strain had been too much for the cold and impassive 
 Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. The new Secretary was, 
 on the face of things, more likely than any of his 
 predecessors to succumb to the terrible physical 
 wear and tear. Years before, with his consumptive 
 tendencies, he had been faced with the prospect of 
 regular winter exile; a discerning doctor, however, 
 had suggested as an alternative to climate-hunting 
 the excitement of hard work, and the prescription 
 had so far worked well enough; at thirty-nine the 
 early weakness seemed fairly outgrown. But the 
 medicine in such excessive dose as was to be expected 
 at the Irish Office might well prove fatal, and Mr 
 Balfour, before committing himself, consulted an 
 eminent physician. He was given satisfactory 
 assurances, and, free from immediate anxiety on 
 this point, threw himself with ardour into his new 
 duties. His faith in his own powers proved to be 
 justified. Though he looked sometimes haggard 
 and ghastly, his constitution held out, and at the 
 end of the ordeal he was on the whole a stronger man 
 than at the beginning. 
 
 The appointment caused general surprise. In 
 Ireland it was received with derision; in England 
 (except by The Times^ which paid tribute to Mr 
 Balfour's ' fresh, clear, and alert intelligence ') with 
 misgiving or anticipatory satisfaction according to 
 the point of view. ' An Irish Secretary,' said the 
 
 39
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette^ ' should be as tough as catgut 
 and as hard as nails. Mr Balfour is the very antithesis 
 of a pachyderm. Lord Salisbury may be anxious 
 to avoid the charge of nepotism; but this is nepotism 
 the other way about — nepotism not of the patronising 
 but of the murderous order. To offer Mr Balfour 
 the Irish Office is like the presentation of a silken 
 bowstring to the doomed victim of the Caliph.' 
 The Daily News described the new Irish Secretary 
 as ' perhaps the best specimen of the pure cynic in 
 modern politics.' The Irish papers at first exhausted 
 their ingenuity to find adequate images of contempt. 
 Mr Balfour was ' a Daddy Long-legs,' * a butterfly 
 to be broken on the wheel,' ' a lily,' ' a palsied masher ' 
 (' masher ' being late Victorian for fop), an ' Epicurean 
 aristocrat,' ' a silk-skinned sybarite whose rest a 
 crumpled rose-leaf would disturb.' Such were the 
 epithets showered on Mr Balfour while it was believed 
 that he was to be only another addition to the long 
 list of failures at the Irish Office. But an abrupt 
 change in the character of the disparagement 
 testified to the new Secretary's real strength. A few 
 weeks later he was described, not with elaborate 
 contempt, but with simple and emphatic hatred; 
 the favourite adjective was ' bloody.' To call the 
 Irish Secretary * bloody Balfour ' seemed to yield 
 some mysterious satisfaction to Irish politicians and 
 journalists. It could not be grudged them; it was 
 really almost the only satisfaction they got. 
 
 Mr Balfour's policy in Ireland involved many 
 complicated measures, but the essence of it may be 
 quite shortly stated. His first aim was to put down 
 disorder, and to effect this he availed himself of the 
 full power of the law; if the law did not give powers 
 full enough, then he either strained the law or altered 
 it; in his hatred of lawlessness he sometimes verged 
 
 40
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 on illegality. His second aim was to improve Irish 
 economic conditions; with statesmanlike perception 
 he recognised that a large part of the Irish distemper 
 was simply poverty, and that agrarian crime must 
 be expected while the greater part of the population 
 ' trembled constantly on the verge of want.* He 
 has himself summarised his policy as well as it can 
 be expressed in brief. ' Cromwell failed,' he said, 
 ' because he relied solely on repressive measures. 
 This mistake I shall not imitate. I shall be as relent- 
 less as Cromwell in enforcing obedience to the law, 
 but at the same time I shall be as radical as any 
 reformer in redressing grievances and especially 
 in removing every cause of complaint in regard to 
 the land. Hitherto English Governments have 
 stood first upon one leg and then upon the other. 
 They have either been all for repression or all for 
 reform. I am for both; repression stern as Cromwell, 
 reform as thorough as Mr Parnell or any one else 
 can desire.' So far as it went the policy was sound. 
 It was courageous and it was intelligent, and Mr 
 Balfour's courage has always been as remarkable 
 as his intelligence; one who cannot be classed as 
 a consistent admirer has called him ' the most 
 courageous man alive.' Mr Balfour's one mistake 
 was natural to a man of his caste and his habit of 
 mind. He conceived that all could be put right by 
 handcuffs well and duly applied, and by money well 
 and duly spent. He could not see that, amid all its 
 squalors, inconsistencies and worse, there was a 
 genuine spiritual element in the Home Rule agitation. 
 Exquisitely sensitive to the intangibles that influenced 
 a cultured mind, he was incapable of understanding 
 those which swayed the imaginations of the rude 
 and unlettered. He could appreciate to the full 
 the coarseness of some conceptions of the Manchester 
 
 41
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 school; he could see the ultra-democrat's error in 
 refusing a value to everything that cannot be weighed 
 or counted; he was wholly alive to the importance of 
 family tradition and the * public school spirit.' But 
 it never seems to have occurred to him that vulgar 
 people, too, have their own imponderables. Thus 
 he appears never to have seen anything in a strike 
 but wrong-headedness and bad business; the loyalty 
 of workman to workman, often as noble as that of 
 soldier to soldier, was to him not merely incompre- 
 hensible but invisible. Similarly he could not 
 understand the irrational affection of common men 
 for the land of their birth. He himself might love 
 Whittinghame, with its bleakness and winter snows, 
 better than the fairest pleasance in Italy; but then 
 he was Balfour of Whittinghame, and entitled to 
 be above reason when he chose. But as to the 
 Highland crofters, for example, why should they 
 cling to a land which condemned them to ' contend 
 with inclement skies, with stormy seas, and a barren 
 soil ' when emigration offered an easy solution of 
 their problem .'' In Ireland, also, why should men 
 so stupidly battle for the mean parcels of infertile 
 land, offering the barest subsistence, while across the 
 ocean there were great tracts of virgin soil crying 
 for their labour ? Here again, despite the enormous 
 decrease in the Irish population since the beginning 
 of the century, the only remedy in which he had 
 real faith was emigration; the great work which he 
 accomplished in the ' congested ' districts (' congested ' 
 was an invention of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, his 
 euphemism for ' poverty-stricken ') he only regarded 
 in the light of a palliative. Above all he remained 
 a contemptuous unbeliever in the genuineness of 
 the cry of ' Ireland a nation.' Why should Ireland 
 want to be a nation } It was as silly as Sussex trying 
 
 42
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 to return to Heptarchy times. To him the Home 
 Rule member was either a coarse humbug or an 
 uninteresting kind of fool. For Mr Parnell he had 
 a certain respect; he was a gentleman in the heraldic 
 sense and a very astute man, who was using a craze 
 for his own purposes; his cynicism was at least some 
 set-off to his eccentricity. The adroitness of Mr Tim 
 Healy also aroused his admiration; Mr Balfour 
 could not possibly be insensitive to genius, even 
 though displayed at his own expense. * How clever 
 he is,' he said more than once, when waiting to reply 
 to some specially bitter and vigorous attack. But 
 for the ordinary Irish member, and especially for 
 men like Mr Dillon and Mr O'Brien, his contempt 
 was excessive; those whom he could not consider 
 ' on the make ' he viewed as fanatics of a rather low 
 order. 
 
 The first work before the new Chief Secretary 
 was the Crimes Bill, which, unlike any other previous 
 measure of the kind, was of a permanent character, 
 a weapon to remain always in the armoury of Dublin 
 Castle, and to be taken out at the convenience of the 
 Executive. It superseded trial by jury. It enabled 
 the Lord-Lieutenant to declare unlawful any associa- 
 tion he might happen to think dangerous. It gave 
 the Resident Magistrates, many of whom were quite 
 ignorant of any law beyond what might be gleaned 
 from the * Justice's Manual,' power to try cases 
 which in the rest of the Kingdom must go before 
 a judge and ' twelve good men and true.' A measure 
 so unusual, and so inconsistent with the contention 
 of Unionism that Great Britain and Ireland were 
 one, naturally provoked strenuous resistance; the 
 first reading was only passed by the guillotine closure, 
 now used for the first time. Before the second 
 reading The Times published the famous forged 
 
 43 D
 
 J[dr. Balfour 
 
 letter purporting to show that Mr Parncll privately- 
 approved of the Phoenix Park murders at the very 
 time when he was publicly expressing his abhorrence 
 of the crime. Mr Parncll described the letter as a 
 ' villainous and bare-faced forgery ' which could 
 deceive no one. But Mr Parnell was himself deceived; 
 his denial was not believed, and the effect of the 
 publication was to swell somewhat the Government 
 majority on the second reading. 
 
 Mr Balfour had hardly shone in the earlier stages 
 of the Bill. Indeed, on introducing it he narrowly 
 escaped breaking down. Natural nervousness, no 
 doubt, was part of the trouble ; but in no part of his 
 career has he excelled in formal expositions. Rarely 
 did he show that grasp of a subject, that precise 
 sense of the relation between principles and details, 
 which made the set speeches of men like Peel 
 and Gladstone models of Parliamentary form. Mr 
 Balfour has always tended to over-elaboration of 
 inessentials, and sometimes even of irrelevances; 
 while he often neglected to lay with sufficient solidity 
 the foundations of his argument. Throughout his 
 life he has never begun a speech well; he fumbles 
 and trips over himself until he has got into the subject; 
 having got into it, he is apt to dwell too long on some 
 points, and to dismiss others ' with undue brevity; 
 ' thinking aloud ' has something of the inconsequence 
 of ordinary silent thinking. Mr Balfour is at his 
 best in dealing with specific points as they arise; 
 then the mobility of his intelligence counts like 
 a French seventy-five. In the cut-and-thrust of 
 Committee debate the agility of his mind and the 
 quickness of his wit found their full opportunity. 
 For the first time the House of Commons recognised 
 that a new and incalculable force had appeared. 
 Every weapon of the debater, from grave impressiveness 
 
 44
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 to stinging repartee, was brought to bear with 
 the object, now of discrediting the Nationalists, now 
 of embarrassing the Liberals, now of removing the 
 lingering doubts of the Liberal Unionists. His 
 boundless resource, his gay audacity, and his destruc- 
 tive irony roused the enthusiasm of his own party, 
 his tact and caution softened any scruples of their 
 allies, and the whole brilliant display extracted a 
 reluctant admiration from the opposition. A com- 
 paratively unmarked man at the time of his appoint- 
 ment, Mr Balfour emerged from this ordeal on a 
 level of unassailable superiority. * He handled,' 
 says Lord (then Mr John) Morley, ' the old sophisms 
 of Irish coercion with a dauntless ingenuity that 
 would have made a piquant diversion, if only the 
 public difficulties had been less flagrant. . . . He 
 even succeeded in diffusing a sort of charm over 
 such topics as the squalid episodes of prison treatment 
 and police excess of force.' His ' favourite weapon,' 
 says the same observer, * was the rapier, with no 
 button on, without prejudice to a strong broadsword 
 when it was wanted.' ' His eye for the construction 
 of dilemmas was incomparable, and the adversary 
 was rapidly transfixed with the necessity of extricating 
 himself from two equally discreditable scrapes. To 
 expose a single inch of unguarded surface was to 
 provoke a dose of polished raillery that was new, 
 effective, and unpleasant. He revelled in carrying 
 logic all its length, and was not always above urging 
 a weak point as if it were a strong one. Though 
 polished and high-bred in air, he unceremoniously 
 applied Dr Johnson's principle that to treat your 
 adversary with respect is to give him an advantage 
 to which he is not entitled. Of intellectual satire 
 he was a master — when he took the trouble.' 
 
 Perhaps even more striking was the tribute of 
 
 45
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 the Pall Mall Ga-zette^ which had only just recently 
 been so dubious and critical. It now found itself 
 (August, 1887) pretty sure that Mr Balfour would 
 soon be leading his party in the House, and possibly 
 even in the country. ' Mr Balfour,* it said, ' has 
 risen and is still rising by being true to his convictions, 
 and acting steadily on the lines of his party faith. 
 There is not a man in the House who does not trust 
 Mr Balfour, although there are many who are 
 irritated against him. . . . He is now second only 
 to Mr Goschen on the Ministerial Bench as a speaker, 
 and he has displayed an industry and an adroitness 
 in conducting his Bills through the House of which 
 few believed him capable. He has courage, courtesy, 
 consistency, and culture. If his life is spared and 
 his natural indolence scourged out of him by the 
 beneficent fates he will yet form in many respects 
 an ideal leader for the Conservative Party.* Such 
 tributes might be indefinitely multiplied. There 
 are many examples of men made by a single speech. 
 Mr Balfour's swiftly reared reputation rested on 
 the more solid basis of a sustained display of the 
 highest talent in the most difiicult department of 
 Parliamentary art. 
 
 46
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The weapon of the Coercion Act forged — the Lords 
 did their share, passing the Bill without the change 
 of a word, in a few hours — Mr Balfour used it with 
 uncompromising vigour. ' Surtout^ -point de zele ' 
 was the counsel of the French cynic. The exact 
 opposite was the motto of Mr Balfour in inspiring 
 his subordinates of the Irish Executive. Dublin 
 Castle, the Resident Magistrates, and the Royal Irish 
 Constabulary, were all told that Mr Balfour expected 
 them to do their duty, and more rather than less. 
 From all Parliamentary attacks he would defend 
 them, if they might chance to overdo things; mean- 
 while under-doing things would not be tolerated. 
 From the Lord-Lieutenant, the Marquess of London- 
 derry, and the Under-Secretary, Sir West Ridgway, 
 down to the newest constable recruit, the whole Irish 
 Executive was in tune; and the note was ' resolute 
 government.' Tel maitre^ tel valet. It no sooner 
 became known that severe efficiency was the passport 
 to promotion than everything that was ambitious 
 in Irish officialism and lawyerdom pressed forward 
 hungrily for profitable employment. Among the 
 aspirants was a young barrister, one Edward Carson, 
 an ex-Liberal, who placed at the services of the 
 Government the energy of a fanatic, the acuteness 
 of a destructively powerful intellect, and the tongue 
 of a terrible cross-examiner. For the moment he 
 was content to be a servant and to take a servant's 
 pay. The time was to come when he became some- 
 thing like the master of his master. 
 
 47
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 The police were soon shown that they might 
 depend on Mr Balfour. At Michelstown an open- 
 air meeting took place in the Autumn of 1887; the 
 police, stupidly or wilfully attempting to push an 
 official shorthand-writer through the crowd, were 
 assailed with sticks; withdrawing to their barracks, 
 they fired, killing one man and mortally wounding 
 two others. In these later days, when two or three 
 Michelstowns have taken place every month, it is 
 difficult to understand the shock caused in Great 
 Britain by these tactless proceedings, perhaps 
 even not easy to sympathise adequately with the 
 denunciation of the Irish Secretary. But though the 
 public was sufficiently accustomed to Irish crime, 
 it was as yet new to the details of * resolute govern- 
 ment,* and did not like the idea of firearms being 
 used on a mob only armed with sticks. There was 
 something coldly deliberate about the affair which 
 gave an unpleasant impression. Mr Balfour, however, 
 stood by his guns — or rather the rifles of the Royal 
 Irish Constabulary. No inquiry was ever held; and 
 the Chief Secretary maintained that the police were 
 free not only from serious blame, but from all blame. 
 To do him justice, he was no respecter of persons, 
 and nameless people were not the only objects of 
 severity. Mr William O'Brien, M.P., was treated 
 as an ordinary pickpocket; so was Mr Wilfrid 
 Scawen Blunt, an English literary man who resisted 
 the police in dispersing a Home Rule meeting. 
 'Mr O'Brien's breeches' were one of the jokes of the 
 day. His clothes were taken away; he refused to 
 wear the prison garb; and he kept his bed for some 
 days until a new suit mysteriously found its way 
 into his cell. It was part of Mr Balfour's scheme to 
 rob martyrdom of all poetry; trial and sentence took 
 place in unspectacular conditions, and punishment 
 
 48
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 was deprived of no element of discomfort or degrada- 
 tion. The plank bed, the cropped hair, the menial 
 task, the association with common criminals, were 
 all insisted on; and Mr Balfour condemned as 
 ' strange, maudlin, and effeminate,* the doctrine 
 common to most civilised nations that political 
 prisoners are entitled to special treatment. He even 
 affected to hold that the motives of ordinary criminals 
 were less ignoble than those of many political offenders. 
 But the plan was seriously overdone ; people on this 
 side of the Channel, while approving of vindication 
 of the law, continued to draw a distinction between 
 political and other offences, and Mr O'Brien's 
 breeches were not wholly a laughing matter. The 
 more serious part of the electorate hardly saw why, 
 in order to be resolute, one should be pettifogging. 
 Mr O'Brien was not the only Member of Parliament 
 to come within the widespread net of the Chief 
 Secretary. Mr John Dillon was also sentenced to 
 six months' imprisonment for participation in the 
 plan of campaign; and at one time no fewer than 
 six members of the Nationalist Party were simul- 
 taneously under sentence. Altogether twenty-two 
 of Mr Parnell's followers suffered imprisonment. 
 
 In face of the inevitable storm which these 
 severities produced in the House of Commons, 
 Mr Balfour carefully conserved his energies. His 
 administrative policy was conceived with a view to 
 the utmost economy of exertion. He gave the Irish 
 Executive its cue, and left details to its discretion — 
 and even to its indiscretion. His Parliamentary 
 system was equally framed to save himself from 
 excessive strain. For a time he bore alone the brunt 
 of passionate denunciation and rigorous questionings. 
 When the pace became too hot he put up an unpaid 
 Parliamentary Secretary to do work which no salary 
 
 49
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 could have compensated. It was the business of 
 this luckless person, one Colonel King-Harman, 
 to read the written replies of the Irish Secretary to 
 the questions of the Nationalist members. His 
 rising was regularly the signal for angry cries 
 of ' Balfour, Balfour! ' On Colonel King-Harman 
 breath and ill-temper were wasted, and so it happened 
 that when his chief condescended at last to enter the 
 House he received a less interrupted if not a less 
 hostile hearing. Apart from this method of showing 
 his contemptuous unconcern for Irish Parliamentary 
 opinion, Mr Balfour's attitude was at times almost 
 studiously provocative. No doubt his pose of cool 
 disdain was partly politic; taking his cue from Mr 
 Parnell, he may have thought Irishmen best managed 
 with gentlemanly hauteur. But temperament also 
 was involved; like his uncle, he had a curious scorn 
 for the ' Celtic fringe,' and hardly knew whether to 
 dislike more its murderous excesses in Ireland or 
 its emotional manifestations at Westminster. If 
 Mr Balfour's intention was really to sting the Irish 
 into infiiriation, he certainly succeeded. There was 
 something massively insulting in his calm. But it 
 was only maintained by an effort. Mr Balfour, long 
 afterwards, told Lord Morley that he seldom slept 
 well after a rough Irish night. ' I never lose my 
 temper,' he said, ' but one's nerves get on edge, and 
 it takes time to cool.' Heat of any kind would 
 certainly not have been suspected by his demeanour 
 as he sprawled on the Treasury Bench, with closed 
 eyes, his legs crossed in a curiously loose-jointed 
 way: 'long and lanky; legs as erratic as Henry 
 Irving's on the stage,' says a contemporary observer. 
 Whatever the motive, the course was, up to a 
 point, justified by success. The Nationalists learned, 
 by bitter experience, that there was no hustling or 
 
 50
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 ' rattling ' Mr Balfour; and to the rest of the House 
 he so cleverly contrived, as a general rule, to present 
 his case in the best light that the Liberal Unionists, 
 who disliked coercion and were not at the time so 
 closely attached to the Conservative Party as they 
 afterwards became, could offer no real objection. 
 With Liberal criticisms he dealt occasionally in 
 terms of solemn reproof, but more often in the far 
 more deadly spirit of lively banter. Mr Balfour 
 had a really remarkable gift of making some con- 
 siderable things — and some undeniably great men 
 — look small. A few drops from his never-failing 
 philtre of ironic wit, and the effect of the most eloquent 
 denunciation was fatally impaired. He was equally 
 effective in dealing with the fury of the Irish, the 
 cudgel play of Sir William Harcourt, and the moral 
 fervour of Mr John Morley. 
 
 For Mr Gladstone's unique position he showed 
 no manner of respect; ' the right honourable gentle- 
 man,' he once said, ' was formerly as ready to blacken 
 the Irish members' characters as he is now ready to 
 blacken their boots.' It must be said that in the 
 numerous contests between the two it was not the 
 younger man who took less than he gave. At this 
 time Mr Gladstone's intellect showed no appreciable 
 signs of decay, and his eloquence was probably 
 never purer or more weighty. But he did seem, in 
 his absorption in the Irish question, to have lost some 
 of his sense of perspective. To some obscure affray 
 or an eviction scene in County Clare he would devote 
 all the powers of invective he had brought to bear 
 on atrocities which had devastated a Turkish province, 
 and, by accepting as facts many stories of doubtful 
 accuracy, he gave Mr Balfour opportunities, seldom 
 missed, of stinging retort. 
 
 Thus Mr Balfour spoke at Birmingham in 1887 
 
 51
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 of Mr Gladstone's ' extraordinary and unblushing 
 perversion of fact,' and declared that ' he attacks 
 the police, he palliates crime, and he encourages 
 lawlessness with the same glib dexterity as if he had 
 been all his life a follower of Mr Parnell.' ' I cannot 
 honestly say,' said Mr Balfour on another occasion, 
 ' that I expected Mr Gladstone to retract the errors 
 I pointed out in his speech. I am quite aware that 
 the only way to make Mr Gladstone retract a mis- 
 statement is to send him a lawyer's letter.' The 
 language was severe, though hardly severe enough 
 to deserve Sir William Harcourt's description of it 
 as * violent,' * brutal,' and * outside the decencies of 
 English public life.' But it did put a finger on the 
 habit of the veteran leader at this time. Mr Gladstone 
 condescended to the most trivial details, and often 
 got his details wrong. A less calm and well-equipped 
 opponent, of course, he might have overwhelmed 
 by sheer weight of energy. But Mr Balfour, cool, 
 sceptical, insensitive (except intellectually) to eloquence, 
 exquisitely sensitive to the ridiculous, was precisely 
 the man to deal with zeal untempered by discretion. 
 His own views on enthusiasm may perhaps be 
 appropriately quoted here. ' It is unfortunate, con- 
 sidering that enthusiasm moves the world,' he once 
 wrote in a letter to a lady, ' that so few enthusiasts 
 can be trusted to speak the truth.' 
 
 Coercion in pronounced form extended over 
 some three years. Apart from abatement of the 
 indignities noted above — a concession, it may be 
 noted, made to people who happened to be not only 
 political prisoners, but of some social importance — 
 it was maintained with unflinching severity, and 
 those offenders who appealed (as they were entitled 
 to do) against the sentences of the Resident Magistrates 
 found not infrequently that they fared worse at the 
 
 52
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 hands of the County Court judges, who (there seemed 
 reason to believe) acted thus under the inspiration 
 of Dublin Castle. At this time ' bloody Balfour ' 
 was most sincerely detested in Ireland. ' Do the 
 Irish really hate me as much as their newspapers 
 say } ' asked the Irish Secretary of Father Healy. 
 * If,' was the reply, ' if only they hated the devil half 
 as much, my occupation would be gone.* One effect 
 of the reign of coercion was to bring about a close 
 alliance between the Liberals and the Nationalists. 
 For some time after the General Election it could 
 not be forgotten that the woes of the Liberal Party 
 were largely of Irish manufacture, and, while Mr 
 Gladstone's authority sufBced to secure a formal 
 approval of Home Rule as a principle, it could not 
 so readily make British Liberals love the Irish Home 
 Rulers individually. But the enmity of 1886 began 
 to give way to sentiments engendered by constant 
 co-operation. In the phrase of the day there was 
 a ' union of hearts.* On Liberal platforms in every 
 out-of-the-way part of England appeared effusive 
 Irish members, with dreadful stories (illustrated by 
 lantern slides) concerning their outraged and down- 
 trodden country. The stock speech of the time was 
 something as follows: — 
 
 \ Ladies and gentlemen, — I am from Tipperary. 
 Ye*ve heard of Tipperary. The name of Tipperary 
 is synonymous with pluck, and courage, and dash, 
 and daring, and bravery; and all Balfour's bayonets 
 and all Balfour's bludgeons and all Balfour's battering- 
 rams will never suffice to beat a single Tipperary 
 man into submission. No, bludgeons will not do, 
 nor battering-rams, nor all the British Army and 
 Navy. But why not try a nobler way } Why not try 
 a juster way } Why not try a more equitable, a more
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 merciful way ? Why not try to do with kindness, 
 with mercy, with justice, with equitable and honest 
 treatment what ye can never do by force ? Why not 
 try it ? Ye say ye can't take the risk ? What is the 
 risk ? Try it, and if it doesn't succeed — why, we're 
 a poor little island, and ye're a great strong Empire, 
 and it's not a chance we'd have against ye.' 
 
 Of course, the interval was longer between the 
 premises and the conclusions, but this summary 
 fairly represents the argument. Mr Parnell, cold 
 and stately, took no part in a political love-feast 
 unsuited to his temperament, though he rather 
 encouraged his followers, especially those who had 
 seen the inside of a jail, to appear on Liberal platforms. 
 His own views remained constant about all things 
 English, and especially about all things Gladstonian. 
 ' I think of Mr Gladstone and the English people,' 
 he said once, * what I have always thought of them. 
 They will do what we make them do.' Yet he was 
 not above simulating in public what he never felt 
 in private; and, when the moment seemed appropriate 
 for a formal alliance, he called on his followers, at 
 Liverpool in 1 8 8 9, to rally round the ' grand old leader.' 
 
 It is not necessary here to trace in detail the events 
 which first raised this remarkable man to popularity, 
 and then consigned him to complete ruin. But, as the 
 fall of Mr Parnell did more than all Mr Balfour's 
 measures to break up the solidarity of Irish resistance, 
 the story cannot be wholly omitted in a sketch of 
 Mr Balfour's career. The ' Parnell Letter ' published 
 by The Times has already been mentioned. In the 
 course of a libel action brought against the newspaper 
 in 1888 by a former follower of Mr Parnell, other 
 letters were read by Sir Richard Webster, the Attorney- 
 General, who appeared for The Times. They were 
 
 54
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 alleged to have been written while Mr Parnell was 
 in Kilmainham Jail; one called for ' prompt action ' 
 to ' make it hot for old Forster and Co.', while in 
 another it was explained that Parnell was bound to 
 condemn the PhcEnix murders in Parliament, though 
 the inference was that he approved of them. The 
 other letters were trivial, and would have been 
 unimportant but for the fact that a certain word was 
 misspelt. Mr Parnell demanded the appointment 
 of a Select Committee to inquire into the charges; 
 the Government conceded instead a Royal Commission 
 of Judges charged, not only with the investigation 
 of this particular matter, but with the consideration 
 of Irish affairs in general. The Commission sat for 
 over a year. In the end the letters were proved to 
 have been forged by Mr Richard Pigott, who had 
 been employed by the Secretary of the Irish Loyal 
 and Patriotic Union to collect evidence connecting 
 the Parnellite movement with crime. The Secretary 
 conveyed the letters to The Times, which published 
 them as genuine, without taking more than the most 
 perfunctory steps to establish their authenticity. 
 The Commissioners, of course, condemned the 
 publication of the letters. Mr Parnell was acquitted 
 of various personal charges made against him; but 
 other questions were left much as they were. The 
 Judges pronounced, what every sensible man knew 
 already, that Parnell and his associates ' did not 
 denounce the system which led to crime and outrage, 
 but persisted in it with knowledge of its effect.' 
 
 On the main charges, therefore, the findings of 
 the Commission did not exonerate Mr Parnell. But 
 the affair of the letters was the dramatically interesting 
 thing, and exposure of the methods used to ruin 
 Mr Parnell, in the sense of exhibiting him as a person 
 no decent man could shake hands with, naturally 
 
 SS
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 served to range on his side the British love of fair 
 play. The rather ungenerous attitude of the Govern- 
 ment increased this tendency, and (of course quite 
 illogically) there was a considerable revulsion of 
 popular feeling with regard not only to Mr Parnell 
 but to the larger questions of Irish policy. Mr 
 Balfour had comparatively little to say regarding 
 the Commission; he avoided the mistake of Lord 
 Salisbury, whose cynical references to the forgery 
 did a good deal of harm to the Government among 
 people who, while no apologists of Parnellism, were 
 still less enamoured of Pigottism. 
 
 But Mr Balfour had accumulated not a little 
 unpopularity in his own peculiar sphere of action. 
 For some time symptoms of dissatisfaction with 
 coercion had been apparent; now it looked as if 
 the country, tired of standing on its rigid Cromwellian 
 leg, was anxious to change to the more flexible member. 
 Even on the Unionist side a murmur began to be 
 heard; by-elections were being lost; it was asked 
 whether coercion really paid. A North of England 
 Conservative member condemned as ' inexpedient 
 from a party point of view ' the treatment of Irishmen 
 and the ' straining and stretching of the law ' by the 
 Resident Magistrates; English law, he said, was 
 being made unpopular in Ireland, and its leaders 
 were being provoked by ' illegal and unconstitutional 
 acts.' Lord Randolph Churchill declared that he 
 did not like the imprisonment of Irish members 
 * in such numbers '; justice and injustice, decency 
 and indecency, seemed in his view to be a question 
 largely of arithmetic. Even the Irish Unionist 
 papers murmured that the Government would act 
 just as it was doing if it wished to make the coercive 
 system appear odious. 
 
 Mr Balfour, ever gaily confident against the
 
 JUr. Balfour 
 
 enemy but always sensitive to criticism within his 
 own camp, for the first time seemed a little unsure 
 of himself. While in this mood he made a rather 
 serious mistake, a mistake of the kind common to 
 clever men who feel they are in the right and are 
 irritated by a general suspicion that they are in the 
 wrong. Unable to draw back without stultifying 
 himself, he acted with more than his usual vigour 
 and less than his customary judgment. He arrested 
 Mr John Dillon and Mr William O'Brien for making 
 speeches at Tipperary, where the tenants of Mr 
 Smith-Barry had refused to pay rent as a protest 
 against that landlord's support of evictions elsewhere. 
 Left to itself the * New Tipperary ' scheme — the 
 erection by public subscription of shanties to accom- 
 modate the evicted — would have evaporated in 
 ridicule. The thing was a failure, and, but for Mr 
 Balfour's intervention, the failure would have been 
 ignominious. But the arrests made heroes of two 
 members of Parliament. They were remanded on 
 bail, and before the Court again met they had left, 
 as they had intended to do before arrest, for the 
 United States. Mr Balfour looked just a little silly, 
 and that was the very worst thing that could happen. 
 Indeed the whole affair savoured of overdoing it, 
 and a Liberal by-election victory emphasised the 
 fact that the British voter, really tired of arrests, 
 * shadowings,' evictions, and the rest, was apprehensive 
 that the whole dreary routine was to begin over 
 again. 
 
 From any evil consequences of over-zeal, however, 
 Mr Balfour was saved by the O'Shea divorce suit. 
 The decree Jiisi, with costs against Mr Parnell, 
 changed the whole face of Irish — and English — 
 politics. The union of hearts was rudely destroyed. 
 Mr Gladstone broke with Parnell; the Irish Party 
 
 57
 
 Jidr, Balfour 
 
 split into two bitterly hostile sections; Mr John 
 Redmond, the nominal successor of Parnell (who 
 survived his fall less than a year), came under the 
 ban of the priests; Mr Justin M'Carthy, leader of 
 the other faction, had the disadvantage (in English 
 and Protestant eyes) of seeming to possess their 
 blessing. The whole fabric of Nationalism was 
 wrecked as by an earthquake; Liberalism was to 
 some extent compromised, and profoundly discouraged. 
 Captain O'Shea, in asserting his rights as an 
 aggrieved husband, had broken many things. But 
 he secured Mr Balfour, at the very moment his 
 fame seemed to be on the decline, freedom to win 
 another and perhaps higher Irish reputation than 
 that which he had attained as the agent of ' resolute 
 government.* 
 
 ;8
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 So far the drudgery of repression had prevented 
 Mr Balfour from proceeding with that poHcy of 
 material betterment which was the complement of 
 his * Cromwellian ' severity. But the matter had 
 been much in his thoughts, and by 1889 practical 
 expression had been given to one of his main ideas, 
 that of improving communications. Many parts 
 of Ireland suffered from an isolation little less complete 
 than could have existed in the darkest ages. There 
 might be plenty in one village, and starvation in 
 another a league or two away, but the absence of 
 any direct means of communication prevented the 
 superfluity of the one relieving the deficiency of the 
 other. The scheme embodied in the Light Railways 
 Act of 1889 was destined to bring about a substantial 
 improvement in the transport conditions of the rural 
 districts, and, as Irish labour was employed on the 
 construction works, this measure brought more than 
 prospective benefit; it exercised an immediate 
 and important influence in relieving present dis- 
 tress. 
 
 In the autumn of 1890, in order to obtain first- 
 hand knowledge to guide him in this and his other 
 schemes, Mr Balfour took advantage of the break-up 
 of Parnellism to make a tour of the * congested ' 
 districts. The experiment had its moral as well as 
 its material value. When the Irish cottar is not a 
 monster, he is a natural gentleman; it is a peculiarity 
 of the country that most peasants have the manners 
 of peers, if some peers have those of peasants. 
 
 59 E
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 Mr Balfour received, on the whole, most favoured 
 individual treatment; he reciprocated with a frank- 
 ness and a cordiality hardly to be expected of his 
 rather cold and reserved nature; and the result was 
 a distinct improvement in feeling on both sides. 
 Mr Balfour returned from Ireland with a rather 
 more sympathetic understanding of the human 
 problem, while on their side the Irish peasants found 
 the real man quite unlike the traditionary ogre. The 
 party consisted of Mr Balfour, Miss Balfour, the 
 Under-Secretary, Sir West Ridgway, and two private 
 secretaries, of whom one was that great gentleman 
 afterwards so honourably associated with the Irish 
 Office, Mr George Wyndham, M.P. The tour 
 through Mayo and Galway sufficiently illustrated 
 the inconvenience of the primitive conditions Mr 
 Balfour had fixed on as one of the chief causes of 
 Irish distress. The weather was shocking; the 
 roads were vile; it was often necessary to go on foot 
 for long distances. At Belmullett the Irish Secretary 
 was visited by the ' king ' of Inniska Island, who 
 told him that the islanders' only boat had been 
 smashed; Miss Balfour promised to replace it, and 
 for her kindness received the prayers and the blessings 
 of his majesty. On Achill Island, a visit was paid to 
 the hamlet of Doolga, a collection of mud-huts all 
 huddled together without any attempt to form streets. 
 Here Mr Balfour undertook to finish at his own 
 expense a bridge (begun and left incompleted) which 
 was designed to connect two districts divided by a 
 swamp. Nowhere was rudeness shown, despite the 
 fact that the Nationalist press had prophesied a 
 ' fitting reception for the chief coercionist.' Many 
 priests went out of their way to express in the warmest 
 terms their gratitude for Mr Balfour's interest in 
 their parishioners; and in a speech delivered on his 
 
 Go
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 return to England the Secretary acknowledged in 
 cordial terms their friendly attitude. 
 
 ' I did not go,' he said, ' with any political object. 
 I went with the distinct purpose of seeing the distress 
 where distress was said to prevail . . . and of 
 forming in my own mind the best scheme I could 
 for meeting the difficulties which presented them- 
 selves. That was the spirit in which I went, and 
 that was the spirit in which I was received. There 
 were people — and I speak not merely of the people, 
 but of those who are largely the leaders of the people, 
 I mean the priests — who spoke to me as rational 
 men, about a difficulty in which both were equally 
 and vitally concerned. They met me with perfect 
 good taste; they met me with the utmost frankness; 
 they never concealed their own opinions any more 
 than I concealed mine. They met me with a courtesy, 
 a kindness, and a business spirit which I will not 
 thank them for, because I am sure it was natural to 
 them, which I am sure that any man who had the 
 good of the people at heart would have felt; but 
 they met me in a spirit very different from the Dublin 
 politicians. Few things in my experience as Irish 
 Secretary — and I can assure you it has been a very 
 entertaining one — few things have entertained me 
 more than the shriek of fury and indignation of the 
 Nationalist press, and the Nationalist members set 
 up when they found I was travelling in Galway, 
 Mayo, and Donegal.' Mr Balfour had in m.ind, 
 no doubt, speeches like that of Mr W. Redmond, 
 who stigmatised the tour as ' one of the meanest 
 of Mr Balfour's acts,' since ' he dare not face 
 the men of Mayo without his sister, for they 
 knew that, no matter in what light they regarded 
 him, they would not do anything discourteous to a 
 lady.' 
 
 6i
 
 J\4r, Balfour 
 
 In Donegal there was only one hostile demonstra- 
 tion, at a place called Dungloe, where Mr Swift 
 MacNeill, M.P., attacked Mr Balfour on the subject 
 of evictions. The Secretary was receiving a deputation 
 at the time, and Mr MacNeill's intrusion was 
 described by a Mr James Sweeney as a ' bit of 
 impertinence.' A heated colloquy followed, and 
 the upshot of it was that Mr Sweeney had to drive 
 fourteen miles to Gweedore in order to telegraph to 
 the press a withdrawal of this piece of lese-majestS^ 
 a trusty Nationalist accompanying, ' lest he should 
 change his mind on the way.' Mr Balfour's account 
 of this litde comedy is so entertaining in itself, and 
 so typical of his bantering style, that it may be well 
 to give it in full: — 
 
 * Perhaps the most amusing episode of the whole 
 tour was one which you may have seen some account 
 of at Dungloe. Dungloe is a small town in the North- 
 west of Donegal, and thither a certain Mr Swift 
 MacNeill, a member for one of the Divisions of 
 Donegal, betook himself in frantic haste, in order 
 to screw up what I think in a letter to me he described 
 as the natural politeness of the Irish race to the 
 particular pitch agreeable to the Irish Nationalist 
 member. Well, Mr MacNeill came to the very 
 small meeting which I held in Dungloe, where the 
 wants of the district were being discussed in a very 
 sober and businesslike spirit, and he made me a long 
 speech about evictions and about battering-rams 
 and about something Mr Gladstone said to me and 
 something I had said to Mr Gladstone and a great 
 deal Mr Swift MacNeill had said to both of us, but 
 which I am afraid has probably escaped the memory 
 of Mr Gladstone as much as it has mine. The upshot 
 of his address was that if I regarded him as the
 
 JUr, Balfour 
 
 spokesman of the popular sentiment in the locality 
 I should be forced to the conviction that I ought to 
 care very much more about Mr Swift MacNeill's 
 speeches in Parliament than about any railway or 
 public work in his district and that therefore 
 the meeting had better break up. Well ? What 
 happened then ? There is a gentleman living in 
 the neighbourhood, a certain Mr Sweeney. I believe 
 him to be a considerable tradesman in these parts. 
 He got up and described Mr MacNeill as being 
 impertinent; and very plainly indicated that I was 
 not to take Mr Swift MacNeill as representing the 
 locality, that he knew more about it, and that he not 
 only differed from Mr Swift MacNeill but that he 
 was prepared to express these differences in very 
 concise and appropriate language. Well, but what 
 happened } Mr Sweeney was compelled that night, 
 one of the rainiest I ever recollect, to drive fourteen 
 miles in a pouring rain to Gweedore, and I presume 
 fourteen miles back in a pouring rain and a rising 
 hurricane, for the sole purpose of withdrawing this 
 extremely appropriate epithet, which in a moment 
 of undue rhetorical expansion he had applied to 
 Mr Swift MacNeill. . . . 
 
 ' Now, gentlemen, who is Mr Sweeney ? I will 
 tell you. If any man could claim to belong to the 
 Nationalist party I should have assuredly thought 
 that it would have been Mr Sweeney. He was 
 imprisoned under the Crimes Act for a week, I 
 think — no, a fortnight — because he declined to 
 give evidence in a very bad boycotting case that 
 occurred at Dungloe. He is not only a Nationalist, 
 but he is a Nationalist of the most pronounced type. 
 He is a man who, on the very occasion that this 
 meeting at Dungloe took place, presented me with 
 an address which is worth anybody's perusal — but 
 
 63
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 I do not read it aloud — in which he talked of Plgott 
 and about Hottentots, and in which he quoted 
 Diogenes, and Mr Froude. I do not wish, heaven 
 forbid, to destroy any budding literary reputation. 
 But when I consider the refined style and ripe scholar- 
 ship exhibited by this document I cannot help 
 recognising in it the hand of my friend Mr Swift 
 MacNeill. However that may be, whoever may 
 have been the veritable author of this literary gem, 
 it was at all events presented to me by Mr Sweeney, 
 and I should have thought that this incident, com- 
 bined with his imprisonment, combined with his 
 avowed support of boycotters and known extreme 
 opinions, would have saved him from the kind of 
 attack he has met with in the Nationalist press, 
 because in one rash moment he gave out his veritable 
 convictions.' 
 
 The more serious impressions left by the tour 
 may be gathered from other passages in the same 
 speech, delivered at Liverpool on November 19. 
 The population of the ' congested districts,' Mr 
 Balfour said, were not congested in the sense of being 
 crowded, but ' congested in not being able to draw 
 from their holdings a safe and sufficient livelihood 
 for themselves and their children. . . . The people 
 have not the habit of continuous, almost painful 
 industry, which some small holders in other countries 
 show. Their system of agriculture is a wretched 
 one; their fishing, compared with Scotch or Manx, 
 is wretched. They have not got the boats, nor the 
 knowledge, nor the seamanship. . . . The peasant 
 of the congested districts is either a fisherman, a 
 labourer, or a farmer, and I say that, if you are to 
 raise him from the condition in which he is at this 
 moment, you must make him a better farmer, or a 
 
 64
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 better fisherman, or a better labourer.' The task 
 was one, not of expenditure, but of changing largely 
 the habits of the people; if all co-operated, and the 
 people themselves could be got to see wherein the 
 solution consisted, the problem was sure of solution, 
 though the process must be slow. 
 
 In an interview given a little earlier to a represen- 
 tative of the New Tork Worlds Mr Balfour said: — 
 
 * There is no way, so far as I can see, for curing 
 this periodical distress (through the failure of the 
 potato crop) except by enlarging the holdings of 
 tenants in the congested districts and by the spending 
 of money on public improvements which would be 
 a lasting benefit to the country. I suppose it is 
 an unpopular thing to say, but I will not conceal 
 my personal opinion that emigration must play a 
 prominent part in relieving the congested districts 
 of Ireland. The policy for the future must be either 
 migration or emigration. I do not think that migration 
 will mend matters very much, for these poor people 
 must eventually find homes in the New World, in 
 Australia, or in Africa.' 
 
 The following year, 1891, saw the legislative 
 fruit of much hard thinking. The Irish Land 
 Purchase Bill of that year was a measure very different 
 from the small Land Act the passage of which was 
 almost simultaneous with that of the Crimes Act 
 in 1887. It provided for the issue of ;^23, 000,000 
 of stock by the Imperial Government for the 
 purpose of enabling Irish tenants to purchase their 
 holdings from landlords who were willing to part 
 with their property. As to the merits of this 
 measure, Irish Nationalist testimony, as being most 
 critical, is also most valuable. Mr Parnell, who 
 
 65
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 gave it a blessing which, if diminished in value 
 by his changed circumstances, was still important, 
 declared that it would do two things: ' It will 
 enormously benefit the Irish tenant-farmers and it 
 will greatly benefit the Irish labourers. ... It will 
 enable about 200,000 of the 520,000 Irish tenant- 
 farmers to become owners of their holdings at a 
 reduction of about 40 per cent. That is to say, a man 
 who now pays £^0 a year will get his holding for less 
 than ;^3o a year, and others in proportion; and at 
 the end of forty-nine years his holding will be his. 
 ... It will give the Irish labourer, for the purpose of 
 building houses and fencing in small plots of land, 
 the sum of ^115,000 a year in perpetuity.' Mr 
 John Redmond described the Act as a ' great measure,* 
 and its passage was eased by a quite new atmosphere 
 of mutual accommodation. The skill with which 
 Mr Balfour managed the passage of the Bill through 
 Committee was not inferior to that he displayed in 
 piloting the Crimes Bill, and, if he did not increase 
 his already high reputation for Parliamentary adroit- 
 ness and perception, his fame as a constructive 
 statesman was notably enhanced. 
 
 The Act brought into being the Congested 
 Districts Board, which has been perhaps the most 
 conspicuously successful experiment in the way of 
 getting Irishmen to co-operate, without distinction 
 of party or creed, for the welfare of their country 
 as a whole. A sum of a million and a half sterling, 
 taken from the Irish Church Fund, was placed at 
 the disposal of the Board, which was allowed a wide 
 discretion as regards schemes for the alleviation of 
 distress, the improvement of housing and other 
 conditions, the encouragement of new industries, 
 and the development of old. After months of patient 
 investigation the Board issued a report which at 
 
 66
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 once shocked and stimulated. It threw light on a 
 mass of misery, ignorance, squalor, and helplessness 
 concerning which the more prosperous parts of the 
 Kingdom, and even of Ireland itself, had remained 
 in complacent nescience. It was found that great 
 natural potentialities of wealth existed in close 
 association with the direst actual poverty. The 
 splendid fisheries especially were neglected; the 
 Board, providing proper boats, gear, and instruction, 
 showed how the riches of the sea could be translated 
 into terms of comparative luxury and comfort for a 
 considerable population. Thus in one Donegal 
 district in 1888 the catch of fish could usually be 
 sent to market in a single cart; ten years later a 
 steamer conveyed full cargoes daily to Glasgow 
 during the season. 
 
 The fishery problem was simply one of capital 
 and instruction. It was far otherwise with agriculture. 
 In large areas every element of prosperity was wanting. 
 There were no residents of education to act as natural 
 leaders of the people; the tenants, wholly lacking 
 capital, lived from hand to mouth in physical squalor 
 and dense ignorance; with no money to clean the 
 land, or even to buy good seed or decent stock, they 
 could hardly be blamed for the imperfection and 
 inefficiency of their methods. In these circumstances 
 the Congested Districts Board had a heart-breaking- 
 task. The results of steady effort, however, were 
 far from contemptible; the breed of cattle was 
 improved by the importation of first-class stock; 
 instruction was given in scientific farming; public 
 works were undertaken with, the object of correcting 
 natural disadvantages. Cottage industries, such as 
 spinning, weaving, and carpet-making, were also 
 systematically taught; and after a few years Mr 
 Balfour could with justice claim that the Congested 
 
 67
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 Districts Board had at least shown the lines upon 
 which a solution of the problem might ultimately 
 be found. In this view he was supported by some 
 of his bitterest political enemies. Leading members 
 of the Nationalist party, critical in all else, like Mr 
 Davitt and Mr Dillon, freely acknowledged the 
 great work accomplished by the machinery set up 
 in 1891. 
 
 At one of the meetings of the Congested Districts 
 Board a notable critic had an opportunity of observing 
 the methods of the Irish Secretary. ' He struck me,' 
 says Lord Morley, ' by his firm, close business tone. 
 Every word showed a hard grip of the subject in 
 hand. Full of charm and play in ordinary converse, 
 in business he is absolutely without atmosphere, just 
 as Chamberlain was.' This want of ' atmosphere,' 
 so desirable in hard business, was unfortunately not 
 confined within its appropriate limits. In Irish 
 affairs in general Mr Balfour wanted that wide 
 sympathy which afterwards inspired Mr George 
 Wyndham. With it he might have succeeded as 
 mightily as Mr Wyndham, through no fault of his 
 own, failed tragically in attempting to settle the Irish 
 question. Lacking it, though he planted the seeds 
 of a new Irish prosperity, he did nothing to eradicate 
 ancient hatreds. Manured with gold, the tares still 
 sprang up even more luxuriantly than the wheat, 
 and in our day a richer Ireland with more passion 
 than the impoverished Ireland of Parnell prefers 
 demands that Parnell would have deemed extravagant. 
 
 68
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A FEW hours before, to quote the words of Lord 
 Morley, the * Veiled shadow stole upon the scene,' 
 and the stormy career of Charles Stewart Parnell 
 became only a memory, the same relentless visitor 
 had called on a very different household. Mr W. H. 
 Smith, of the Front Bench and the railway bookstalls. 
 Lord Randolph Churchill's * lord of suburban 
 pineries and vineries,' and a partner in the * Marshall 
 and Snelgrove of debate,' died on October 6, 1891, 
 after leading the House of Commons in blameless 
 fashion for five years. 
 
 Two statesmen of mature age and large experience 
 had claims to the great post thus rendered vacant. 
 Mr Goschen, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was by 
 all rule heir presumptive. Once a Liberal, he had 
 long been rather remarkable for his Conservatism, 
 but still he was of the City, and the Tory Party was 
 yet essentially that of the land and the Church. 
 On the other hand. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, of 
 old county family and distinguished administrative 
 record, was a most admirable representative of 
 businesslike squirearchy. It might have been 
 difficult to adjudicate between the two; Lord Salisbury 
 avoided any such embarrassment by appointing his 
 nephew, and the possible rivals competed only in 
 welcoming Mr Balfour as Mr Smith's successor. 
 
 ' It is absurd,' said The Times, in commenting 
 on the appointment, ' to talk of nepotism when it 
 is notorious that Lord Salisbury could no more lift 
 his nephew above the heads of other men if the 
 claims of Mr Balfour had not been supported by an 
 
 69
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 overwhelming body of Unionist opinion, than Mr 
 Gladstone could or would have made either of his 
 sons his Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1869 or 
 1880.' The cumbrous statement of a truth does 
 not render it less true. In the four and a half years 
 which had elapsed since he accepted the Irish 
 Secretaryship Mr Balfour had made himself by far 
 the most interesting figure on the Conservative side, 
 and there was as yet no possibility of rivalry on the 
 part of Mr Chamberlain. He was respected on all 
 sides, and liked by those who did not dislike him 
 very much, for his temper, though quick on occasion, 
 was on the whole conciliatory; his manners were 
 generally urbane and often charming; and, if he 
 sometimes treated opposition with excessive disdain, 
 he was free from the two faults the House of Commons 
 never forgives: he neither fatigued nor hectored. 
 To some extent also he had been mellowed by 
 responsibility, and the shrillness and flippancy of the 
 earlier Irish days were now less marked. 
 
 It was, therefore, with approval that one Cecil 
 led the Commons while another led the Lords, and, 
 though nobody would have believed Lord Salisbury 
 incapable of nepotism, there was no disposition to 
 suggest that on this occasion affectionate partiality 
 had erred. It cannot be said, however, that Mr 
 Balfour's first serious essay in leadership was a success. 
 The remarkable Irish Local Government Bill, which 
 Mr Balfour himself introduced (his place as Irish 
 Secretary had been filled by an inconspicuous Mr 
 Jackson who afterwards found a new obscurity as 
 Lord Allerton), passed its second reading in February, 
 1892, by a majority of ninety-two. The Commons 
 passed it, as the Commons passes so many things. 
 in a state of mind almost equally compounded of 
 indifference and bewilderment: indifference because 
 
 70
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 it was known that the Bill was intended only as 
 election window-dressing, bewilderment because it 
 was really something ' no fellow could understand.' 
 Mr Balfour, in defence of one feature, said he had 
 borrowed it from the procedure for the election of 
 School Boards. ' I think,* he said with disarming 
 frankness, ' that there are great advantages in doing 
 a stupid thing that has been done before, rather 
 than a wise thing which has not yet been done.' But 
 on reflection Mr Balfour did not seem very proud 
 of his handiwork (or Mr Jackson's ?), and his want 
 of enthusiasm was infectious; the Bill died a natural 
 death, and Mr Balfour would probably be unable 
 to-day to say exactly what it purported to do. A 
 Small Holdings Bill, of the character known as 
 * permissive ' — ' you needn't do it unless you like ' 
 — was carried through as a rather more likely attrac- 
 tion for the General Election, and Parliament was 
 dissolved on June 26, 1892. 
 
 There could be but one issue, and Mr Balfour, 
 in his election address, dealt almost entirely with 
 Home Rule, though (the hand was the hand of Mr 
 Chamberlain) he threw in a promise — never to be 
 fulfilled by a Unionist Government — of old age 
 pensions. It was not, however, the dulcet voice of 
 the Unionist leader, but a more strident accent, that 
 determined the character of the election. Already 
 Ulster had spoken. ' We will not have Hom.e Rule,' 
 said the Duke of Abercorn, and the answering cheer 
 of 12,000 Protestant delegates at Belfast carried 
 across the Channel. The voice of Ulster had probably 
 more effect in Great Britain than in 1886. For the 
 point of the jingle that ' Home Rule means Rome 
 Rule ' had been sharpened by the fall of Parnell, 
 who had gone down before the ban of the Roman 
 Catholic Church; and the recent illustration of the 
 
 71
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 immense power of the Irish priesthood must have 
 impressed many thousands of British Nonconformists 
 who ordinarily owed allegiance to the Liberal party. 
 As if this inevitable but most serious difficulty were 
 not enough, Mr Gladstone had heavily handicapped 
 himself by two of his own making. He had declared, 
 equally against reason and against popular feeling, 
 for the British evacuation of Egypt, and he had 
 bound himself to the fantastic list of projects known 
 as the Newcastle programme. The two strongest 
 interests, established religion and the drink trade, 
 were antagonised, the one by the proposals for the 
 disestablishment of the Scottish Church and the 
 Church in Wales, and the other by the plan for a 
 local veto on the sale of liquor. Nearly every clergy- 
 man was thus converted, whether he wished or not, 
 into a Conservative agent, and every taproom became 
 a Conservative committee-room. 
 
 Mr Balfour by a majority of 398 retained his 
 seat at Manchester against the attack of Professor 
 Munro, and had the satisfaction of seeing the Con- 
 servative hold on that great city maintained. But 
 this satisfaction was strictly personal. There has 
 perhaps never been a general election more profoundly 
 ungratifying to all parties. The Unionists could hardly 
 rejoice over defeat; the Liberals might well regard 
 such a victory as worse than defeat. We know from 
 Lord Morley the gloom in Gladstonian councils when 
 it was apparent that a majority of forty (including the 
 Home Rule vote, Parnellite as well as anti-Parnellite) 
 was the instrument vouchsafed for so mighty a task 
 as lay before Mr Gladstone in his fourth administra- 
 tion. The plight of the Liberals was indeed pathetic. 
 Their leader was eighty-three, and, although a miracle 
 of intellectual and bodily vigour for that age, was 
 beginning to lose sight and hearing so rapidly that 
 
 72
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 he might be compelled almost any day to retire from 
 office. They were at the mercy of the Irish vote, 
 of which nearly a fourth might almost be called 
 hostile. The verdict of England, the verdict of 
 Great Britain, was heavily against them; the great 
 towns were unfavourable; it was certain that the 
 House of Lords would reject the Home Rule Bill, 
 it was certain that they would be justified in doing 
 so, and nearly certain that an election following such 
 rejection would end in total Liberal discomfiture. 
 Only an overpowering sense of the sacredness and 
 importance of the cause, together with the utmost 
 loyalty in their following, could have heartened men 
 faced with so hopeless and futile a task. But there 
 was little common purpose in the party, whether in 
 its inner councils or in the country. Mr Gladstone, 
 at heart, cared as little for the Newcastle programme 
 as did Lord Salisbury. The Newcastle devotees, 
 on the other hand, cared little for Home Rule, were 
 only sentimentally attached to Mr Gladstone, and 
 were violently hostile to Lord Rosebery. 
 
 Well might Mr Balfour, when Parliament met 
 on August 4, * beam on his applauding friends ' 
 and * look much more certain of approaching victory 
 than conscious of pending defeat.' The Government, 
 with propriety, declined to resign until turned out; 
 it commanded the largest party in the House, and 
 was entitled to await the test of a vote; it was, indeed, 
 quite an open question how the majority would act. 
 The vote of censure which was to decide the Govern- 
 ment's fate was entrusted to Mr Asquith, a young 
 member, who had but two years before taken silk, 
 but whose great abilities had already attracted the 
 notice of Mr Gladstone, and who was shortly to be 
 Home Secretary in the Liberal Government. The 
 resolution stated simply that the Government did 
 
 73
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 not possess the confidence of the House of Connmons 
 and of the country. The debate began on August 8 ; 
 the following evening Mr Balfour^ in his last speech 
 as opposition leader, replied to Mr Asquith and Mr 
 Gladstone. He justified the Government's retention 
 of office on the ground that they had the right to 
 know the terms of the Irish alliance; he remarked 
 that the Unionists, in defeat, were sustained by hope 
 and confidence, and that the Liberals, in victory, 
 had before them only dismay and perplexity. After 
 ridiculing the Newcastle programme, he predicted 
 that the Unionist party before long would be called 
 on to carry out their own measures of social reform. 
 
 The figures of the largest division ever known 
 showed that paper estimates represented realities; 
 the majority against the Government was exactly 
 forty. The division was taken just before midnight. 
 Mr Balfour wished to muster full strength, and 
 Mr Chaplin, amid incessant cries of * 'vide, 'vide,' 
 remained speaking in order to enable three stragglers 
 to get to the House. Nobody, since the death of 
 the lamented Mr Biggar, was fitter for the charge; 
 there was no stopping Mr Chaplin before the end of 
 a sentence, and his sentences were as long as most 
 men's speeches. On this occasion, while the feverish 
 House chafed with impatience, he ambled with 
 heavy-footed majesty down those corridors of beaten 
 syntax in which he delighted to lose himself. At 
 the end of twenty minutes, says Sir Henry Lucy, 
 one of the strays was signalled; another twenty 
 minutes, and the second arrived. Then, at ten 
 minutes to twelve, Mr Balfour whispered to the 
 Minister of Agriculture: ' That will do, Chaplin.* 
 The last man had arrived. 
 
 A few minutes later Mr Balfour's first leadership 
 of the House of Commons was at an end. It had 
 
 74
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 been too short to decide much. In dignity, tact, 
 and technical mastery Mr Balfour had shown himself 
 not deficient; it was yet to be proved whether he 
 was equal to the extremest demands which the 
 position might make upon him. But the general 
 impression was favourable; and Mr Balfour at this 
 time seemed destined, after a short experience of 
 opposition, to resume power in circumstances of 
 strength and security denied to the greatest of his 
 predecessors. 
 
 IS
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The panegyrist of Mr Gladstone has exhausted the 
 vocabulary of admiration over the veteran statesman's 
 conduct of the Second Home Rule Bill. ' If he had 
 been fifty his performances would have been astonish- 
 ing; at eighty-four they were indeed a marvel. He 
 made speeches of powerful argument, of high 
 constitutional reasoning, of trenchant debating force. 
 No emergency arose for which he was not ready, 
 no demand that his versatility was not adequate to 
 meet. His energy never flagged. When the Bill 
 came on, he would put on his glasses, pick up the 
 paper of amendments, and, running through them 
 like lightning, would say, " of course, that's absurd 
 — that will never do — we can never accept that — is 
 there any harm in this ? " ' ' These rapid splendours 
 of his,' adds Lord Morley, * had their perils. I 
 pointed out to him the pretty obvious drawbacks 
 of settling delicate questions as we went along with 
 no chance of sounding the Irishmen, and asked him 
 to spare me quarter of an hour before luncheon, 
 when the draftsmen and I, having thrashed out the 
 amendments of the day, could put the bare points 
 for his consideration. He was horrified at the very 
 thought. " Out of the question. Do you want to 
 kill me ? I must have the whole of the morning 
 for general Government business. Don't ask me." ' 
 This extract suggests powerfully the pathos of 
 the position of the indomitable personage whom 
 Lord Randolph Churchill had rather brutally described 
 six years before as an ' old man in a hurry.' Precisely 
 because he was an old, a very old, man, Mr Gladstone 
 
 76
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 was bound to be in a hurry; he was fighting a more 
 relentless opposition than that on the left hand of 
 the Speaker. The thing must be done quickly if it 
 were to be done at all, and every minute was of 
 importance. There is nothing more wonderful in 
 the Parliamentary history of Great Britain than the 
 last fight of Mr Gladstone. There is also, perhaps, 
 nothing sadder. 
 
 Mr Gladstone at eighty-four was fighting against 
 time; Mr Balfour, at forty-four, was fighting for it. 
 This was the essence of the Home Rule debate of 
 1893. Every hour lost to the old man was a victory 
 for his opponent. Mr Balfour had a strong argumen- 
 tative case; if the speech in which Mr Gladstone 
 introduced the Bill was a model of stately and com- 
 pelling eloquence, the opposition leader's reply was, 
 in its kind, not less powerful. The constituencies 
 had provided him with an easy answer to the question 
 — was the Bill demanded ? For the rest, said Mr 
 Balfour, Mr Gladstone rested his case in 1886 on 
 the absence of social order in Ireland: there was no 
 alternative to Home Rule but perpetual coercion. 
 But that dilemma was now seen to be no dilemma 
 at all; Ireland was quiet without Home Rule and 
 without coercion. On the detailed provisions of the 
 Bill he dwelt with scorn; this ' strange abortion 
 of a measure ' attempted an impossible task, and 
 reversed the process of evolution by which all great 
 Empires have been built up and maintained. ' Much,' 
 he concluded, ' as we have suffered in the past from 
 vacillation, we at all events will put an end to this 
 project, absolutely impossible of execution in its 
 details, and even worse in its general principles, by 
 which the right honourable gentleman, under the 
 cloak and guise of drawing into closer harmony the 
 different parts of the United Kingdom, is going to 
 
 77
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 frame institutions which must tend, ever and ever, 
 as time goes on, to separate us both in temper and 
 mind, and ultimately in nationality.' 
 
 But though there was no lack of argumentative 
 power to back the case against Home Rule the main 
 weapon was still obstruction. Mr Balfour in Com- 
 mittee announced cheerfully that he should vote for 
 any amend) nent which would improve the Bill and 
 any that would destroy it; a member of his party, 
 still more thorough-going, voted against his conviction 
 for a certain motion because it * would make the Bill 
 more detestable.' By the end of June, so little progress 
 had been made that the Prime Minister was driven 
 to the use of a time-limit, soon known as ' the gag.* 
 The irritation caused by this curtailment of debate 
 came to a head on July 27, the last night of the 
 Committee stage. Mr Chamberlain wound up a 
 bitter speech by comparing Mr Gladstone's followers 
 to the flatterers of Herod, who cried, ' It is the voice 
 of a god and not of a man.' ' Judas,' shouted an 
 Irish member, who probably remembered with equal 
 vividness the unpleasant fate of Herod and the 
 * ransom ' days of Mr Chamberlain. The succeeding 
 tumult degenerated into something like a free fight, 
 and the Chairman had to send for the Speaker; 
 after the sitting several sets of false teeth were found 
 by the cleaners. Unpleasant as it was, the incident 
 somewhat cleared the atmosphere, and the remaining 
 stages of the Bill, the third reading of which was 
 carried on September ist by a majority of thirty- 
 four, were marked by comparative calm. In the 
 House of Lords, the measure was rejected by more 
 than ten to one. Less than six months later Mr 
 Gladstone had left the Government, and turned his 
 back for the last time on the House of Commons. 
 Patient youth had conquered impatient old age. 
 
 78
 
 3/r. Balfour 
 
 Mr Balfour's delaying tactics were not less 
 justifiable than skilful; a Chamber which will tolerate 
 them is presumably a Chamber in which there is 
 no such measure of unanimity as should be behind 
 a fundamental (or at least a most important) change 
 in the Constitution. When, as in this case, the 
 verdict of the constituencies is feeble and ambiguous, 
 the case for fighting by every available constitutional 
 means is greatly strengthened. Mr Balfour was on 
 firm ground when, on the last stage of the Bill, he 
 declared that ' until England and Scotland, the 
 great contracting parties with Ireland in the Act of 
 Union, are satisfied that the dissolution of that Union 
 is for their best interests, that dissolution can never 
 take place.' He was on much more debatable territory 
 when, at the great Ulster demonstration on April 
 5, 1893, he used language which could hardly be 
 interpreted as other than an endorsement of the 
 Churchillian doctrine that Ulster would be right in 
 fighting (unfiguratively) against Home Rule. 
 
 * You have had,' he said, * to fight for your 
 liberties before. I pray God you may never have to 
 fight for them again. I do not believe you ever 
 will have to fight for them. I admit the tyranny of 
 the majority may be as bad as the tyranny of kings; 
 and that the stupidity of a majority may be even 
 greater than that of kings; and I will not say, and I 
 do not think that any rational or sober men will say, 
 that what is justifiable against a tyrannical king may 
 not under certain circumstances be justifiable against 
 a tyrannical majority. I hope and believe that this 
 is but the utterance of a mere abstract proposition, 
 and that circumstances which would justify such a 
 state of things may never arise in this country.' Sir 
 Edward Carson may have said worse things before; 
 Sir Edward Carson has certainly said much worse 
 
 79
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 things since. But then Mr Balfour was not Sir 
 Edward Carson; he was a great Minister, Hkely to 
 be an even greater; and this imprudent (and most 
 unnecessary) half-justification of possible rebellion 
 was unworthy of his fame and position. 
 
 During the Home Rule debates, while relentless 
 in his opposition, Mr Balfour affected towards Mr 
 Gladstone personally a certain admiring consideration 
 which sat gracefully on him, and presented a pleasant 
 contrast to the rather supercilious tone he had adopted 
 earlier in the Irish controversy. When he entered 
 a remonstrance against the ' gag ' he gently rebuked 
 the Prime Minister as the arch-obstructionist. It 
 is not a nice thing to charge a very old and distinguished 
 gentleman with prolixity, but Mr Balfour's politeness 
 on this occasion diminished the sting, while it did 
 not lessen the point, of his very just accusation. It 
 was pleasant also to hear him, with quite unaffected 
 sincerity, congratulate Mr Gladstone on attaining 
 his eighty-fourth birthday. ' Before putting a 
 question,' he said, * perhaps the right honourable 
 gentleman will allow me, on my own part and on 
 that of my friends, to offer him our most sincere 
 congratulations.' ' Allow me to thank him,' said 
 Mr Gladstone, his voice trembling with genuine 
 pleasure, ' for his great courtesy and kindness.' 
 Despite the many battles between the two, Mr 
 Gladstone preserved to the last his grandfatherly 
 attitude to the man whom he had distinguished, 
 when much younger, as capax imperii \ and Mr 
 Balfour on his side could hardly be insensible to 
 Mr Gladstone's personal charm, even though he 
 was altogether unaffected by the witchery of his 
 eloquence. The two men were, indeed, united by 
 a number of ties, collectively not slight. Mr Gladstone 
 had been on friendly terms with Mr Balfour's father; 
 
 80
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 they met frequently on neutral ground, and occasionally 
 Mr Balfour spent a few days at Hawarden. If 
 sometimes the younger man treated the elder with 
 a severity a little ungraceful, he was quick to heal 
 any obvious wound by a word of apology. ' Mr 
 Gladstone is the last person in the House whose 
 feelings I should desire to hurt,' he explained when 
 his attention was called to a remark which was open 
 to misconstruction. Mr Balfour's memorable tribute 
 to Mr Gladstone as * the greatest member of the 
 greatest deliberative assembly the world has seen ' 
 may be conveniently quoted here: — 
 
 * He added a dignity, and he added a weight, to 
 the deliberations of this House by his genius, which 
 I think it is impossible adequately to replace. . . . 
 He brought to our debates a genius which compelled 
 attention, he raised in the public estimate the whole 
 level of our proceedings, and they will be most ready 
 to admit the infinite value of his service who realise 
 how much of public prosperity is involved in the 
 maintenance of the worth of public life, and how 
 peculiarly difficult most democracies apparently feel 
 it to be to avoid the opposite dangers into which so 
 many of them have fallen.' 
 
 The last Parliamentary utterance of Mr Gladstone 
 was a declaration, prompted by the Peers' adhesion 
 to their amendments to the Parish Councils Bill, 
 that the Government, in regard to the annihilating 
 zeal of the House of Lords, must * go forward to an 
 issue,' and ' take fully, frankly, and finally the side of 
 the House of Commons.' Mr Balfour condemned 
 this as a ' declaration of war ' against the ancient 
 constitution of the realm. ' Let me tell the right 
 honourable gentleman,' he said, * that we look forward 
 
 8i
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 without dismay to the fight, and that we are not 
 perturbed by these obscure threats.' 
 
 Liberal threats were not, indeed, much to be 
 feared at this time. The Government was described 
 by the Home Secretary, Mr Asquith, as ' ploughing 
 the sands.' Under Lord Rosebery as Prime Minister 
 a good deal of the sand got into the bearings of the 
 ploughing machinery. Lord Rosebery hopefully 
 began by practically repudiating Home Rule in his 
 ' predominant partner ' speech; he and Sir William 
 Harcourt, the leader of the House of Commons, 
 were hardly on speaking terms; and, with the 
 Parnellites now in full opposition, the difficulties 
 of carrying on daily increased; the majority for the 
 election of Speaker Gully descended to eleven. By 
 dint of great tact and courage. Sir William Harcourt 
 got through the one considerable task of 1894, his 
 great Finance Bill, establishing for death duties 
 the principle of graduation which has since been so 
 greatly extended. The next session saw new furrows 
 of sand, and Mr IJoyd George, most furious of 
 Welsh democrats, was enjoying himself in protesting 
 against the inadequacies of the Welsh Disestablish- 
 ment Bill when the end came. 
 
 On June 21, 1895, the Government was defeated 
 on an amendment to the Army Estimates, moved by 
 Mr St John Brodrick, censuring the War Minister, 
 Mr Campbell-Bannerman, on the ground that he 
 had not supplied the Army with sufficient cordite. 
 Mr Brodrick's enterprise was a private matter. Mr 
 Balfour had delivered, earlier in the evening, an 
 eulogy of the Duke of Cambridge, who had at length 
 been induced to resign the office of Commander- 
 in-Chief. His Royal Highness's departure from the 
 Horse Guards was esteemed a triumph for the 
 country as well as for the War Minister, and the 
 
 82
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 atmosphere was heavy with the fragrance of bouquets. 
 When the cordite division was called Mr Balfour 
 remarked to Mr Chamberlain that he * supposed 
 the Government would have their usual majority.' 
 When the tellers approached the table, the clerk, 
 by mistake, handed the paper with the figures to the 
 Government Whip, who glanced at it and, with a 
 shrug of his shoulders, handed it to the Conservative 
 Whip, Mr Akers-Douglas. That gentleman, hardly 
 able to believe the truth, handed it back. But 
 arithmetic did not lie, and the figures on the paper 
 read: Ayes to the right, 132; Noes to the left, 125. 
 Mr Campbell-Bannerman at once resigned, and the 
 Government went with him. 
 
 The Queen sent for Lord Salisbury, who formed 
 a strong Government, this time of Liberal Unionists 
 as well as Conservatives; Parliament was dissolved 
 on July 8, and the country, by giving a Unionist 
 majority of 152 over Liberals and Nationalists 
 combined, justified the House of Lords in rejecting 
 the Home Rule Bill. Mr Balfour's opponent in 
 Manchester was again the indomitable Professor 
 Munro, who was defeated by a majority of 776, 
 an increase of 378 over that of 1892. Parliament 
 met on August 12, and, two or three minutes after 
 Mr Balfour had taken up his position on the 
 Treasury Bench, there was an immense ovation as 
 Mr Joseph Chamberlain, the new Colonial Secretary, 
 came in and sat beside him. A chapter in general 
 history had closed. A new chapter in Mr Balfour's 
 personal history had begun. 
 
 83
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 In 1895 ^^ Balfour occupied an apparently enviable 
 position. Still on the right side of fifty, he seemed 
 to have before him many years of splendid activity. 
 Two men alone could compare with him in capacity. 
 But Lord Salisbury was more and more the hermit 
 of the Foreign Office, advanced in years and out 
 of touch with new currents of feeling, while Mr 
 Chamberlain, adept in the Parliamentary game, 
 had only slight experience of office. 
 
 The virtual fusion of the two wings of the Coalition 
 contributed to add to the Conservative leader's 
 prestige. So far a distinct division had existed. 
 The compact of 1886, honourable to both sides, had 
 been honourably observed; Mr Chamberlain and 
 his friends had not only given the Government 
 unwavering support on the Irish question, but had 
 gone far beyond their undertaking. The result was 
 not unhappy. Conservatism was tempered by a 
 mildly progressive spirit, and the Coalition could 
 justly claim that in many important matters essential 
 Liberalism was on their side, and not on their 
 opponents'. But so far Mr Chamberlain had declined 
 to take office under a Conservative Prime Minister. 
 Such hesitation was natural enough. We who read 
 the political story backwards, and are more familiar 
 with the end than with the beginning, are apt to 
 think of the process of conversion as far swifter than 
 was actually the case. For some years after 1886 
 the alliance, though never seriously threatened, — 
 was always liable to rupture; and even as late as 
 1902 the Duke of Devonshire expressed himself 
 
 84
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 conscious of a division which Lord Rosebery found 
 * imperceptible to the practised eye.' Ten years 
 was a period none too long to temper the Radicalism 
 of Mr Chamberlain to a degree compatible with 
 absorption into a Conservative Cabinet. The 
 Radicalism was, of course, only tempered and given 
 a new direction; it was never expelled, and even in 
 his * ransom' days Mr Chamberlain was not less a 
 Tory than when he sat at the same Cabinet table 
 with Lord Salisbury and Mr Balfour. 
 
 It was naturally felt at the time that the change 
 from * alliance ' to ' indissoluble union,' symbolised 
 by Mr Chamberlain's acceptance of the Colonial 
 Secretaryship, imparted new solidity to the Unionist 
 cause and new emphasis to Mr Balfour's ascendancy. 
 But formal unity is not seldom less effective than 
 loose alliance, and Mr Chamberlain, through no fault 
 and by no design of his own, was destined to become 
 for the second time a disruptive force. Almost 
 from the time of his entrance into the Salisbury 
 Cabinet there began a competition which undermined 
 Mr Balfour's position, and, after many years, led 
 to his fall. It was a competition of which, in 
 all probability, Mr Chamberlain himself was mainly 
 unconscious. Assuredly he did not accept Mr 
 Balfour's leadership in order to conspire against it, 
 and for Mr Balfour himself, with his * genius for 
 friendship,' he entertained the liveliest regard. But 
 it was impossible for a man of his temperament to 
 accept the ordinary position of a subordinate; and 
 it was, after all, a subordinate's place that he filled, 
 though his energy soon made the once despised 
 Colonial Office the most talked of Department in 
 the Government. The very contrast between the 
 prestige of the statesman and the comparative 
 unimportance (as it then appeared) of the post he 
 
 85
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 occupied was in a way an advertisement of his special 
 standing in the Cabinet. As Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer he would have been confessedly Mr 
 Balfour's lieutenant; as Colonial Secretary he was 
 still Mr Chamberlain, Mr Balfour's equal, there by 
 his own fancy. It was out of the question that Mr 
 Chamberlain should be second to any man, still less 
 to one much younger than himself; and, had Mr 
 Balfour been tactless or a weakling, he must, loyalty 
 or no loyalty, have gone to the wall. But Mr Balfour 
 had plenty of tact, and in his way was quite as 
 courageous, quite as tenacious, quite as able as Mr 
 Chamberlain. And he was very much more subtle. 
 He may be compared (with the greatest possible 
 deference) to the terrible sea-monster in Victor Hugo's 
 romance, with the beak of a bird of prey and the body 
 of a jelly-fish. His bite was formidable; his in- 
 vulnerability was embarrassing; he had, like the 
 squid, great clinging power; and, just as the mollusc's 
 armoury of offence and defence includes an inky 
 secretion, so he could always command in emergency 
 a cloud of words which confused the attacker. Mr 
 Balfour's tenacity, however, was of a special character. 
 It had no relation to the same quality in men delighting 
 in work for work's sake. It consisted, for the most 
 part, of a determination first to keep his party together, 
 and secondly to keep himself at the head of his party. 
 If he was inspired by one sincere and overpowering 
 conviction, it was that the safety and dignity of 
 Great Britain depended on the supremacy of Con- 
 servatism, and he might be pardoned if, on a review 
 of his record and a glance at the contemporary 
 political gallery, he believed that the supremacy of 
 Conservatism depended on the maintenance of his 
 own authority. He was always determined that the 
 style of the firm should be ' Balfour and Chamberlain.' 
 
 86
 
 Adr, Balfour 
 
 But while resolved to be king, he was by no means 
 one of those busybody autocrats who must needs 
 engross all power. Like Charles II, he was perfectly 
 ready, so long as he kept the essentials, to let others 
 earn the credit and the blame — especially the blame 
 — in less vital matters. Mr Chamberlain he treated 
 much as Charles did Shaftesbury at one time and 
 Danby at another. He was too powerful to be 
 resisted, but he could always be checked, and some- 
 times kept in the dark. He must have his way in 
 some departments, if only to ensure that he should 
 not have his way altogether. 
 
 There thus resulted a singular want of balance 
 in the administration. On the one side there was 
 much energy, not always inspired by sound judgment. 
 On the other side there was a certain deprecating 
 resentment of over-activity, which did not, however, 
 preclude perfect willingness to bear responsibility 
 and ' play the game ' if things went awry — the beau 
 geste^ however, being possibly accompanied with 
 just the slightest explanatory wink that * Mr Chamber- 
 lain was really — what } ' The right hand was not 
 ignorant of what the left did; it always knew (if 
 sometimes not from the beginning), it sometimes 
 disapproved, but it could neither control nor get on 
 without its fellow. The whole history of the late 
 nineteenth and early twentieth century might have 
 been different if either of these men, each so strong 
 in his own way, had exercised complete mastery. 
 It is almost certain there would have been no Jameson 
 Raid had Mr Balfour swayed despotically a Cabinet 
 wholly consisting of nobodies. It is quite probable 
 that there would have been no Boer War. It is 
 extremely doubtful whether the Fashoda incident would 
 have been carried so near the danger point; he, as 
 well as Lord Salisbury, was fully in touch with Kitchener, 
 
 87
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 and firm on the main questions at issue, but he would 
 hardly have stated them in Mr Chamberlain's way. 
 For, like his uncle, though nurtured in the Disraelian 
 tradition, Mr Balfour altogether lacked the gambling 
 spirit of Mr Disraeli. Lord Salisbury, so reckless 
 in his incursions into domestic politics, was caution 
 personified in foreign policy, and Mr Balfour, in 
 this at least, was the dutiful pupil of Lord Salisbury. 
 In all these matters the inspiration was another's. 
 The Government's South African policy was Mr 
 Chamberlain's; so far as it was justified, his was the 
 credit; so far as it was mistaken, the responsibility 
 was his. During the three dark years of the war, 
 Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister and Mr Balfour 
 as First Lord of the Treasury were quite overshadowed 
 by the Colonial Secretary. To the populace he was 
 the hero; to the opposition he was the villain; to 
 the Empire and the foreign world he was the British 
 Government. Mr Chamberlain dominated all 
 departments. He it was who chid foreign dignitaries 
 as if they were Irish members, who told the French 
 to ' mend their manners,' who one day scolded the 
 German Chancellor, and almost the next suggested 
 an Anglo-German alliance. 
 
 From 1895 to 1902 Mr Balfour efficiently led 
 the House of Commons, carefully attended to questions 
 of party organisation, and looked after matters of 
 patronage. But otherwise his part was almost a 
 secondary one. He was the official oil-can and master 
 of the ceremonies. It was his to congratulate Oueen 
 Victoria on her Diamond Jubilee, and he did it, as 
 he did all such things, with marvellous deftness. 
 It was his, on the Queen's death, to pronounce a 
 stately panegyric on the departed and offer tactful 
 congratulations to the new monarch. It was his to 
 tone down the occasional asperities of the Colonial 
 
 88
 
 Ji^r, Balfour 
 
 Secretary, to qualify little crudities, to conciliate the 
 more friendly members of the Opposition, to pour 
 polished scorn on the irreconcilables. It was his 
 also to keep going the machinery of home govern- 
 ment; it is worth noting that he took a great personal 
 interest in the London Government Act of 1899, 
 which transferred the duties of the old vestries to 
 twenty-eight metropolitan boroughs, but still left 
 over 300 authorities sharing among them the public 
 administration of the capital. Mr Balfour's was no 
 inconsiderable or unimportant task. But it lacked 
 the spectacular glory of Mr Chamberlain's, and the 
 popularity of the war (it was undeniably popular) 
 implied the popularity of the statesman chiefly 
 associated with it. Mr Balfour during those years 
 was an incomparable second. Outside Great Britain 
 his name began to have an unfamiliar or old-fashioned 
 sound. In Parliament and in the country, however, 
 he did good service by opposing to critics a more 
 convincing and closely reasoned case than any other 
 statesman was able to make. Mr Chamberlain's 
 speeches suffered slightly from over-zeal; the incense 
 had perhaps a little intoxicated him, and he sometimes 
 spoke almost as if the war were his own private 
 affair. He could rarely reply except by counter- 
 attack, and the circumstances were not always 
 appropriate to that strategy. Mr Balfour presented 
 the national case with more restraint but not less 
 effect; he defended the Colonial Secretary better 
 than he could defend himself; he threw the protecting 
 cloak of his reasoned and reasonable eloquence over 
 the grave mismanagements of departments; he 
 was by far the most formidable critic of the attitude 
 of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Mr Lloyd 
 George; and his election manifesto in 1900 was a 
 perfect exampleofdignity,calmcourage, force, and logic. 
 
 89
 
 Mr\ Balfour 
 
 The utter rout of the Liberals at the polls, to 
 which Mr Balfour's calm and luminous speeches 
 contributed as much as Mr Chamberlain's fiery 
 addresses and pungent messages, accentuated the 
 differences which had already arisen between the 
 Imperialist and Pacifist wings of the party. Sir 
 Henry Campbell-Bannerman, through the secession 
 of Lord Rosebery, Mr Asquith, Mr Haldane, and 
 Sir Edward Grey, was left to lead the Little Englander 
 rump, and his condemnation of the concentration 
 camp scheme, as savouring of ' methods of barbarism,' 
 completed the alienation of the Liberal Imperialists. 
 There was never less effective Parliamentary criticism 
 of the Government than in the third year of the war, 
 and when at last Mr Balfour was able, on June 2, 
 1902, to announce the terms of the Boer surrender 
 his Government appeared to enjoy a position of 
 unassailable security. The war was won, and, what- 
 ever views might be held as to its necessity, whatever 
 reflections might be made as to its cost, there was 
 reason for congratulation in the thoroughness of 
 the victory. A troublesome question had been 
 removed. The strength, moral and military, of the 
 British Empire had been illustrated; foreign Powers 
 had been shown that, in any conflict with this country, 
 the self-governing dominions must be taken into 
 account. Such was the foreground view of the 
 Government record. In the background was the 
 diplomatic triumph of Fashoda and Kitchener's 
 great victory at Omdurman, restoring the Sudan, 
 and avenging the death of Gordon. Whatever 
 might be said about Ministers, they could claim to 
 have succeeded in their aims, and it was no small 
 point that in each case their success was the sequel 
 to a Liberal failure. 
 
 The prospects of the Government were, therefore, 
 90
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 superficially excellent. But during the very last 
 stages of the war Mr Balfour introduced a measure 
 which, however excellent in itself, contributed largely 
 to his undoing. Some years before Lord Salisbury 
 had told his party to * capture the School Boards.* 
 Mr Balfour used a war-made majority to accomplish 
 this purpose. The Education Bill of 1902 marked 
 in many ways an advance; it was certainly the most 
 important step since i 870 towards the realisation of the 
 ideals of serious educationalists. But, by putting volun- 
 tary (chiefly Church of England) schools on an equality 
 with Board Schools so far as concerned the allocation 
 of public funds, while permitting them to retain 
 their privileges of private management, it created 
 a Noncomformist grievance which told heavily 
 against the Government; and the secession of many 
 Nonconformist supporters had its influence in 
 determining Mr Chamberlain to choose the new 
 issue which was to involve the Unionist party in the 
 gravest complications. 
 
 Why Mr Balfour should have been so resolved 
 (the Education Bill was his own particular pet) on 
 this policy of ' capturing the School Boards ' is not 
 clear. He is a member of the Scottish Church, and 
 so little of a religious bigot that he has equally 
 denounced the extreme Anglo-Catholics and those 
 Protestants who opposed facilities for the higher 
 education of Roman Catholics in Ireland. His 
 general view of religion is extremely rationalistic, 
 and his kinsman. Lord Hugh Cecil, regards him, 
 theologically speaking, with little more favour than, 
 as a boy of five, he did that celebrated nurse whom 
 he suspected of being a Socinian. Probably Mr 
 Balfour was urged partly by his genuine enthusiasm 
 for education, and partly by the desire to please an 
 important body of political supporters. It is possible 
 
 91 G
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 he did not realise how much the Bill would contribute 
 to sharpening the differences between Liberal 
 Unionists and Conservatives. * I am afraid Jesse 
 Collings is quite right,' wrote Sir Henry James to 
 the Duke of Devonshire, * as to the smashing blow 
 inflicted on the Liberal Unionist party by the 
 Education Bill. Our reports are black as night. . . . 
 What can be done to make Arthur Balfour under- 
 stand the position ? If he makes no concession to 
 the anti-clericalists I am quite sure there will be an 
 opposition to the Bill being worked which will produce 
 chaos.' Mr Chamberlain himself, though ' an 
 optimist by profession,' was ' most gloomy.' ' Our 
 best friends are leaving us by scores and hundreds,' 
 he wrote, ' and they will not come back.' 
 
 The seeds of this trouble were already germinating 
 when the resignation of Lord Salisbury on July lo, 
 1902, gave Mr Balfour the highest position in the 
 State, and the leadership of the Unionist party as a 
 whole. Lord Salisbury was in his seventy-third 
 year, and in every respect an old man. The death 
 of Queen Victoria, the opening of a bustling new 
 reign, the suggestion (to put it no higher) of a decided 
 change in foreign policy, had warned him that he 
 had become something of an anachronism. His 
 heart was never in the war, and its anxieties had 
 done much to depress a spirit rather sturdy than 
 elastic. For some time he had shown physical 
 inadequacy to his work; and he now took advantage 
 of the close of hostilities to lay down the burden. 
 There was, superficially at least, complete unanimity 
 as to his successor. At a great meeting of the 
 Unionist party at the Foreign Office Conservatives 
 ratified the choice, and emphatic assurances were 
 given on behalf of the Duke of Devonshire and Mr 
 Chamberlain. The meeting was attended by two 
 
 92
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 persons then quite inconspicuous, but destined to 
 have great influence on Mr Balfour's future. One 
 was Mr Andrew Bonar Law, the new Parliamentary 
 Secretary to the Board of Trade, a Scottish Canadian 
 business man who had won a seat at Glasgow in 
 1900, and was said, by the few who had marked 
 him, to have a good head for figures. The other 
 was Mr Winston Spencer Churchill, son of Lord 
 Randolph, who had served in a cavalry regiment, 
 written books, and acted as war correspondent, and 
 attracted some little notice during the war by his 
 escape from Pretoria. 
 
 The change in the Premiership involved some 
 reconstruction of the Ministry. The public was 
 chiefly interested in the selection of Mr Austen 
 Chamberlain, son of the Colonial Secretary, for the 
 Post Oflice. But the appointment having the most 
 important efl'ects on the future was that of Mr Charles 
 Thomson Ritchie as Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 A pronounced Free Trader, capable, stubborn, and 
 somewhat commonplace, he entered office with the 
 resolution of getting rid, as soon as might be, of 
 the shilling corn tax imposed for war purposes by 
 his predecessor. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. The 
 Cobdenic orthodoxy of Mr Ritchie was to be a 
 considerable element in the quarrel which was shortly 
 to destroy all the fair hopes entertained of the renovated 
 Ministry and of Mr Balfour's Premiership. 
 
 93
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Mr Harold Skim pole, who saw in the Court of 
 Chancery an institution designed by a beneficent 
 Providence as a sort of punching-bag for men of 
 too-abounding energy, might well have found 
 satisfaction in the circumstances which condemned 
 the two ablest politicians of their day to a long contest 
 of laborious futility. The history of the Tariff 
 Reform controversy is in essence the history of two 
 men of wholly dissimilar character, separated by 
 considerable differences of opinion, divided still 
 more sharply by temperamental incompatibility, but 
 still bound by a multitude of ties which neither cared 
 to snap. 
 
 No two men in the House of Commons at the 
 beginning of this century had fewer points in common 
 than Mr Balfour and Mr Chamberlain. Mr Balfour 
 has been compared with the elegant Halifax as 
 portrayed by Macaulay: * his understanding keen, 
 sceptical, inexhaustibly fertile in distinctions and 
 objections, his taste refined, his sense of the ludicrous 
 exquisite; his temper placid and forgiving, but 
 fastidious and by no means prone either to malevolence 
 or to enthusiastic admiration.' Historical comparisons 
 are misleading, and there was much in Mr Balfour 
 that the great Trimmer lacked. To find even so 
 superficial a likeness to Mr Chamberlain we should 
 explore in vain the portrait galleries of the past, 
 but some of his characteristics are reproduced in a 
 living statesman. Mr Chamberlain was as like Mr 
 Lloyd George as any Englishman of his time could 
 be to any Welshman born so much later. Masterful, 
 
 94
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 eager, empirical; destitute of a political philosophy; 
 impatient of privilege and tradition in the abstract, 
 but prone to be fascinated by them in the concrete; 
 keenly perceptive, but possessing what one may call 
 a one-dimension sight, so that he grasped but one 
 question, and but one side of any question, at the 
 same time; extraordinarily shrewd in certain things, 
 rather ingenuous in others; gifted with equal genius 
 for friendship and vendetta; capable of high and 
 unselfish enthusiasms, but sometimes lacking in 
 magnanimity; given to grandiose conceptions, in 
 which, however, there always lurked a prosaic element; 
 facile in changing his views, but changeless in the 
 intensity with which he acted on the convictions of 
 the moment; ready to send others to the stake for 
 believing to-day what he himself believed yesterday, 
 and that with as little humour as mercy — such was 
 Mr Chamberlain throughout life; the greatest recent 
 example of the ' practical ' dreamer. 
 
 On the face of it, no two men were less likely to 
 agree. Yet there undoubtedly existed a real friend- 
 ship between Mr Balfour and his great colleague; 
 and, naturally enough, the warmer feelings were 
 on the side of the more energetic character. Mr 
 Chamberlain entertained an intense admiration for 
 those qualities of his leader which supplemented, 
 while not coming into competition with, his own. 
 Moreover, he was a man never given to half-measures; 
 those whom he disliked, he disliked heartily; those 
 whom he honoured with his friendship had it without 
 reserve. Mr Balfour's sentiments were rather less 
 simple; nobody, in public life at least, has succeeded 
 really in getting to know him. Mr Balfour is an 
 island, entirely surrounded by urbanity (modified 
 by some puzzling cross currents) and many determined 
 attempts at invasion have failed. The friendship 
 
 95
 
 J\4r, Balfour 
 
 with Mr Chamberlain probably resembled those 
 marriages in which one party loves and the other 
 consents, and even with some satisfaction, to be 
 loved. Another factor in this strange intimacy may 
 be mentioned. Mr Chamberlain was the fondest 
 of fathers, and, while Mr Balfour held possession 
 of the Unionist party machine, the fortunes of his 
 son Austen, who had as yet no such reputation as to 
 make patronage unnecessary, were dependent on 
 the goodwill of the Unionist leader. 
 
 But while such considerations might operate to 
 prevent Mr Chamberlain decisively parting from 
 Mr Balfour when he found that the latter was not 
 prepared to go all his road, they could not suffice 
 to restrain him from action certain to embarrass 
 the Prime Minister. Mr Chamberlain was above 
 all a fighter, and the moment he got anything 
 into his own head his first impulse was to break 
 heads less favoured. At the Colonial Office he had, 
 in constant contact with other ideas, insensibly 
 weakened in his once strongly held but insufficiently 
 pondered Free Trade principles; the War, stimulating 
 a desire for closer relations with the oversea dominions, 
 had turned his mind more positively to the Dominion 
 statesmen's demands for Preference; and within a 
 few months he had passed from dubiousness to 
 certainty, and from certainty to fiery enthusiasm. 
 It is improbable that the wish to divert public 
 attention from matters concerning the war played 
 any decisive part in this rapid growth of fiscal con- 
 viction. But the secessions over the Education Bill 
 undoubtedly troubled Mr Chamberlain; he had, 
 like all war ministers, to fear a revulsion of popular 
 feeling; and that he was not unwilling, for purely 
 party considerations, to present a new issue to the 
 country was made clear as early as May, 1902, when
 
 J\dr. Balfour 
 
 he declared that opponents might find that * the 
 issues they propose to raise are not the issues 
 on which we shall take the opinion of the 
 country.' 
 
 Whatever the main element in his conversion, 
 Mr Chamberlain was forced by the law of his nature 
 to proclaim it. He did so in the famous speech of 
 May, 1903. But the real story begins some months 
 earlier, in the autumn of 1902. The idea was then 
 to present the country, in the least offensive way, 
 with an accomplished fact. Mr Chamberlain pro- 
 posed to the Cabinet that a preference should be 
 given to corn grown within the Empire, and pointed 
 out that the shilling duty on corn imposed by Sir 
 Michael Hicks-Beach (for revenue purposes only) 
 would simplify the execution of this policy. You 
 made the shilling duty permanent as regarded foreign 
 wheat; you remitted it on Colonial wheat, and the 
 thing was done. The scheme was a clever one, and 
 only an accident upset it. In making this proposal 
 Mr Chamberlain reckoned without Mr Ritchie, the 
 new Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was quite 
 determined that his first Budget should be distin- 
 guished by the abolition of a tax which he regarded 
 as electorally unpopular, unjust to the poorer classes, 
 and a departure from the Free Trade principles to 
 which he was passionately attached. At this Autumn 
 Cabinet Mr Ritchie stated his objections with perfect 
 clearness, and even heat. But Mr Chamberlain, 
 who was about to leave for his South African tour, 
 assumed that all the other Ministers had accepted 
 his policy, and naturally felt that Mr Ritchie occupied 
 no such position as to be able to impose a veto. The 
 fact seems to have been that the Duke of Devonshire 
 was asleep, that the minor Ministers were naturally 
 timid of plunging into unknown controversial depths, 
 
 97
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 and that Mr Chamberlain took this general silence 
 for consent. Mr Balfour, of course, knew already, 
 in general terms, what was in his mind, and, in equally 
 general terms, approved. He was perfectly willing 
 to introduce Preference by a side wind, and at this 
 time there seemed no obstacle in the way. 
 
 But when Mr Chamberlain returned, on the 
 eve of the presentation of the Budget, he found, to 
 his irritated surprise, that Mr Ritchie persisted in 
 his refusal to renew the Corn duty, and had determined 
 to resign rather than yield. Mr Balfour would not 
 face such a disruption of his Cabinet; and it was 
 the Government, not Mr Ritchie, that yielded. 
 Mr Ritchie brought forward his own Budget in his 
 own way, and, in the manner of a pattern Free Trade 
 Minister, lectured the House of Commons (and 
 incidentally Mr Chamberlain) on the iniquity of 
 taxing the people's food. After this it was quite 
 impossible to proceed unostentatiously by administra- 
 tive means; the fiscal fight was forced into the open 
 by one man's obstinate determination; and instead 
 of the Government having to defend a single Budget 
 proposal, it was exposed to attack on the whole vast 
 question of economic policy. 
 
 Mr Chamberlain was not a man to take such a 
 rebuff lying down, and lost no time in forcing the 
 issue on the country. On the same day in May both 
 leaders made important speeches, the points of 
 divergence in which excited one section of public 
 opinion as much as the points of similarity alarmed 
 another. Mr Balfour, in defending Mr Ritchie's 
 abolition of the corn duty — that same corn duty 
 which he had decided to retain for the purpose 
 of Mr Chamberlain's Preference scheme — told a 
 deputation that in certain events there might have 
 to be a small corn duty in connection with a general 
 
 98
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 preferential system. But such a movement, he 
 hastened to add, was only possible if approved by 
 the ' conscience and intellect ' of the general mass 
 of the people. Mr Chamberlain was far more 
 emphatic. He reminded his hearers that Canada, 
 which had already given substantial preference to 
 British goods, was prepared to go further if some 
 preference were given in return to her corn. ' If,' 
 said Mr Chamberlain, ' I had been speaking solely 
 in regard to my position as Secretary of State for 
 the Colonies, I should have said, " that is a fair offer, 
 that is a generous offer from your point of view, and 
 it is an offer which I might ask our people to accept "; 
 but, speaking for the Government as a whole, not 
 in the interests of the Colonies, I am obliged to say 
 that it is contrary to the established fiscal policy of 
 this country.' Mr Chamberlain went on to point 
 out the two alternatives before the people of the 
 Empire : — 
 
 ' They may maintain if they like in all its severity 
 the interpretation — in my mind an entirely artificial 
 and wrong interpretation — which has been placed 
 upon the doctrines of Free Trade by a small remnant 
 of Little Englanders of the Manchester School. 
 In that case they will be absolutely precluded from 
 any kind of preference or favour to any of their 
 colonies abroad, or even of protecting their colonies 
 abroad when they offer to favour us. That is the 
 first alternative. The second alternative is that we 
 will not be bound by any purely technical definition 
 of Free Trade, that, whilst we seek as our chief object 
 free interchange of trade between ourselves and all 
 nations of the world, we will nevertheless recover 
 our freedom and resume that power of negotiation, 
 and if necessary of retaliation, whenever our interests 
 
 99
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 and our relations between our colonies and ourselves 
 are threatened by other people.' 
 
 * I desire,' concluded Mr Chamberlain, * that a 
 discussion on this subject shall be opened,' and he 
 went on to declare that the fiscal question would be 
 the issue of the next election. 
 
 A few days later a considerable enlargement of 
 these propositions was made in the House of Commons. 
 Mr Balfour declared himself in favour of retaliation 
 against ultra-Protectionist Powers: questioned the 
 theory that import taxes should be imposed for 
 revenue purposes only; described Imperial Preference 
 as a fair question for debate; but added that he did 
 not himself regard the taxation of food as at present 
 within the range of practical politics. ' The question,' 
 he said, * is not one that this House will have to 
 decide this session, or next session, or the session 
 after; it is not a question that the existing House of 
 Commons will have to decide at all. ... It is a 
 question of our future fiscal policy which requires 
 a most careful study.' The two leaders were clearly 
 not far apart speculatively. But Mr Chamberlain 
 represented the mood of ' Do it now,' and Mr Balfour 
 murmured ' Not this year or next year, but some 
 time, and perhaps never.' The difference was not 
 one of doctrine, but of temperament. Mr Chamberlain 
 was ready to risk all. Mr Balfour was willing to 
 take some risk, but it must be a little one. The plan 
 wrecked by Mr Ritchie us involving little risk, had 
 obtained his blessing. When that plan was disposed 
 of, Mr Balfour could not resist Mr Chamberlain's 
 desire for discussion, and he may also have mis- 
 calculated the probable effects of such a ventilation 
 of the new ideas. But when he realised, as he quickly 
 did, the extent to which the country was moved, 
 
 loo
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 his whole energy was concentrated on a single object: 
 the preservation of the party and the maintenance 
 of his own leadership. He could not, and did not, 
 repudiate Tariff Reform; he could, and did, work 
 to postpone it. Some years later, when it seemed 
 likely to win, he gave it his unequivocal blessing. 
 But so long as it seemed to threaten the disruption 
 of the Unionist party, his ingenuity was solely 
 concerned with the invention of various formulae 
 to avert that calamity. He did not succeed wholly 
 in averting it, but he did succeed in deferring it and 
 lessening its violence; and there is, properly under- 
 stood, no more brilliant passage in Mr Balfour's 
 career than that which bears superficially the aspect 
 of tragic failure. For, though his tactics produced 
 in the end an electoral disaster of the first magnitude, 
 he may be fairly held to have saved many things, 
 more important than Conservative prosperity, which 
 would have been in dire peril had the smash of 
 January, 1906, occurred in 1903. 
 
 loi
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 In taking the course he pursued in 1903, Mr Balfour 
 was only obeying his instincts. He was always 
 inclined to what the Free Trader would deem economic 
 heresy; it might almost be said that the mere fact 
 that the doctrine of Cobden was received without 
 question was to him sufficient ground for questioning 
 it. Many of the main tenets of Free Trade he 
 accepted; it was, for example, impossible for so 
 intelligent a man to take the vulgar view that the 
 success of other countries was something to be 
 deplored. At New Cross, in 1901, he protested 
 against the idea that ' any successful manufacture 
 started by any other country was a kind of robbery 
 committed on British trade '; we were not poorer, 
 but richer, because other nations were rich. But 
 he resented the dogmatism of the complete Cobdenist, 
 and he had a certain contempt for Cobden himself, 
 which was probably due — so curiously masterful 
 are associations and prejudices even in minds of 
 uncommon elevation — to the fact that that great 
 man was after all no great gentleman, statesman, 
 or philosopher, but only a commercial traveller. 
 * Cobden,' he said once, * was rather a political 
 missionary than a statesman, an agitator rather than 
 an administrator. . . . His defects happily conspired 
 with his merits to render him a fitting instrument 
 for carrying out the inevitable change in our fiscal 
 policy which was the most important work of his 
 public life.' As far back as 1876 Mr Balfour had 
 declared himself a BimetalUst; five years later he 
 had argued in favour of retaliatory duties on the 
 
 102
 
 J<fr. Balfour 
 
 products of nations imposing tariffs intended to 
 exclude British goods. Thus, long before Mr 
 Chamberlain had turned his attention to fiscal 
 questions, Mr Balfour had advanced far in what 
 was generally considered economic heterodoxy. But 
 speculation is one thing, and action another. Mr 
 Balfour tried only once to translate theory into 
 practice; it was a question of diluting with silver 
 the gold reserve of the Bank of England, and the 
 protests of the City were sufficiently vigorous to 
 make him think twice before again meddling with 
 the superstitions of the vulgar. It is pretty certain 
 that, left alone, Mr Balfour would have remained 
 intellectually scornful of the extreme Free Trade 
 position, but would never have ventured to propose 
 any sweeping change in British fiscal policy. Of 
 course, if anything could be done, without fuss or risk, 
 to tone down the crudities of undiluted Cobdenism, 
 well and good. But better that the credulous should 
 live and die in error than that there should be breaking 
 of heads and splitting of parties. 
 
 Of his own motion Mr Balfour would assuredly 
 not have precipitated the crisis of 1903. But he 
 was impelled by the energy of Mr Chamberlain, a 
 powerful Minister, who could not be treated like 
 Mr Henry Chaplin or Colonel Howard Vincent, 
 hitherto almost the sole declared protagonists of 
 * Fair Trade.' Mr Chamberlain was insistent; the 
 corn duty seemed to afford an easy means of meeting 
 him; and there appeared no great risk of a party 
 split. For if Preference had been introduced through 
 the Budget, the Unionist Free Traders would have 
 been confronted with a most awkward choice; they 
 must accept the Government's proposals, or they 
 must turn the Government out then and there : 
 a very rare event in recent Parliamentary history. 
 
 103
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 But when this plan was defeated, Mr Balfour con- 
 ceived the position to be altogether altered. It was 
 no longer a question of the manipulation of an existing 
 duty, but a raising of the direct issue of protective 
 taxation of food. Mr Balfour was inclined to drop 
 the whole thing like a red-hot poker. But Mr 
 Chamberlain, possessed with the one idea to the 
 exclusion of all others, had fully made up his mind 
 to bring his scheme before the public, and Mr Balfour 
 had to give way. He therefore agreed, rather 
 reluctantly, to an attempt to ' educate public opinion,' 
 and it was with his concurrence that the ball was 
 started by Mr Chamberlain. The latter, however, 
 with his impetuosity and plain-speaking, at once 
 went far beyond the discreet and tentative ' adumbra- 
 tion ' Mr Balfour had in mind; once the step was 
 taken retirement was impossible; the country was 
 profoundly stirred; and both Ministers were carried 
 away by the strength of the forces they had released. 
 Mr Chamberlain, who in May had declared himself 
 a Free Trader, who was at least ' perfectly certain ' 
 that he was ' not a Protectionist,' was soon pushed 
 by the vehemence of the public opinion he had 
 himself evoked into a position far more decided. 
 There was at first, indeed, no great popular feeling 
 on either side. But the * interests,' scenting good 
 business, at once entered the arena, and, through 
 the Tariff Reform League and other agencies, pushed 
 the new policy with great vigour and success; the 
 opposition, with equally interested motives of 
 another kind, and backed by the mercantile, 
 banking, and shipping magnates who felt their 
 position threatened by the menace to Free Trade, 
 naturally would not let the matter rest. Thus 
 Mr Balfour found that all his caution had been 
 futile; the dam had gone, and instead of the trickle 
 
 104
 
 JUr. Balfour 
 
 of educative propaganda there was a roaring flood 
 of agitation. 
 
 In these circumstances he invented the formula 
 of 'inquiry'; inquiry was found, in the result, to 
 mean the issue of vast quantities of undigested 
 statistics by the Board of Trade. But the incantation 
 of ' inquiry ' was useful so far that discussion was 
 burked in Parliament and Ministers were muzzled 
 in the country. Mr Balfour, though nearly swept 
 off his feet, had never lost his head, and, if he could 
 still not resist the current, he was henceforward in 
 the position to give it some degree of direction. 
 His chief concern at the time was the attitude of the 
 Duke of Devonshire, who had early protested against 
 the implications of Mr Chamberlain's May speech. 
 The Duke, though a life-long Free Trader, was 
 quite ready to regard the Cobdenic doctrine as a 
 human ordinance, with possibly some measure of 
 human imperfection. But he was opposed to any 
 changes which, while they might improve the con- 
 dition of certain of the higher classes of labour, 
 might, in the case of millions, ' reduce the margin 
 between poverty and absolute want.' If the proposed 
 advantages in connection with the Colonies were 
 only to be purchased at the expense of privation and 
 hardship on the part of our own people, then there 
 Vv^as, he thought, ' no policy more certain to hasten 
 the dissolution of the Empire.' 
 
 Mr Balfour was acting on a sound instinct in 
 paying little regard to the minor Free Traders in 
 the Cabinet, but in straining every effort to prevent 
 the resignation of the Duke. The attitude of the 
 latter was of enormous importance. Johnson speaks 
 somewhere of the peculiar ' dependability * of the 
 Duke of Devonshire of his day. This quality had 
 descended to the Liberal Unionist statesman then 
 
 105
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 Hearing the fiftieth year of a variegated political life. 
 He was not much admired, he was in no sense loved, 
 but he was trusted without limit. Hating public 
 speaking, and extraordinarily lazy, he yawned his 
 way through life, and it was a positive pain to him 
 in his later years to deliver his mind. liad he been 
 a whit less public-spirited, he would have retired 
 long ago behind his park palings. But the Duke 
 was always under the dominion of a conscience 
 which, while masterfully pointing out his way, never 
 applauded him for pursuing it. He detested responsi- 
 bility and often tried to shelve it, but could never 
 succeed, since by the nature of things he became 
 the father confessor of every doubting politician, 
 the refuge of every leader in a quandary, and the 
 depository of every awkward burden. The reason 
 of all this was that the Duke, though painfully 
 slow, and unimaginative as a country attorney, was, 
 at bottom, a quite unusually clear-headed man, 
 thoroughly honest, and free from any suspicion of 
 self-interest. 
 
 The Duke acted with the heavy-footed caution 
 of an elephant trying a doubtful river crossing. He 
 passed from puzzledom to distrust, from distrust to 
 dislike, and from dislike to whole-hearted opposition. 
 Mr Balfour's letters to him during the summer of 
 1903 exhibit some irritation over the awkwardness 
 of the situation set up by Mr Chamberlain's activity. 
 ' His speech has not made either the Parliamentary 
 or the Cabinet situation easier,* he writes to the Duke 
 on June 4. * I should much have preferred that the 
 controversy, which I believe in any case to have been 
 inevitable, should have been allowed to develop in 
 a more peaceful and regular manner.' ' Chamber- 
 lain's extraordinary vigour and controversial skill,' 
 he writes on another occasion, ' has thoroughly 
 
 106
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 alarmed them ' (the Free Trade members of the 
 Cabinet). ' They feel that if they give an inch an 
 ell will be taken, and though they had no belief in 
 the old dogmas they liked them because they were 
 definite and precise and because they knew not 
 whither the current of events would sweep them if 
 they once abandoned the familiar anchorage.' 
 
 Mr Balfour's own position is perhaps best 
 expressed in his letter to the Duke at the end of 
 August: — 
 
 * I do not believe — indeed I have never believed 
 — that the old dogmas are theoretically sound. I do 
 believe that they have served a very useful purpose 
 at a certain stage of our political development. But 
 they are in many respects unsuited to our present 
 industrial and national position. I think we must 
 be prepared to modify them. Just as I am not a 
 Socialist, so I am not a Protectionist; and as in the 
 case of social reform, so in the case of fiscal reform, 
 I think the mere fact of our increasing the number 
 of " open " questions makes it more than ever 
 necessary to approach their consideration in a spirit 
 of cautious moderation.' 
 
 We have here the Laodicean whose ultimate 
 fate with enthusiasts can never be a matter of doubt. 
 But there is generally something to be said for 
 Laodicea; and there was in this instance. To Mr 
 Balfour Free Trade was not sacred, and its modification 
 might even be a considerable object of policy. But 
 there were other things more important : the unity 
 of Unionism, and his own leadership. One-sided 
 Free Trade might be a bad thing. But the revival 
 of the Home Rule controversy and of Gladstonian 
 foreign policy ideals would be a worse thing. Feeling 
 
 107 H
 
 M^r, Balfour 
 
 this strongly, he was not a Httle irritated with the 
 extremists on both sides, and almost angry with 
 those who paraded their principles on what he 
 regarded as a matter of pure expediency. Objects 
 of this scornful displeasure were his kinsman. Lord 
 Hugh Cecil, and the son of his old colleague, Mr 
 Winston Churchill. The latter early went into 
 revolt. * You will easily see,' he wrote to the Duke 
 of Devonshire in June, ' that this must end in an 
 open split, and that the Tory dissentients will be 
 driven to make the same sort of arranofements as the 
 Liberal Unionists in 1886. ... I do not think 
 that Mr Balfour quite realises how determined people 
 are against a reversion to Protection.' Three months 
 later he is still more emphatic: ' I don't think,' he 
 wrote, * Mr Balfour and those about him realise at 
 all how far the degeneration of the forces of Unionism 
 has proceeded, and how tremendous the under- 
 current is going to be.' 
 
 The ' open mind,' indeed, might have had a 
 chance in May or June. By the late summer it was 
 no longer possible. The Unionist Free Fooders 
 were exposed to attack in their constituencies, while 
 the ' truce ' prevented them from hitting back. 
 The Tariff Reform movement, on the other hand, 
 had acquired such an impetus that Mr Chamberlain 
 himself could not have checked it if he wished — and 
 he was far from wishing. Mr Balfour was forced 
 to another attempt to find common ground. With 
 this object he submitted to the Cabinet on August 13 
 two papers, one of which has been published under 
 the title ' Economic Notes on Insular Free Trade '; 
 the other has not seen the light. ' Insular Free Trade ' 
 does not too happily illustiate Mr Balfour's power 
 of analytical disquisition. But regarded as an 
 attempt to get two hostile parties to accept a common 
 
 108
 
 JUr. Balfour 
 
 formula, while committing nobody to definite action, 
 it is highly ingenious. The Tariff Reformer might 
 there find all the admissions he wanted; the Free 
 Trader might discern no great harm in speculations 
 of what might happen to Barbados in a remarkable 
 set of circumstances, and what might be the fate of 
 Great Britain in the unlikely event of every country 
 in the world conspiring to ruin her in their own 
 despite. But unfortunately for Mr Balfour, neither 
 Tariff Reformer nor Free Trader was interested 
 in the * dynamics of trade,' or the limitations of Adam 
 Smith, or the ' extraordinary foolishness ' of fanatical 
 Cobdenism. The Tariff Reformer wanted to know 
 if Mr Balfour was going to tax foreign corn, and 
 (still better) foreign manufactured goods. The 
 Free Trader, quite unconcerned whether Free Trade 
 was * a moral imperative of binding force,' or simply 
 ' the concise description of a fiscal ideal,' wanted to 
 know whether Mr Balfour was going to allow Mr 
 Chamberlain, a Minister, to continue to attack his 
 fellow-Ministers in their own constituencies. 
 
 The Cabinet meeting broke up without agreement, 
 and a month was allowed for further discussion. 
 Mr Balfour was catechised by the Duke of Devonshire 
 as to his fiscal convictions, and his replies made the 
 Duke feel ' very low ' about things in general. 
 Discussing the possible answers to Mr Chamberlain, 
 Mr Balfour said there was the answer Mr Chamberlain 
 would like, * an answer which goes perilously near 
 to general protection.' There was the answer which 
 Mr Balfour would like to give, which * is based on 
 Free Trade and offers, I believe, the best hope of 
 maintaining Free Trade.* 
 
 * There is lastly the answer which Balfour of 
 Burleigh, I gather, is resolved to give, which is a 
 
 109
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 mere non possunius. This, which, in point of form, 
 seems the most negative of the three, is really the 
 one which will most quickly produce the most serious 
 consequences. For it will not merely break up the 
 Unionist party; it will shatter each wing of the 
 Unionist party, dividing Tory from Tory and Liberal 
 from Liberal. This is dynamite with a vengeance. 
 I still hope for better things.' 
 
 The Duke's commentary (to Lord James of 
 Hereford) was that the Prime Minister's course 
 seemed to him the most impossible of all. * I am 
 completely puzzled and distracted by all the arguments 
 ■pro and con Free Trade and Protection; but, which- 
 ever of them is right, I cannot think that something 
 which is neither, but a little of both, can be right.' 
 
 When the Cabinet assembled on September 14 Mr 
 Balfour met his Ministers with Mr Chamberlain's 
 resignation, dated five days earlier, in his pocket. 
 
 * I think,' Mr Chamberlain wrote, * that with absolute 
 loyalty to your Government and its general policy, 
 I can best promote the cause I have at heart from 
 without; and I cannot but hope that, in a perfectly 
 independent position, my arguments would be 
 received with less prejudice than would attach to those 
 of a party leader.' Mr Balfour, replying on Sep- 
 tember 1 6, stated that the only difference between him 
 and Mr Chamberlain had been in regard to the 
 practicability of the changes involved in the establish- 
 ment of a preferential system. He was convinced 
 that public opinion was not yet ripe for any taxation, 
 however slight, on food stuffs, and Preference would 
 
 * almost certainly ' involve such taxation. On the 
 other hand, he thought the country was prepared to 
 consider without prejudice the ' other branch of 
 fiscal reform (Retaliation) to which we both attach 
 
 1 10
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 importance.' Referring to the resignation, he said, 
 * How can I criticise your determination ? The 
 loss to the Government is great, but the gain to the 
 cause you have at heart may be greater still. If so, 
 what can I do but acquiesce ? ' 
 
 Mr Balfour did not tell his colleagues that Mr 
 Chamberlain had resigned. Like the Manchester 
 Alderman in the matter of the gondolas, he was 
 anxious to * let nature take its course ' so far as 
 concerned the irreconcilable Free Traders in the 
 Cabinet. If they were told that Mr Chamberlain 
 was going, they might (a tragic possibility) be inclined 
 themselves to stay. If they assumed that Mr Chamber- 
 lain was to stay, they might go. The last thing 
 Mr Balfour wanted was for Mr Ritchie and Lord 
 Balfour of Burleigh to stay. He had no personal 
 fancy for either, and was impatient with their purism; 
 such fastidiousness might be borne in a very clever 
 man, or in a great nobleman like the Duke of 
 Devonshire, but was not to be tolerated in smaller 
 people. The two Ministers circulated a statement 
 of their views, and were immediately told that, 
 holding such views, they must go. ' I never saw 
 anything more summary and decisive,' said the 
 Duke of Devonshire, * than the dismissal of these 
 Ministers.' Mr Balfour, when he made up his mind 
 (especially on these personal questions) seldom failed 
 to act with decision. With Mr Ritchie and Lord 
 Balfour ultimately went Lord George Hamilton, 
 against whom Mr Balfour had less feeling. These 
 Ministers were under the impression that the Duke 
 of Devonshire was immediately resigning also; they 
 did not know the Duke was under a pledge to see 
 Mr Balfour before taking any decisive course. He 
 saw Mr Balfour, who hinted that Mr Chamberlain 
 might resign, and afterwards spoke of a ' strong 
 
 1 1 1
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 possibility * of this event. The Duke decided after 
 all to resign; but on Mr Balfour telling him point- 
 blank, a day later, that Mr Chamberlain had left 
 the Cabinet, he agreed to continue. ' I suppose you 
 will damn me,' he wrote to a friend, but, he added, 
 ' the position seemed to me absurd that both Chamber- 
 lain and I, who had been opposing him, should both 
 leave Balfour.' The Duke, acutely conscious that 
 he seemed to occupy the position of having lured 
 his colleagues on to resign, while careful to retain 
 his own place, passed a miserable fortnight while 
 Mr Balfour reconstructed his shattered Cabinet. 
 To fill, however inadequately, the vacancy caused 
 by Mr Chamberlain's retirement an old fellow- 
 ' Soul,' Mr Alfred Lyttleton, joined the two others 
 (Mr George Wyndham and Mr Brodrick) already 
 associated with Mr Balfour; while the great post of 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer was allotted to Mr 
 Chamberlain's son and political heir. This task 
 concluded, Mr Balfour delivered on October i a 
 speech at Sheffield which determined the Duke's 
 long hesitation. Mr Balfour spoke rather decisively 
 for him, and one sentence stood out boldly and 
 clearly. ' If I were asked,' he said, ' Do you desire 
 to alter fundamentally the fiscal tradition that has 
 prevailed during the last two generations } I should 
 reply " I do." I should ask the people of this country 
 to reverse, to annul, and delete altogether from their 
 maxims of public conduct the doctrine that you 
 must never put on taxation except for revenue 
 purposes,' He added, characteristically, that he 
 would have preferred to leave Tariff Reform an 
 open question, but, as he had been obliged to give 
 a lead, this was his lead. The Duke, after pondering 
 this speech, found it would not do, and on October 3 
 tendered his definite resignation. 
 
 1 12
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 Mr Balfour was furious; indeed, the Duke's 
 vacillations might well have ruffled the sweetest 
 temper, and Mr Balfour's temper, generally equable, 
 could sometimes flare up savagely. It did so now. 
 He replied to the Duke in * a style for challengers, 
 like Turk to Christian.' It would be an exaggeration 
 to say that all the suppressed emotions of weeks 
 found expression after this disappointment; doubtless 
 they were inexpressible in any language. But Mr 
 Balfour wrote with bitter emphasis, and in angry 
 reproach : — 
 
 * Till one o'clock this afternoon, I had, I confess, 
 counted you not as an opponent, but as a colleague 
 — a colleague in spirit as well as in name. ... If 
 any other man in the world but yourself had expended 
 so much inquisitorial subtlety in detecting imaginary 
 heresies, I should have surmised that he was more 
 anxious to pick a quarrel than particular as to the 
 sufficiency of its occasion. . . . Had you resigned 
 on the 15th, or had you not resigned at all, the healing 
 effect (of the new declaration of policy) would have 
 suff'ered no interruption. To resign now, and to 
 resign on the speech, is to take the course most 
 calculated to make yet harder the hard task of peace- 
 maker. . . . Doubtless there is no imaginable 
 occasion on which you could have left a Unionist 
 Administration without inflicting on it a serious 
 loss. At the moment of its most buoyant prosperity 
 your absence from its councils would have been 
 sensibly felt. But you have, in fact, left it when (in 
 the opinion at least of our opponents) its fortunes 
 are at their lowest and its perplexities at their greatest.' 
 
 The final sentence merely stated the fact. Mr 
 Balfour's position was forlorn and even tragic. Within 
 
 113
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 less than three weeks he had suffered the loss of five 
 colleagues, one of them the most remarkable English- 
 man of the age, the other the most generally trusted 
 politician then living. But this was not the worst. If 
 the resignations had left Mr Balfour with a Cabinet 
 which, however weakened, was at least united, his 
 case would have been comparatively happy. The 
 stayers, however, were scarcely less divided than 
 the seceders. There was a Chamberlain party in 
 the Cabinet, as in the country; there were professors, 
 perhaps honest but certainly puzzled, of the Prime 
 Minister's special creed; there were stealthy Free 
 Fooders who considered ;^5ooo a year worth a little 
 hypocrisy. Mr Balfour could trust nobody; it is 
 only fair to add that very few trusted him. Yet for 
 two years, with schism in his Cabinet, mutiny in the 
 House of Commons, and delirious confusion in the 
 country, he held on his way. It was a marvellous 
 feat, possible only to one possessing the coolest 
 courage and the most exquisite skill. Whether it 
 was high statesmanship, or even good politics, is a 
 question the answer to which will depend on the 
 view taken of Mr Balfour's real object. 
 
 1T4
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Some sentences in the Sheffield speech seemed to 
 indicate that Mr Balfour was himself not far from 
 resignation when his Cabinet fell on disaster. He 
 was certainly filled with all the weariness and disgust 
 of the very clever and cool-headed man who finds 
 himself the sport of what he may well think folly 
 as well as enthusiasm. But in a few weeks he had 
 pulled himself together; and, having made up his 
 mind to resist every kind of extremist, he pursued 
 his course, not only with extraordinary dexterity, 
 but with the prodigious and almost feminine obstinacy 
 underlying his superficially accommodating character. 
 
 What were his motives in thus battling, not for 
 victory, but for the mere postponement of a crisis 
 that could not be averted ? Mr Balfour, possessor 
 of a first-class intelligence, could not possibly be 
 blind to the character of the forces making for his 
 discomfiture. He must have known that the Tariff 
 Reform split was fundamental, and could not be 
 repaired by mere tactful cobbling. Moreover, as a 
 statesman of great Parliamentary experience, he 
 could not be ignorant of the fact that, the longer 
 he remained in office with a discredited Cabinet 
 and a divided party, the more sure he was of crushing 
 defeat when at last he ventured to appeal to the 
 country. An election in 1903 might, as Mr Chamber- 
 lain certainly thought, have justified itself; the 
 Opposition was still feeble and disunited, and the 
 party in possession would have had a considerable 
 advantage. A deferred election, on the other hand, 
 was almost sure to end in disaster. 
 
 115
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 All this must have been perfectly plain to so 
 accomplished and shrewd a tactician as Mr Balfour. 
 Why, then, did he take all risks rather than face a general 
 election ? The answer is probably to be sought in 
 the overcast foreign horizon. Without stopping 
 to inquire whether Mr Balfour took supreme control 
 at the time he did with the special object of 
 carrying out a reversal of the traditional British 
 foreign policy, we may say that the first five or six 
 years of the century were emphatically a period of 
 rapid transition. The whole world was in a state of 
 unstable equilibrium. Early in 1902 certain middle- 
 aged men in a hurry had, after a most ingenuous 
 series of proposals, signed a Treaty of alliance with 
 the Asiatic and pagan Empire of Japan : a treaty without 
 precedent in the history of European diplomacy. 
 The wisdom or otherwise of that instrument is not 
 here in question; it is sufficient simply to indicate 
 its results. Forces were at once liberated which were 
 destined to change the whole face of Europe, and 
 are probably not even yet exhausted. Mr Balfour 
 could not possibly foresee the ultimate results of 
 this excursion from ' magnificent isolation ': the 
 heavy defeat of Russia, the repercussion of that 
 defeat on her dynastic solidity, the diminution of 
 her military power and prestige in Europe, the great 
 gain in comparative strength of the Triple Alliance, 
 the challenge to France in Morocco, the Turkish 
 revolution, the Austrian annexation of Bosnia, the 
 Italian annexation of Tripoli, the Balkan war, and 
 the general conflagration of 19 14. But he was 
 sufficiently seized of the situation between Japan 
 and Russia to be aware, shortly after Mr Chamberlain's 
 resignation, that events of incalculable import were 
 about to happen in the distant theatre of Eastern 
 Asia. Even supposing that the Entente with France 
 
 116
 
 jMr, Balfour 
 
 was an improvisation due to circumstances rather 
 than to premeditation, a mind so acute could not be 
 insensible to the dangers to Europe, remote as well 
 as immediate, which must be involved in this struggle 
 for supremacy in the Far East. It is probable, 
 therefore, that while Mr Chamberlain was thinking 
 of nothing but his fiscal policy, and ' Whole Hoggers,' 
 ' Little Piggers,' and Free Traders were engaged in 
 an interchange of bad language and worse economics, 
 Mr Balfour had chiefly in mind an altogether different 
 set of considerations. In 1903 and 1904 he had 
 either to keep office or to hand over the Government 
 of the country to the distrusted hands of Sir Henry 
 Campbell-Bannerman while a great war was raging, 
 and Great Britain might at any time be called on 
 to fulfil oneroiis obligations to her ally. In 1905 he 
 was faced with the beginnings of a new perplexity. 
 Prussianised Germany had begun to show her hand, 
 and momentous changes, which may or may not 
 have been for some time in contemplation, were 
 quite suddenly forced on British policy. At first 
 they took the simple form of a naval reshuffle. The 
 tactical disposition of the Fleet was changed, and 
 a great preponderance of force was concentrated 
 in home waters. But this necessarily implied an 
 understanding with France, and the establishment 
 of the Entente Cordiale, facilitated by the genial 
 personal influence of King Edward VII., was Mr 
 Balfour's method of meeting a menace of which he 
 early — perhaps earlier than is generally supposed — 
 recognised the real meaning. 
 
 To give a new direction to British foreign policy, 
 a direction which could not be seriously modified by 
 his successors, time was necessary, and it was for 
 time for that purpose that Mr Balfour was fighting 
 during months of seemingly futile tactics of evasion. 
 
 117
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 We have to consider Mr Balfour during the great 
 domestic controversy as a mere fiscal Gallio, but 
 also as a patriotic statesman of European mind, and 
 one who felt a special responsibility for British foreign 
 policy. His was a far less impressive part than that 
 of Mr Chamberlain, the passionate pilgrim of Tariff 
 Reform. But the historian will probably decide 
 that it was a part extremely useful to the country, 
 perhaps even indispensable to its safety, and it was 
 a part played with consummate ability and (in the 
 only sense that mattered) with distinguished success. 
 Mr Balfour could not as a thinker, and would not 
 as a party politician, spurn the whole Chamberlain 
 policy as a heresy. But he did, by every possible 
 means, seek to shelve it as an inconvenience. This 
 of course meant that with every month the gulf 
 between him and Mr Chamberlain yawned wider. 
 In May, 1903, they were pretty well as one. But as 
 time went on Mr Chamberlain, subject to his ardent 
 imagination and impelled by the forces he had 
 liberated, became more and more Protectionist, and 
 more and more eager to translate his ideas into 
 practice. Mr Balfour, on the other hand, did not 
 exactly recede from his convictions, but became 
 constantly more determined to postpone any action 
 which might precipitate the calamity he dreaded. 
 
 Mr Chamberlain, with his rather narrowly acute 
 vision, was convinced (and quite possibly justly) 
 that an early election would give him the victory 
 he desired. Believing this, and failing altogether 
 to grasp Mr Balfour's larger point of view, he was 
 naturally irritated to see electoral opportunity frittered 
 away. The Unionist Free Traders were equally 
 angered by the failure of the Prime Minister to 
 protect them against the attacks of Tariff Reformers. 
 Mr Churchill solved the problem by crossing the 
 
 118
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 floor early in 1905, and was followed by two others; 
 but the apostasy was confined to very narrow limits. 
 There was always a hope, as Lord Hugh Cecil 
 expressed it, that * Mr Balfour would eventually 
 come out nearer the Duke of Devonshire than Mr 
 Chamberlain '; and they scanned his every speech 
 with agonised eagerness for assurances that could 
 not be whittled away. They were invariably dis- 
 appointed; however much either side might shake the 
 fence, Mr Balfour never lost his balance. Towards 
 the autumn of 1904, however, Mr Chamberlain 
 forced the pace, and Mr Balfour had to supplement 
 the ' Economic Notes ' and the Sheffield speech. 
 At Edinburgh, on October 3, after describing himself 
 as * individually not a Protectionist,' he propounded 
 his ' two elections ' scheme. First there must be a 
 British general election; then, if a Unionist Govern- 
 ment were returned to power, it would call a Colonial 
 Conference, a ' free conference ' at which the whole 
 question of Preference could be discussed ' without 
 special instructions ' between the representatives of 
 the Oversea Dominions and the representatives of 
 Great Britain. Then the decision of this conference 
 would be again submitted to the electors before any 
 definite step was taken. ' Imperial unification must 
 not be hastily forced on public opinion, and it must 
 be looked at from a political and patriotic standpoint 
 rather than from that of economics or profit and 
 loss.' 
 
 In plain English, the whole question was thus 
 postponed to the Greek Kalends, and a Lancastrian 
 Free Trader, hating Tariff Reform but equally 
 loathing the newer Radicalism, might cheerfully take 
 any small risk involved in voting for the Unionist 
 candidate at the next election. It is amazing that 
 Mr Chamberlain should have given his approval 
 
 119
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 to this declaration, which meant, if it meant anything, 
 that he could never live to enforce his policy. Yet 
 Mr Chamberlain actually greeted it with enthusiasm, 
 though somewhat demurring to the second election. 
 The speech, in fact, accomplished for the moment 
 everything that Mr Balfour had in mind; it flattered 
 the Tariff Reformers by approving their principle; 
 it reassured Free Traders by emphasising the practical 
 obstacles; above all it secured Mr Balfour an 
 extended fiscal holiday. Early in 1905, however, 
 the soothing effect of this soporific • had worn off, 
 and at Manchester Mr Balfour, in reply to Mr John 
 Morley's challenge, produced his famous ' half sheet 
 of note-paper.' This singular document, so often 
 quoted, ran as follows: — 
 
 ' First, I desire such an alteration of our fiscal 
 system as will give us a freedom of action impossible 
 while we hold ourselves bound by the maxim that 
 no taxation should be imposed except for revenue. 
 I desire this freedom in the main for three reasons. 
 It will strengthen our hands in any negotiations by 
 which we may hope to lower foreign hostile tariffs. 
 It may enable us to protect the fiscal independence 
 of those colonies which desire to give us preferential 
 treatment. It may be useful when we wish to check 
 the importation of those foreign goods which, because 
 they are bounty-fed or tariff-protected abroad^ are 
 sold below cost price here. Such importations are 
 ultimately as injurious to the British consumer as 
 they are immediately disastrous to the British producer. 
 Secondly, I desire closer commercial union with 
 the colonies, and I do so because I desire closer union 
 in all its best modes, and because this particular 
 mode is intrinsically of great importance and has 
 received much colonial support I also think it might 
 
 120
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 produce great and growing commercial advantages, 
 both to the Colonies and the Mother Country, by 
 promoting freer trade between them. No doubt 
 such commercial union is beset with many difficulties. 
 These can best be dealt with by a Colonial Conference, 
 provided its members are permitted to discuss them 
 unhampered by limiting instructions. Thirdly, I 
 recommend, therefore, that the subject should be 
 referred to a Conference on those terms. Fourth, 
 and last, I do not desire to raise home prices for the 
 purpose of aiding home production.' 
 
 The only effect of this pronouncement, however, 
 was to stimulate anew those who had devoted them- 
 selves to the higher criticism of Mr Balfour. The 
 Duke of Devonshire could * find no policy in it at all '; 
 the Radical Free Traders claimed that Mr Balfour 
 and Mr Chamberlain were practically agreed; the 
 Tariff Reformers, caring nothing about pious ex- 
 pressions of opinion, merely wanted to know, not 
 what Mr Balfour thought, but what he was going to 
 do. Mr Balfour now hit on a new device. He 
 declined to take part in fiscal debates in Parliament, 
 and permitted the Free Traders to pass what resolutions 
 they liked in his absence. The opposition, thus 
 put in the position of beating the air, furiously 
 condemned the Prime Minister for ' degrading the 
 constitution,' mocking the authority and flouting 
 the dignity of the House, and making a ' miserable 
 exhibition of cowardice and insincerity.' Mr 
 Chamberlain himself described Mr Balfour's tactics 
 as * humiliating,' and as the year wore on showed 
 more and more impatience. 
 
 At last, in November, speaking in his own 
 principality of Birmingham, he put on pressure for 
 a dissolution. * The election continually recedes 
 
 121
 
 A/r. Balfour 
 
 into the background,' he said. * I wish an election.' 
 Lord Londonderry had attacked him a day or two 
 before, and he now repHed vigorously at the expense 
 of ' the weaker brethren — the brethren who have 
 no beliefs to speak of, or have been persuaded not 
 to believe them too hard. They have always gone 
 to the wall. I will not pretend to you that I am 
 sorry. I will not pretend to you that I pity them.* 
 ' The issues,' he went on, ' are too important to be 
 minimised or concealed. We will do our best to 
 make them clear. We will win our victory if we 
 can. We will accept our beating, if we are beaten, 
 with the determination to fight again.' 
 
 *I was not afraid of the Opposition; I was afraid 
 of my friends,' said Mr Balfour a few days later, at 
 Newcastle, in pleading for a moderate policy that 
 should be unanimously accepted. Mr Chamberlain's 
 retort was severe. He protested that the majority, 
 be it nine-tenths, or, as he thought, ninety-nine- 
 hundredths, could not be asked to sacrifice its con- 
 victions to the prejudice of the minority. ' No army,' 
 he went on, ' was ever led successfully to battle on 
 the principle that the lamest man should govern its 
 march. I say you must not go into the battle which 
 is impending with blunted swords merely in order 
 to satisfy the scruples of those who do not wish to 
 fight at all.' 
 
 This speech determined the event. A little more 
 lingering, and it was clear that the Unionist party 
 would have gone to the polls with a quarrel between 
 the leaders as well as deep-seated division in its ranks. 
 On December 4 Mr Balfour resigned. The choice 
 of resignation rather than dissolution was prompted 
 by tactical considerations. Dissolution would have 
 give the Opposition the advantages of attack; resig- 
 nation threw on it the embarrassment of defence. 
 
 122
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 Indeed, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's difficulties 
 were not inconsiderable, and were at one time con- 
 sidered so grave that a design was conceived of ousting 
 him from the leadership which he had sustained in 
 the days of adversity. The sturdy Scot, however, 
 had both principle and courage, and with most 
 impressive ease he brushed aside Lord Rosebery, 
 conquered the scruples or tempted the ambitions 
 of the Liberal Imperialists, and formed a Cabinet 
 of considerable distinction, in which Whiggish and 
 Radical Imperialist and Little Englander elements 
 were picturesquely combined. 
 
 Mr Balfour, helped by the Prime Minister's 
 declarations, raised the issue of Home Rule. But 
 the Irish question had only the smallest influence 
 in the election of January, 1906. It was long since 
 Ireland had occupied the centre of the political stage, 
 and but for an incident hardly noticed in the heat of 
 the Tariff controversy Home Rule might well have 
 seemed to be no longer a living issue. That incident, 
 not excessively important in itself, but curiously 
 interesting as illustrating a side of Mr Balfour's 
 character, may appropriately be recalled at this stage. 
 
 123
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 * Mr Balfour's charm/ wrote a partial but discrim- 
 inating critic, * certainly does not consist in anything 
 approaching indiscriminate geniality, or in any 
 conscious efforts to attract others to him. The 
 circle of friends whom he admits to his confidence 
 is not large, though his intellectual hospitality is 
 unstinted and is extended to all genuine inquirers. 
 His colleagues obtain from him not merely the most 
 chivalrous support in public, but — a far rarer thing 
 — the intimate loyalty of his thought. For them his 
 acute mind holds a general retainer for the defence.' 
 This is no doubt true, but subject to a certain 
 qualification. On occasion Mr Balfour has found it 
 necessary to make heavy sacrifices of his own to 
 political expediency, and it is only natural that some- 
 times the same Moloch should successfully demand 
 of him the surrender of a friend. * Arthur,' said no 
 less a judge than Mr Winston Churchill, ' is in his 
 nature hard; he could be cruel. I call him wicked. 
 . . . The difference between him (Mr Asquith) and 
 Arthur is that Arthur is wicked and moral, Asquith 
 is good and immoral.'^ In such exaggeration there 
 is a germ of truth. Mr Balfour is hard in the sense 
 that so many men of high superiority are hard. If it 
 is true that no sparrow falls without the divine know- 
 ledge and assent, it is also true that many sparrows 
 fall without the smallest observable effect on the 
 general scheme of Providence; and every great man 
 
 ' My Diaries ' of Wilfred Sea wen Blunt. 
 124
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 tends (and must tend) to indifFcrence as to what 
 happens to the little men who are of use to-day and 
 of no use to-morrow. Mr Balfour's * chivalrous 
 support ' and * intimate loyalty of thought ' were 
 assuredly not lacking to any subordinate who found 
 himself in a temporarily awkward situation; he has 
 shown all the traditionary Conservative tendency 
 to remember friends, and much of the specially 
 Cecilian tendency not to forget relatives; but let 
 friend or relative become a real embarrassment, and 
 nobody could be more passively reconciled (or in 
 extreme cases more actively contributory) to their 
 elimination. Thus cousinship did not save Lord 
 Hugh and Lord Robert Cecil from proscription as 
 Free Trade irreconcilables; thus the firmest ties of 
 political intimacy and personal friendship did not 
 secure Mr George Wyndham from ruin. 
 
 The story of George Wyndham is not a little 
 pathetic. Handsome, high-spirited, generous, gifted 
 with all the graces and many of the talents, from the 
 drabness of the Treasury Bench his personality 
 stood out with rare and gracious emphasis. His 
 entrance into the Cabinet in 1902 as Chief Secretary 
 for Ireland afforded the happiest promise both for 
 his own personal career and for the future of that 
 country. There was an infectious buoyancy, a high 
 and genial spirit in George Wyndham that drew 
 out the best from the men associated with him, 
 whether in politics or in the literary undertakings 
 which interested him scarcely less. This disposition 
 chanced happily to find peculiar opportunities in the 
 comolexion of the Irish administration of this time. 
 Lord Dudley had been appointed Viceroy, and 
 Sir Anthony MacDonnell, a Roman Catholic, was 
 Under-Secretary at Dublin Castle. A few months 
 after Mr Wyndham's appointment, a certain Captain 
 
 125
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 Shawe Taylor proposed a meeting of landlords' and 
 tenants' representatives to concert measures for an 
 agreed policy on land. The Orangemen held aloof, 
 but Lord Dunraven and other southern landlords 
 accepted the invitation; Mr William O'Brien and 
 other Nationalists were enthusiastic; a conference 
 was held; and out of it grew the great Land Purchase 
 Act associated imperishably with Mr Wyndham's 
 name — a measure by which nearly a quarter of a 
 million occupiers bought their holdings. There 
 was a desperate fight to get the Bill approved in the 
 Cabinet; Mr Chamberlain, the Duke of Devonshire, 
 Lord Lansdowne, and Lord Londonderry were 
 against it, and only the support of Mr Balfour, who 
 was heart and soul with his lieutenant, carried the 
 day. 
 
 The Land Conference survived the attainment 
 of its immediate object, and became the Irish Reform 
 Association. In the early autumn of 1904 rumours 
 which had long been current that Mr Wyndham 
 had been converted to Home Rule — he admitted to 
 a friend that he was ' theoretically ' a Home Ruler — 
 seemed to have obtained corroboration by talk of a 
 new policy of ' Devolution,' evolved by Lord Dun- 
 raven's association. It could not be denied that 
 such a policy had been elaborated; it could not be 
 denied that Sir Anthony MacDonnell was a Roman 
 Catholic and something like a Home Ruler; and 
 though Mr Wyndham hastened to declare that the 
 scheme had not been adopted, and that parts of it, at 
 least, were impracticable, the watchful suspicion of 
 Ulster could not be quieted. At Lurgan (a town 
 which had presented him with a big drum) Colonel 
 Saunderson, one of the Ulster stalwarts, declared on 
 ' irrefutable authority ' that Sir Anthony had drawn 
 up the Devolution scheme * under the direct orders 
 
 126
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 of Mr Wyndham.' The * irrefutable authority ' 
 was refuted by Mr Wyndham himself, and the 
 charge was softened to * connivance rather than 
 initiation.' But the grievance remained; Mr 
 Wyndham had touched the unclean thing, and his 
 relations with a wing at least of the Nationalist party 
 had been criminally cordial. 
 
 There were other irregularities at the charge of 
 the Chief Secretary and Dublin Castle. A Protestant 
 policeman was said to have been * victimised ' for 
 paying attentions to a Roman Catholic girl, which 
 caused a cry that the ' Inquisition ' had been set up. 
 Nuns had been appointed to duties in an infirmary 
 workhouse. It so happened about the same time 
 that the Bann River was indiscreet enough to flood 
 the houses of several Protestants. Worse than all. 
 Lord Dunraven, in conjunction with Mr Wyndham 
 and Dr Mahaffy, had mapped out a scheme for a 
 great Irish University. Lord Londonderry, in his 
 dual position of President of the Board of Education 
 and Ulster leader, was able to state that the Govern- 
 ment had no intention of adopting the scheme, but 
 it was enough that such a design had been entertained. 
 Mr Wyndham was suspect, to say the least, of 
 attempting peace with rebellious Ireland at the cost, 
 as Colonel Saunderson put it, of * those who are loyal.' 
 
 Mr Balfour first held his peace during this 
 controversy; then he defended Mr Wyndham while 
 keeping silence about his reputed policy; but when 
 Mr Wyndham in March, 1905, felt himself forced 
 to resign, the resignation was accepted — with 
 resignation. Mr Wyndham sacrificed himself to 
 the party Moloch; Mr Balfour accepted the sacrifice. 
 The general situtation was difficult enough without 
 the added trouble; and if the trouble could be avoided 
 by the disappearance of Mr Wyndham, the one Tory 
 
 127
 
 ]\4r, Balfour 
 
 who seemed qualified to be his successor, was it 
 worth while taking a considerable risk? Mr \Vyndham 
 could no doubt have saved himself by throwing over 
 Sir Anthony MacDonnell and going back on the 
 attitude which had won him so much goodwill in 
 Ireland. He could, perhaps, have been saved had 
 Mr Balfour declared outright that the time had 
 come for a genuine settlement of the Irish question. 
 Mr Wyndham would not take the one step; Mr 
 Balfour would not or could not take the other. So 
 a propitious moment passed; there has only been 
 another equally hopeful, and that too was wasted. 
 Two moderate parties had appeared in Ireland. 
 Lord Londonderry, usually rigid, had eloquently 
 defended Mr Wyndham. The Nationalists were in 
 a melting mood. Only extreme Orangemen and an 
 inconsiderable section of Nationalists were averse 
 from reconciliation. A few words from Mr Balfour 
 at this stage might have meant much. But they 
 were not spoken, and George Wyndham went into 
 retirement. 
 
 Mr Balfour gave little opening for criticism in 
 his announcement of the resignation. ' The Chief 
 Secretary,' he said, ' believed that the controversy 
 which had taken place had greatly impaired, if not 
 wholly destroyed, the value of the work which he had 
 to do.' On the merits of the case, he said, he would 
 say nothing, although, he added, there were parts of 
 it on which he held very strong opinions. A little 
 later he was less enigmatic. Devolution he declared 
 more dangerous, because more insidious, than Home 
 Rule; it was a * step towards breaking up the United 
 Kingdom.' It is true that we often realise the full 
 extent of a terrible danger only when it has passed; 
 but that fact, perhaps, inadequately reconciles Mr 
 Balfour's leniency to Devolution in the nurseling 
 
 128
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 stage with the austerity of his attitude over its untimely 
 coffin. * George has been several times,' writes the 
 diarist already cited a few months after Mr Wyndham's 
 resignation, * and has explained to me all his Irish 
 story. He has sacrificed himself to party necessities 
 and his devotion to Arthur Balfour.' A little later the 
 same commentator observes, * Arthur has gone right 
 round to the extremists again — coercion and all 
 the rest, with Walter Long as his prophet.' 
 
 Mr Wyndham's short official career was not 
 beneficial solely to Ireland. He was one of the very 
 few Ministers whose foresight urged, on a rather 
 reluctant majority, the conclusion of the Anglo- 
 French Entente. 
 
 T2()
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Mr Balfour's defeat In East Manchester, which 
 he had represented since 1885, was announced on 
 the first day of polHng; it was an omen of the disaster 
 which every succeeding day only served to emphasise. 
 Six members of the late Government shared his fate; 
 and when such heads as remained unbroken were 
 counted the opposition was found to number only 
 157, divided fiscally thus: 102 Chamberlainites, 
 26 followers of Mr Balfour, 16 Unionist Free Traders, 
 and three 'incapable of classification.' The Liberal 
 majority over all sections was 124. One of the great 
 contributory causes to the defeat was undoubtedly 
 the agitation against the importation of Chinese 
 Labour in South Africa, a subject on which Mr 
 Balfour (less cautious in this respect than Mr Chamber- 
 lain) had adopted a rather flippant attitude, scoffing 
 at Opposition protests as if they merely represented 
 party claptrap or idle sentimentalism. But, genuine 
 as was feeling in this matter, especially among Labour 
 voters, the verdict could only be accepted, in the 
 main, as a condemnation of both fiscal policies, Mr 
 Balfour's equally with Mr Chamberlain's. 
 
 The comparative success of Mr Chamberlain, 
 indeed, suggested at once to the Tariff Reformers 
 that, while there was hope for the strong brew, the small 
 beer had no sort of chance; and it was taken for 
 granted in many quarters that there must be a change 
 of leadership. Mr Chamberlain himself seems to 
 have momentarily inclined to that view, but only 
 momentarily. After all it was a most serious matter 
 to break with the possessor, not only of the finest 
 
 130
 
 JWr, Balfour 
 
 brain in politics, but of the party organisation — to 
 break, also, not on any great difterence of principle 
 (for Mr Balfour had by this time made it abundantly 
 clear that he was a Tariff Reformer of some kind) 
 but on questions of tactics and expediency. Mr 
 Chamberlain had to choose between two evils, as 
 they might well appear to him: a disastrous split, 
 on the one hand; a certain drag on the Tariff Reform 
 wheel on the other. He chose the latter; and the 
 so-called Valentine letters, published on February 
 14, 1906, established a new concordat between the 
 Balfourites and the Birmingham party. 
 
 Mr Balfour's letter described Tariff Reform as 
 the ' first constructive work of the Unionist party.' 
 Its objects were to secure ' more equal terms of com- 
 petition for British trade ' and ' closer commercial 
 union with the Colonies.' These objects might be 
 brought about by the establishment of a moderate 
 general Tariff on manufactured goods, not imposed 
 for the purpose of raising prices or giving artificial 
 protection against legitimate competition, and by the 
 imposition of a small duty on foreign corn. Such 
 steps, Mr Balfour declared, were, in the opinion of 
 the great majority of the party, ' not in principle 
 objectionable, and should be adopted if shown to be 
 necessary for the object in view or for the purpose of 
 revenue.' The policy thus defined was accepted 
 and ' cordially welcomed ' by Mr Chamberlain, 
 though, with its qualification, it really meant no 
 more than any previous utterance from the same 
 quarter. It left Mr Balfour free, as before, to hoist 
 the Tariff Reform sail if there happened to be a 
 favouring breeze, or to reef it if the wind blew 
 adversely. The effect of the Valentine letter, indeed, 
 was to confirm Mr Balfour in the leadership of the 
 whole party, but in nowise to give any section of it 
 
 131
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 more control over him than any party has ultimately 
 over its leader. 
 
 Of this advantage Mr Balfour made the adroitest 
 use. There has never been so remarkable a recovery. 
 When, after the Manchester defeat, he entered the 
 House of Commons as member for the City of London, 
 he found his own side of the House gloomy and 
 suspicious, and the Ministerial Benches acidly and 
 ungenerously contemptuous. The number of new 
 members was very large, and he had almost to remake 
 his reputation. Mr Balfour had, as usual, taken very 
 coolly his personal rebuff at Manchester; he played 
 an excellent game of golf the next day. Nor did he 
 harbour the smallest resentment against Mr (now Mr 
 Justice) Horridge, who had ousted him. In fact, he 
 carried indifference so far as to forget the very appear- 
 ance of his opponent. An undistinguished winner 
 of a notable election can seldom resist (until the 
 House has duly signified its feelings) the natural 
 tendency to consider himself a very important 
 personage, and this self-indulgence usually takes the 
 form of speaking whenever possible. Mr Horridge 
 was no exception to the rule. He was addressing 
 the House with much energy when Mr Balfour came 
 in. ' Who is that } ' asked Mr Balfour, after using 
 his pince-nez. ' He seems to be on very excellent 
 terms with himself.' * He may well be,' replied the 
 Colonial Secretary, ' since he had the honour of 
 beating you at Manchester.' ' Dear me,' was the 
 comment, 'how very interesting.' But though Mr 
 Balfour remained the philosopher he could not be 
 unaffected by the changed atmosphere. At first he 
 fumbled a little, and he was almost cowed when 
 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman dismissed one of his 
 fine-drawn debating points with the brutally direct 
 exclamation, ' Enough of this foolery.' 
 
 132
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 But a few weeks sufficed to restore Mr Balfour's 
 old ascendancy, and perhaps even to increase it. 
 For Mr Chamberlain was, unhappily, suffering not 
 only from the late rebuff, but from the advances of 
 the physical trouble which was so soon to compel his 
 renunciation of active political life, and apart from 
 Mr Chamberlain there was nobody fit to tie the shoe- 
 lace of Mr Balfour. The Unionist Benches were 
 notably barren of distinction; and the extraordinary 
 effect of the maiden speech of Mr F. E. Smith, which 
 could only have been produced in vacuo, was sufficiently 
 symptomatic of this intellectual destitution. For a 
 leader who had conducted his party to unparalleled 
 defeat, for one whose special following was the 
 smallest in the House, Mr Balfour enjoyed, in the 
 Parliament of 1906-10, quite extraordinary prestige 
 and authority. 
 
 In such circumstances, he first set out to enjoy 
 a long fiscal vacation. On every other subject he was 
 active, pertinacious, and effective; on Tariff Reform 
 he was silent for a whole year, while the stalwarts 
 of that policy glowered at him with suspicious eyes, 
 and the persecuted Free Fooders pathetically sought 
 his countenance in vain. At Hull early in 1907 
 he made gay play with the reviving discontent. 
 Could he be expected to issue monthly bulletins, he 
 asked, as to the state of his mind on Tariff Reform } 
 His beliefs remained constant, and did not require 
 perpetual amplification. He advised his followers 
 not to become a ' party of one idea,' and not to make 
 Tariff Reform ' a test of party loyalty.' Having 
 thus rebuked the malcontents, he developed with 
 great skill an argument which seemed to justify his 
 attitude. He urged the necessity, quite apart from 
 any special fiscal gospel, of ' broadening the basis 
 of taxation.' Tariff" Reform, it seemed, must come 
 
 ^2,Z
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 by force of circumstances; more money had to be 
 found for social reform; the existing sources of 
 taxation had pretty well reached their limit; what 
 resource was there but * broadening the basis ' — 
 which meant Tariff Reform ? The Government, 
 whether they liked it or not, must impose duties on 
 a variety of things now held sacred, and thus the 
 desired policy would be brought about insensibly 
 by the mere operation of natural causes. The 
 argument was repeated by all the Tariff Reform 
 speakers, who seemed to fail to see that it tended 
 to damp down propagandist ardour — which was 
 precisely Mr Balfour's object. 
 
 With the same skill the Unionist leader used the 
 Imperial Conference of 1907. He was immensely 
 severe on the ' poor figure ' cut by a Little England 
 Ministry in the presence of Imperial Statesmen, 
 talked of ' Free Trade within the Empire,' and 
 castigated Mr Churchill for ' banging, barring, and 
 bolting the door ' against Preference. But he would 
 give no details ' years ahead ' of his own policy, and 
 refused to exercise a ' tyrannical jurisdiction ' over 
 the fiscal beliefs of members of his party. Tariff 
 Reformers might have their doubts in private, but 
 they were not sufficiently agile for this particular 
 game of ' hunt the leader.' 
 
 In 1908 Mr Balfour, however, seemed to conceive 
 that the time for Tariff Reform had really arrived. 
 Mr Asquith, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had 
 provided for old-age pensions which were to come 
 into operation the next year; Mr Lloyd George was 
 meditating a great ' social reform ' Budget; Lord 
 Rosebery was talking about Socialism as ' the end 
 of everything — the death-blow to all '; trade was 
 depressed; election after election was lost to the 
 Government. Mr Balfour, in November, made a 
 
 134
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 speech without reserve or qualification; he waxed 
 enthusiastic in praise of the policy. It was * no 
 remote ideal, no distant prospect.' Everything was 
 driving us to the great change. ' The time, I say, 
 is coming when that great policy will be turned from 
 an ardent hope into a practical reality; every man 
 now knows in his heart that the momentous epoch 
 is approaching, that the first breath of the new era 
 is making itself felt, that the dawn of the new day 
 is already visible on the horizon.' A few months 
 later, just before the introduction of the famous 
 Budget of 1909, Mr Balfour was even more confident. 
 The whole dogmatic case for Free Trade as Cobden 
 conceived it was, he said, gone; the old system must 
 be changed; ' changes are bound to come.' Mr 
 Bonar Law, calculating on ' two bad winters * was 
 a pessimist compared with Mr Balfour, with his 
 * dawn of a new day ' already visible. 
 
 There was reason for this jubilant note. The 
 Government was no longer popular. Its sincerity 
 had been impugned by its failure to deal drastically 
 with the Chinese labour question; its Education 
 Bill had antagonised the Church, its Licensing Bill 
 the Trade; Lord Tweedmouth's discussion of Navy 
 Estimates with the Kaiser had disgusted some people, 
 Mr Haldane's volubility had wearied others; the 
 advocates of Woman's Suffrage, feeling with some 
 justice that they had been shabbily treated by a 
 Parliament with an immense majority pledged to 
 their cause, had thrown their not inconsiderable 
 influence against the Ministry; above all there was 
 the fear of ' Socialism.' The man of substance who 
 was also a Free Trader was extended on the horns 
 of a hideous dilemma. He might fear Tariff" Reform, 
 but he feared * Socialism ' much more, and con- 
 stant Labour disputes, almost invariably settled by 
 
 ^2S
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 concession, led him to infer an inevitable association 
 between industrial trouble and Radical rule. 
 Damaging revelations of working-class corruption 
 and extravagance in London local administration 
 added, not unnaturally, to the general distrust. 
 Meanwhile the Tariff Reformers had perfected their 
 organisation; heresy was relentlessly hunted out 
 by a body called the Confederates; there was very 
 ' big money ' behind the movement, and boundless 
 enthusiasm. Electioneering was developed as never 
 before; and the enormous expense of conducting 
 a campaign on the new lines, with the gramophone, 
 the cinematograph, and * object lessons,' was a 
 considerable advantage to what, on the whole, was 
 the richer party. 
 
 In his over-confidence Mr Balfour made one 
 considerable mistake. He had killed two Education 
 Bills through the House of Lords, which was his 
 instrument for ensuring that the Unionist party 
 should ' control, in opposition as well as in power, 
 the destinies of this country.' This was certainly 
 no considerable tactical error; all possible damage 
 as far as concerned Liberal Unionist Nonconformists 
 was done in 1902, and the action of the Lords created 
 few new enemies. But a different matter was the 
 decision of the Peers (at a meeting at Lord Lansdowne's 
 private residence in Berkeley Square) to reject the 
 Licensing Bill without going through the form of 
 amending it. The Bill cut across strictly party lines; 
 the Bishops supported it, and many Unionists felt 
 with the Bishops that, though the Bill might be too 
 drastic, the case was one for reasoned amendment 
 and not for slaughter. The rejection, and especially 
 the manner of it, nettled the whole Liberal 
 party, and nerved it for a great effort; it 
 offended many outside that party; and it left the 
 
 136
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 House of Lords, on the eve of a considerable 
 Constitutional struggle, in a position of impaired 
 moral authority. 
 
 Had Mr Balfour known a little more of the 
 feelings of very ordinary men he would have been 
 saved this error of judgment. Not for the first 
 time or the last in his life he overdid things through 
 simple ignorance of the sensitiveness of the populace 
 where it suspects any breach of the English tradition 
 of fair-play. 
 
 137
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 In the Spring of 1909 the fortunes of the Liberal 
 Government seemed to have reached their lowest 
 ebb, and competent judges held that the feeling of 
 the country was now predominantly Unionist. There 
 had been a quite genuine Navy scare, and the Govern- 
 ment had had to confess to grave miscalculations as 
 to the rate of the building of capital ships in Germany. 
 It was under the shadow of this exposure, and with 
 the added burden of greatly swollen Naval estimates, 
 that Mr Lloyd George introduced his Budget on 
 the last day of April. 
 
 It is unnecessary here to recall the provisions 
 of what Mr Balfour's fellow-member for the City 
 of London,^ described off-hand as * the maddest 
 Budget ever introduced.' The country has since 
 had experience of really ' confiscatory taxation,' and 
 in re-reading the debates of the time one is chiefly 
 puzzled to guess why substantial people in the House 
 of Commons, in the City of London, and in the 
 country agreed suddenly to go off their heads — 
 why, for example, Lord Rosebery should be talking 
 about ' revolution ' and ' Socialism: the end of all 
 — the negation of faith, of family, of property, of 
 monarchy, of Empire.' One could understand Mr 
 Balfour — disappointed that the Government had not 
 been obliging enough to ' broaden the basis,' as 
 he had suggested — describing the ' Budget speech 
 as an ' electioneering manifesto,' as ' absolutely 
 grotesque,' as ' not only grossly unfair but quite 
 unworkable.' Such criticism is common form. But 
 the wave of fury which swept over the country after 
 
 * Sir Frederick Banbury.
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 Mr Lloyd George's declaration of his intention 
 to * wage implacable warfare on poverty ' is only 
 explicable on the assumption that wealthy people 
 were more afraid of what he might do some day 
 than of his actually modest proposals. The Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, of course, contributed to popular 
 delusion by language which would have been con- 
 sidered a trifle extravagant in 1793. But when all 
 allowances are made the Budget delirium of 1909 
 remains as much a psychological puzzle as the Titus 
 Oates or South Sea Bubble fevers. 
 
 The peculiar talents of Mr Balfour were not 
 specially suited to the curious situation produced by 
 this outburst of frenzy, and he was curiously silent 
 during the summer of 1909. Indeed the Unionist 
 leadership seemed almost to be put in commission. 
 For the second time Mr Balfour was overwhelmed 
 by a torrent, released by himself, which he was unable 
 to control. Had he been master of events he would 
 probably have offered in the House of Commons 
 every possible resistance to the Budget, but would 
 have refrained from giving the signal for destruction 
 to the House of Lords. All his instincts and traditions 
 were against such a step. He had, two years before, 
 declared that the Upper House * could not touch 
 Money Bills ' and that the House of Commons 
 * settles uncontrolled our financial system.' During 
 the early summer of 1909 he adhered to that view. 
 But the question was not to be decided by his cool 
 intelligence. Lord Milner, suddenly emerging from 
 pensioned retirement, gave force and coherence to 
 all the murmurs that had been heard from the first 
 in Tariff Reform circles to the effect that the Budget 
 must be defeated at all hazards, if not by the House 
 of Commons, then by the House of Lords. To those 
 who, while willing to wound, were afraid to strike, Lord 
 
 139 K
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 Milner simply answered ' damn the consequences *; 
 and, thus emboldened by the recklessness of a sage, 
 all that was influential in Conservatism clamoured 
 in favour of forcing an election, and so carrying 
 at a bound the object of their desire. Mr Chamberlain, 
 from his enforced seclusion, wrote that he hoped 
 the House of Lords would ' see their way ' to bring 
 about the desired consummation; Mr Balfour gave 
 his concurrence; and at the end of November, after 
 the decent formality of a full-dress debate, the 
 Peers in their hundreds flocked into the * Not Content ' 
 Lobby. For the first time in Parliamentary history, 
 the rights of the elective chamber over the Supply 
 of the Crown had been challenged. 
 
 It must have cost Mr Balfour a pang, with his 
 training and tradition, to countenance so essentially 
 revolutionary a course. But there was really no 
 choice in the matter; it was a case, to quote Mr 
 Bonar Law on a subsequent occasion, of ' I must 
 follow them; I am their leader.' From the introduction 
 of the Budget one idea possessed the Tariff Reformers 
 who now ruled the party; they believed that its 
 defeat was the only alternative to their own; and, 
 free from the scruples which influenced Mr Chamber- 
 lain while he was still their active leader, they were 
 quite prepared to sacrifice Mr Balfour should he 
 show any disposition to lead them away from the 
 steep places of their desire. 
 
 Having committed himself, Mr Balfour, as was 
 his way, stuck at nothing. He warmly commended 
 the action of the Lords, talked much about a * single 
 chamber conspiracy,' defined the issue as between 
 Socialism and Tariff Reform, spoke lovingly of the 
 latter as ' the first plank in the Unionist programme,' 
 and finally gave (in conjunction with Mr Chamberlain) 
 a 'personal pledge' that the working man's budget 
 
 140
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 should not be increased as the result of the policy. 
 The Tariff Reformers had calculated on a sweeping 
 victory; why is not a little obscure. It might not be 
 thought that the working-man, who had already 
 gained much cash and privilege bv his vote, would 
 be specially anxious to make that vote of little or no 
 value by weakening the House of Commons and 
 placing the non-elective chamber in possession of the 
 chief power in the State. But the whole Tariff 
 Reform movement illustrated the trium.ph of hope 
 over experience, and its leaders were fully persuaded 
 that the ' constitutional issue ' had no reality in the 
 eyes of the masses. 
 
 The disappointment was severe; though the 
 Government majority was greatly reduced, it remained 
 considerable; and with the Irish vote again a balancing 
 factor. Home Rule once more entered the region of 
 ' practical politics.' But for the present the constitu- 
 tional question overshadowed all others. Mr Balfour 
 began to talk, much to the disgust of the Tariff 
 Reformers, not about their pet subject, but about 
 the dark designs of a ' frankly revolutionary Govern- 
 ment.' This dangerous gang of conspirators began 
 sedately enough with the usual constitutional 
 solemnities, and had not got to grips with the main 
 problem when the King's death interrupted everything. 
 Respect for the late Sovereign, together with the 
 necessity of passing a mass of emergency legislation 
 in relation to the demise of the Crown, imposed an 
 awkward armistice which could hardly, in the nature 
 of things, be followed by a peace. A conference 
 between party leaders, of which Mr Balfour of course 
 was a principal member, was set up, and lasted till 
 November, when it was dissolved re hifectd. 
 
 Meanwhile the House of Lords had been engaged, 
 singularly enough, in considering measures for its 
 
 141
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 own transformation. During the Budget controversy 
 the House had been described by its friends as an 
 institution as nearly perfect as any human contrivance 
 could be; it now passed a resolution to the effect 
 that ' the possession of a peerage should no longer of 
 itself give the right to sit and vote.* This admission 
 of the unfitness of the Peers (as then constituted) 
 not only to do what they had done, but to perform 
 any of the ordinary functions of a Second Chamber, 
 was of course not meant as such. The Motion was 
 not at all, as Lord Curzon stated it, ' a voluntary 
 act of self-renunciation without parallel.' Its aim 
 was to form an inner House of Lords which could 
 not be affected by the creation of Peers, and would, 
 therefore, already possessing the veto on legislation, 
 become practically all-powerful. This was put into 
 fairly plain English by Mr Balfour. ' You must 
 strengthen the House of Lords,' he said, ' not with 
 the view of modifying the policy it has hitherto 
 adopted, but with the view of enabling it more 
 effectively to carry out its duties ' — those duties 
 being, of course, to check the House of Commons 
 whenever people unpleasing to the Peers happened to 
 be in the majority. 
 
 When a second dissolution was announced. Lord 
 Lansdowne was still intent on his plans of reform. 
 The fact is chiefly memorable because out of these 
 discussions arose one of the most singular examples 
 of the Unionist tendency at this time to seize on 
 anything, regardless of its remoter implications, 
 which promised a temporary advantage. Lord 
 Lansdowne, elaborating machinery for the adjustment 
 of disputes between the two Houses, had proposed 
 that ' very grave differences ' should not be considered 
 (as in the case of ' minor matters ') at a joint session 
 of both houses, but should be * submitted to the 
 
 142
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 electors by Referendum.' This policy was rather 
 incautiously approved — incaution is the note of the 
 whole time — by the Tariff Reform leaders, who 
 little thought of the use that was to be made of it. 
 The Liberals were at once challenged to submit 
 Home Rule to a Referendum, and their objection 
 to this ultra-democratic device doubled the sudden 
 enthusiasm which had seized the other party. 
 
 It was in these circumstances that Mr Balfour, 
 who had recently recovered his full enthusiasm for 
 Tariff Reform, and had again ' pledged ' himself 
 that dearer bread (if it must indeed be dearer) should 
 not * increase the cost of living to the working-man,' 
 addressed on November 29 a great meeting at the 
 Albert Hall. He dealt largely with the Referendum, 
 making great fun of the * horrible embarrassment ' 
 of the Liberals, who for party reasons had to reject 
 a method adopted by the purest democracies of the 
 world: a cheap method (costing less than _^2oo,ooo), 
 a method which gave a clear issue, and one that 
 avoided the disturbance of a general election. That, 
 said Mr Balfour, showed a fear of democracy; the 
 Liberals disliked any plan which made the people 
 arbiters on a clear and single issue. Mr Asquith had 
 asked him whether, since he favoured the Referendum, 
 he would submit Tariff Reform to the Referendum. 
 
 ' They think,' continued Mr Balfour, ' that they 
 have put me in a hole by that question. But they 
 haven't. ... I frankly say that without question 
 Tariff Reform is a great change. I admit that this 
 election, or any election perhaps — certainly this 
 election — cannot be described as taken on Tariff" 
 Reform simply, and I have not the least objection to sub- 
 mit the principles of Tariff Reform to a Referendum.' 
 
 There was extraordinary enthusiasm, and a cry 
 * That's won the election.' It did not. It did not 
 
 143
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 even win Lancashire. The Asquith Government 
 came back — some wondered why it had gone out — 
 in almost exactly the same strength as before. The 
 party to be ' horribly embarrassed ' was the party of 
 Tariff Reform, which now saw in Mr Balfour's inspira- 
 tion one more attempt to transport the policy to a 
 political Botany Bay. They could hardly protest 
 vocally for the moment, because they had been 
 carried off their feet when Mr Balfour made his 
 declaration, and had approved it as * a great lead.' 
 But murmurs soon began to be heard after the defeat 
 at the polls — the third under Mr Balfour's leadership. 
 There was talk about getting rid at once of the burden 
 of the Referendum, and, though this course was not 
 adopted forthwith, the fact that it was found 
 desirable to issue a statement that * the notion that 
 Tariff Reform is shelved was originally started by 
 the Liberals,' showed pretty plainly that there had 
 been something in the nature of a mutiny. 
 
 The situation was, in fact, much like that on the 
 ship which carried Jack Hawkins to Treasure Island. 
 The impatient mutineers wanted blood at once. 
 But some cunning John Silver pointed out that there 
 was some difficult navigation ahead, that the captain 
 was, after all, the best seaman on board, and that 
 the time to cut his throat was not now, but after he 
 had brought the ship within sight of land. The 
 reasoning was too sound to be rejected. But the 
 mutineers, like those on board the Esmeralda^ could 
 not refrain from showing their feelings by the 
 circulation of the ' Black Spot,' and the mystic letters, 
 ' B. M. G.' — * Balfour must go ' — began to circulate 
 like a Jacobite password. As for the skipper, he, like 
 Captain Tobias Smollett, knew a good deal of what 
 was going on, but preferred to say nothing, and 
 pretend that all was well. 
 
 144
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Though unsuccessful, Mr Balfour's last fight as 
 leader of the Unionist party was perhaps the most 
 brilliant performance of a brilliant career. Even 
 the Irish days afford no such sustained display of 
 dexterity and resource. He had, indeed, every 
 motive to put forth his last effort. For certainly his 
 leadership, possibly more important things, depended 
 on the issue. If he could extricate his followers 
 from the * damned consequences,* all might still be 
 well; if he failed, there were snickersnees already 
 sharpening for the last scene. 
 
 The prospect was bleak, but by no means hope- 
 less. The year before Mr Asquith had bitterly 
 disappointed and profoundly disheartened his 
 followers. They went into the Budget election in 
 the belief that, if they won it, the opposition of the 
 House of Lords to its virtual destruction would be 
 overwhelmed by the creation of ad hoc Peers. They 
 believed, further, that Mr Asquith, before dissolving, 
 had obtained assurances to that effect from King 
 Edward. But almost as soon as the new Parliament 
 met Mr Asquith declared that he had no such assur- 
 ances, and that it would have been improper to 
 seek them. Indeed the whole tone of the Govern- 
 ment, for a body supposed to be engaged in a re- 
 volution, was encouragingly or disquietingly decorous, 
 according to the point of view. It was not unnatural 
 that Mr Balfour should count on 191 1 being a 
 repetition, on a somewhat more strenuous scale, of 
 the futility of 1 9 10. In a game of bluff he could 
 
 145
 
 J\4r. Balfour 
 
 place dependence on his own talents, and the proba- 
 bilities seemed to point to such a game. The fight 
 of 191 1 is, therefore, to be regarded mainly as an 
 exhibition of tactics; if we search the Hansard of 
 the period for traces of statesmanship the enterprise 
 will be singularly barren of results, but if we think of 
 the fight as simply one for the avoidance or mitigation 
 of penalties in a prolonged game of double and quits, 
 the skill and courage of the chief performer must 
 provoke admiration. 
 
 Mr Balfour's general plan was a delaying action 
 in the centre, a demonstration on the left wing, and 
 an attempt at envelopment on the right. In other 
 words, while fighting the Parliament Bill with every 
 resource of the art of Parliamentary obstruction, he 
 endeavoured to work round the Government's flank 
 by putting forward counter-proposals for the reform 
 of the House of Lords, while he meanwhile harassed 
 Ministers with a brisk fire of side issues, of which 
 the chief was the Reciprocity Agreement between 
 Canada and the United States. This particular 
 demonstration has no great interest in retrospect, 
 but it was skilfully used by Mr Balfour for two 
 purposes — to discredit the Government in the eyes 
 of the country, as having driven Canada by its Free 
 Trade purism into the arms of the United States, 
 and to mesmerise the Tariff Reform extremists who 
 more than suspected him of being half-hearted in 
 the cause. 
 
 Accordingly for some months Mr Balfour was 
 more royalist than the King; not even in 1908 was 
 he more eloquent in praise of Preference than when 
 Preference was presumed to be doomed by this 
 suggested bargain with the United States. This 
 agitation almost exactly synchronised with the 
 Parliament Bill struggle; the ultimate outcome was 
 
 146
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 that Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Canadian Prime Minister, 
 finding great opposition, decided to dissolve Parlia- 
 ment, was defeated, and resigned, the Reciprocity 
 Agreement falling with him. The discussions in this 
 country during the spring and summer illustrated 
 the dangers of interference in the affairs of the self- 
 governing Dominions. It was scarcely possible for 
 an enthusiastic Tariff" Reformer or Free Trader in 
 Great Britain to avoid an indictment of the opposite 
 party in Canada. Thus Sir Wilfrid Laurier was 
 condemned as anti-Imperial, anti-British, and pro- 
 American, while his antagonist, Mr (afterwards Sir 
 Robert) Borden, might well be led to believe that 
 the party then governing Great Britain was perfectly 
 indifferent as to Canada's future. But, objectionable 
 as the debate might be from this wider standpoint, 
 it was exceedingly convenient to Mr Balfour as a 
 weapon in his fight with the Government. 
 
 The Flouse of Lords' counter-offensive was a 
 more important element in the struggle. It was an 
 attempt to convince the country that there was no 
 necessity whatever for the Government to proceed 
 with the Parliament Bill. * Why ' — such was in effect 
 the appeal to popular opinion of Lord Lansdowne's 
 House of Lords Reconstruction Bill — * why resort 
 to unheard of and unconstitutional measures to do 
 what we are perfectly ready to accomplish of our 
 own free-will } Reform of the House of Lords — 
 certainly it wants reform, and we propose to bring it 
 into perfect harmony with democratic senti- 
 ment. The Government wants revolution; we 
 propose evolution.' A year before the Peers had 
 approved the principle that a peerage should not 
 necessarily entitle the owner to a seat in the House 
 of Lords. Lord Lansdowne now brought forward 
 a Bill to constitute an Upper Chamber which, ' while 
 
 147
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 faithfully serving the democracy, would be strong 
 enough to resist the gusts of passion and prejudice.' 
 There were to be a hundred * Lords of Parliament * 
 elected by the hereditary Peers from such Peers as 
 had held office, civil or military, from ex-Ambassadors 
 and ex-Viceroys to generals, admirals, and lords- 
 lieutenant. There were to be i2o Lords of Parliament 
 chosen by ' electoral colleges ' consisting of Members 
 of Parliament. One hundred were further to be 
 appointed by the Crown — which, of course, meant 
 by the Prime Minister — in proportion to the strength 
 of parties in the House of Commons; and there were 
 the Spiritual Lords and the Law Lords. Mixed up 
 with the scheme was the institution of the Referendum. 
 For ' minor differences ' between the two House 
 joint sittings were provided; ' great matters * were 
 to be made the subject of a Referendum. The real 
 meaning of the proposals was this. In the first place 
 a permanent Conservative majority in the Upper 
 House was guaranteed. In the second, that majority 
 could not possibly be affected (as in the last resort 
 hitherto) by the free creation of Peers. 
 
 This singular measure, which no doubt derived 
 largely from Mr Balfour, duly received his blessing. 
 * Lord Lansdowne,' he said at Newcastle, ' has begun 
 at the right end.' He could not see that the ' broad 
 system ' of the House of Commons was susceptible 
 of improvement, but he thought the country wanted 
 a stronger second Chamber. The Bill had a sullen 
 reception on its introduction; the fnorituri could 
 hardly be so blithe as the C^sar who was about to 
 send them to death. The situation rather resembled 
 that hit off in one of the most famous cartoons of the 
 period of the first French revolution. A Minister 
 submitting unwelcome taxation proposals was por- 
 trayed as a peasant calling the poultry yard together 
 
 148
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 and consulting the members how they should be 
 cooked. * But we don't want to be cooked,' was the 
 unanimous protest. * Ah, there,' replied the peasant, 
 ' you wander from the point.' The Peers, during 
 the second reading debate, wandered deplorably 
 from the point. They most inconveniently concurred 
 with Lord Lansdowne when, referring to the painful 
 nature of his task, he said that to some * these pro- 
 posals will almost present the appearance of a betrayal.' 
 The previous year Lord Newton had declared: ' The 
 melancholy fact is — a lot of us will have to go.' 
 But who was to go ? On this point there ensued a 
 contest like that between the cook and the seaman 
 in The Tarn of the * Nancy Bell ' ; — 
 
 Then only the cook and me was left, 
 And the delicate question which 
 Of us goes to the kettle arose, 
 And we argued it out as sich: 
 
 For I loved that cook as a brother, I did. 
 
 And the cook he worshipped me; 
 
 But we'd both be blowed if we'd either 
 
 be stowed 
 In the other chap's hold, d'ye see .'' 
 
 Lords Lansdowne, Curzon, Selborne, and Milner 
 naturally considered that the victims should be what 
 were then called the * backwoodsmen ' : Peers, that 
 is to say, who lived mainly on their estates, and 
 thought none the worse of themselves for that. The 
 * backwoodsmen,' on their side, began angrily to 
 inquire why they should be sacrificed, they of old 
 creation and proud lineage, for the convenience of 
 Lord Lansdowne and his colleagues, some of them 
 unheard of the day before yesterday. If we are to 
 
 149
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 die, they said, let us die like men at the hands of the 
 enemy, and not, like suicide felons in their cells, at 
 our own. One Peer summed up the whole thing 
 when he said: ' Though I have the strongest possible 
 objection to being executed, if necessary I shall 
 mount the tumbril with fortitude. But I shall not 
 order it myself.' The Bill, and everything belonging 
 to it, the Referendum included, was killed by the 
 very human objection of the average lord to destroying 
 himself politically. He might well prefer the chances 
 of war to the certainties of the lethal chamber prepared 
 by Lord Lansdowne, with the co-operation, counte- 
 nance, and approval of Mr Balfour. 
 
 The wreckage of this scheme reduced the 
 Opposition leader, in the main, to defensive tactics. 
 The only chance now was to defeat the Parliament 
 Bill. The preamble of that measure affirmed the 
 necessity of a second chamber on a popular basis, 
 but declared that the time was not yet opportune 
 for such reform. Meanwhile, leaving the constitution 
 of the House of Lords untouched, it proposed to 
 abolish altogether the veto on Money Bills, and 
 provided that any other Bills passed by the Commons 
 in three successive sessions should have the power 
 of law without the assent of the House of Lords. 
 The duration of Parliament was reduced to five years. 
 
 Mr Balfour was quick in seizing the objectionable 
 feature of this measure. It reduced the Upper House 
 to a state of suspended animation, in which it 
 has, in fact, since remained, despite Mr Asquith's 
 declaration that reform, as apart from the abolition 
 of the veto, * brooked no delay.' If the balance of 
 the Constitution was violently upset by the rejection 
 of the Budget, equilibrium was not restored by the 
 Government's Bill; and, whatever Mr Asquith 
 might say, every indication pointed to the intention 
 
 150
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 of the Government to press through a mass of highly 
 controversial legislation before proceeding with its 
 plans for a reformed Second Chamber. The Liberals 
 wanted, said Lord Hugh Cecil with point as well 
 as wit, * to make hay of the constitution while the 
 declining sun of Liberalism still shone.' In opposing 
 the Government's proposals, Mr Balfour showed 
 an astonishing fertility of argument, and marvellous 
 ingenuity in framing or inspiring objections in regard 
 alike to principle and to detail. His command of 
 every Parliamentary weapon was never more signally 
 illustrated. But the Parliament Bill rumbled through 
 the various stages with the slow certainty of a Jugger- 
 naut, and the result of nine hundred amendments 
 moved in committee was practically to leave the 
 measure unaltered. 
 
 On the second reading of the Bill in the House 
 of Lords, on May 23, the Archbishop of Canterbury's 
 appeal to the Government to take up a more con- 
 ciliatory attitude was met, to adopt the epigram of 
 Lord Rosebery, by ' wringing the dove's neck and 
 serving it up on the olive branch.' The Government 
 was, indeed, politely implacable, and Lord Lansdowne, 
 admitting that after the last two elections it had a 
 right to legislate, reserved to himself liberty to move 
 amendments. The second reading passed with 
 one dissentient voice, the Peers sought what comfort 
 they could in their dignified participation in the 
 festivities of the coronation. A month later they 
 addressed themselves, with a skill induced by long 
 practice, to the task of knocking the bottom out of 
 the Bill — a labour as futile as grateful, since the 
 Government (through Lord Morley) intimated that 
 it would accept no material alteration. On the third 
 reading, the philosophical Viscount declared that the 
 consequences of adhering to amendments which
 
 ]\4r, Balfour 
 
 changed the character of the measure would be 
 ' grave,' but expressed the hope that matters could 
 be arranged without ' social shock.' The reference, 
 of course, was to the one question in the general 
 mind: did the Government intend, if necessary, 
 to force the Bill through by the free creation of Peers ? 
 Lord Lansdowne's reply was even more significant 
 than Lord Morley's warning. ' From some of the 
 amendments,' he said, * my friends and myself will 
 not recede so long as we are free agents. ' This expression, 
 with its suggestion of submission to duress, was at 
 once interpreted as the note of surrender answering 
 the note of menace; and a very short time sufficed 
 to establish the accuracy of the diagnosis. On the 
 very day of the third reading Mr Asquith had written 
 to Mr Balfour. 
 
 ' Dear Mr Balfour,' he began, ' I think it is 
 courteous and right, before any public decisions 
 are announced, to let you know hov/ we regard the 
 political situation.' Then he went on to say that 
 the Government would not accept the Lords' amend- 
 ments. ' In the circumstances, should the necessity 
 arise, the Government will advise the King to exercise 
 his prerogative to secure the passing into law of the 
 Bill in substantially the same form in which it left 
 the House of Commons, and His Majesty has been 
 pleased to signify that he will consider it his duty 
 to accept and act on that advice.' The letter was 
 subscribed ' Yours sincerely '; even in so formal 
 and formidable a document the Prime Minister felt 
 that it would be affectation to adopt a less familiar 
 style to an opponent with whom he had been on 
 the most friendly terms ever since the meetings of the 
 ' Souls.' 
 
 The Prime Minister's announcement was dated 
 July 20. The next day two meetings of the Unionist 
 
 152
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 party were held, that of the leaders in the Lords and 
 Commons at Mr Balfour's town house, that of the 
 Unionist Peers at Lord Lansdowne's. At once a 
 fissure was evident. One section of the party still 
 * damned the consequences.* The other plaintively 
 declared that the consequences were damned. The 
 one called out that the Government should be com- 
 pelled to make good its word, to create the Peers, 
 and cause in both senses what Lord Morley 
 had called ' social shock.' The other adopted the 
 philosophy of cutting the losses. Lord Lansdowne 
 led the ' Hedgers,' those who were for bowing to the 
 inevitable; the defiers, or ' Ditchers,' those found a 
 chief in the veteran Lord Halsbury, seventeen years 
 Lord Chancellor. Broadly speaking, the ' Ditchers * 
 were Tariff Reformers of the more pronounced type; 
 the ' Hedgers ' included many whom Mr Chamber- 
 lain had denounced as ' the weaker brethren.' The 
 line of cleavage ran bold and clear through the Lords, 
 the Commons, and the country; and it was quite 
 impossible for Mr Balfour to maintain a middle 
 position. He had to declare himself decisively and 
 at once; the split was definite, and he must be definite 
 also. For he and Lord Lansdowne had all too effec- 
 tively inspired their party with confidence that, 
 however bad things might seem on rehearsal, every- 
 thing would be ' right on the night.' They had up 
 to the last given the impression that the Government 
 was bluffing, that the bluff would be called, and 
 that it would be defeated. Thus the Unionist party 
 was prepared for everything but surrender; up to 
 almost the last moment the possibility of sheer 
 disaster had never occurred to the rank-and-file, and 
 now, when the blow descended, those who were not 
 smitten with panic were consumed with fury. There 
 was even wild talk of physical rebellion.
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 Mr Balfour, therefore, could not temporise. 
 For the third time in his career he was overwhelmed 
 by forces he had himself freed or generated, and 
 this time they were too strong to be ultimately con- 
 trolled. The dilemma was peculiarly agonising 
 to a statesman constitutionally averse from extremes. 
 For if it was a choice of evils, the choice was between 
 really great evils. If Mr Balfour ranged himself 
 with the ' Hedgers ' the Bill would pass, and, passing 
 by the votes of Unionist Peers, could not be disowned. 
 If he led the ' Ditchers ' (who included some of his 
 oldest associates) the Bill would pass all the same, 
 but with the additional disadvantage of the creation 
 of a Liberal House of Lords. Consideration of this 
 latter calamity was no doubt decisive. Mr Balfour 
 declared for the ' Hedgers.' ' I agree,' he wrote on 
 July 26, ' with the advice Lord Lansdowne has given 
 to his friends: with Lord Lansdowne I stand; with 
 Lord Lansdowne, I am ready, if need be, to fall.' With 
 Mr Balfour went Lord Curzon, rather to the surprise 
 of those who had watched his attitude since 1909. 
 * He is a fool,' Mr George Wyndham is said to have 
 observed, ' for he might have been next Prime 
 Minister.'! Mr Wyndham's story was that the 
 rebellion against Mr Balfour was started by ' a letter, 
 or the draft of a letter, he wrote agreeing to the 
 creation of 160 Peers to pass the Parliament Bill. 
 This Curzon, when he read it, dramatically tore up, 
 exclaiming "That won't do"; and this makes the 
 support he later gave Balfour all the more unaccount- 
 able.' It would seem that Mr Balfour was suspected 
 (probably without the smallest ground) of having 
 for some time been in secret understanding with the 
 Prime Minister. 
 
 Round Lord Halsbury's standard gathered Mr 
 
 ^ ' My Diaries,' William Scawen Blunt.
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 Austen Chamberlain, Mr F. E. Smith, Sir Edward 
 Carson, Lord Milner, Lord Selborne, the Dukes 
 of Marlborough, Bedford, Westminster, and Somerset, 
 and Lord Willoughby de Broke. The House of 
 Cecil was divided once more; Mr Balfour, who had 
 quarrelled with Lord Hugh Cecil over Tariff Reform, 
 was again fated to be opposed to his cousin on this 
 occasion. The two parties were at one in denouncing 
 Mr Asquith, who, Mr Balfour declared, had ' arro- 
 gated to himself powers possessed by no Republican 
 dictator,' and had, at the bidding of the Nationalists, 
 * trampled on the Constitution and dragged the 
 Crown in the dust.' But such spirited talk did not 
 conciliate the * Ditchers,' whose noisy demonstration 
 in the House of Commons, when the Prime Minister 
 rose to disagree with the Lords' amendments, was 
 aimed at least as much at their own nominal leader 
 as at Mr Asquith. There was ingratitude in this 
 attitude, for Mr Balfour had little personal part in 
 bringing them into their troubles, and had fought 
 with unmatched ability and energy to rescue them. 
 But the ordinary man was unable to appreciate the 
 cool and philosophical temper of the L^nionist leader, 
 who, when the event went against him, simply 
 shrugged his shoulders and accepted the reverse 
 with fortitude, like a barrister who has done his best 
 for a client, but will not spoil his dinner by mourning 
 over the hostile verdict. ' Arthur is not sufficiently 
 interested in the issue ' (concerning the Lords), 
 said Mr Wyndham, while paying a tribute to his 
 cleverness. ' He knows there was once an ice age, 
 and that there will some day be an ice age again.' 
 
 At the ' Ditchers' ' dinner to Lord Halsbury 
 on the evening of the day on which Mr Balfour's 
 decision was announced, the breach was emphasised. 
 The very affection with which the name of Mr Balfour 
 
 155 L
 
 ]\4r, Balfour 
 
 was mentioned added stress to the decision with 
 which his leadership was renounced. Mr Joseph 
 Chamberlain telegraphed that he * heartily supported ' 
 the object. Mr Austen Chamberlain was hailed as 
 ' our ftiture Prime Minister,' and confessed to * a 
 family failing: "What I have said I have said," and 
 I can no other.* Mr Wyndham talked about the 
 * tragic touch * in it all, but spoke also with the stern 
 virtue of a Brutus. 
 
 The Halsbury dinner put an end to the horrid 
 uncertainty of the very large number of people who 
 merely wanted to be on the winning side, or were 
 anxious at least to escape proscription. It soon 
 became apparent that though the ' Ditchers ' included 
 perhaps a majority of the conspicuous members of 
 the party, they were numerically a minority. Lord 
 Lansdowne manfully applied himself to the very 
 unpleasant task of canvassing his fellow-Peers so as 
 to secure the acceptance of the Bill, while Mr Balfour, 
 affecting to minimise the Halsbury split, devoted 
 himself to invective against the Government. Thus, 
 moving a vote of censure on August 7, he discoursed 
 angrily on the * gross violation of constitutional 
 liberty,' of which Mr Asquith had in his eyes been 
 guilty. A * great wrong ' had been done to the 
 King and his office. His Majesty had been placed 
 in a ' cruel position.' The Government had ' corrupted 
 the fountain of honour at its source.' Mr Asquith's 
 action was not only * mean and contemptible ' but 
 ' a crime '; a few weeks later Mr Balfour described 
 it also as a ' felon blow.' 
 
 To this Mr Asquith replied fully, stating that 
 the King, far from being hustled into a decision, had 
 discussed the matter (before the second election of 
 1 9 10) in all its bearings, and had come to the con- 
 clusion that he could only act on the Prime Minister's 
 
 156
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 advice for the creation of Peers if need be. Mr 
 Asquith proceeded that he had striven to uphold the 
 dignity of the Crown. ' But,* he added, * I hold 
 office also by the confidence of the people, and I 
 should be guilty of treason to the people if in the 
 supreme moment I had betrayed their trust.' The 
 next day the House of Lords, giving what Lord 
 Lansdowne described as ' perhaps its last decision 
 as an independent assembly,' passed a vote of censure 
 similiar to that which the Commons had rejected. 
 The debate would not be worth noting but for the 
 fact that some plain speaking on the part of 
 Government Peers helped Lord Lansdowne in swelling 
 the list of those Lords who were anxious, whatever 
 happened, that there should be no * adulteration of 
 the Peerage.' Prominent among these, of course, 
 were the recently ennobled, and especially those 
 who were more than suspected of having received 
 their titles in return for substantial consideration. 
 It was, however, still uncertain whether the 
 Government would command a majority. Lord 
 Lansdowne could only recommend abstention, and 
 there were so few Liberal Peers that they might 
 quite conceivably be swamped at the last moment 
 by the followers of Lord Halsbury. In these cir- 
 cumstances certain Unionist Peers announced their 
 intention of going into the Lobby with the Govern- 
 ment. This ' treachery,' however, was so hotly 
 resented that, for fear that the * abstainers ' v/ould 
 consider themselves absolved from their undertaking, 
 the movement was abandoned. The Government 
 at last decided to take the risk of rejection, and on 
 August 9 the final debate began. The case for 
 accepting the bitter cup was neatly put by Lord 
 Newton, who described the * Ditchers ' as being 
 like the Chinaman who kills himself on the doorstep
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 of one who has done him an injury. ' Ridicule will 
 not kill the creation of peers,' he said, * you will have 
 the ridicule, and the Government the Peers.' The 
 vote was taken on August lo, the anniversary of the 
 final downfall of the French Monarchy. The Govern- 
 ment was asked point-blank how many Peers it had 
 authority to create. Lord Morley, his ascetic face 
 taking on a deeper shade of gravity, read a statement 
 he had prepared. Peers would be created to a number 
 sufficient to ' guard against any possible combination 
 of the different parties in opposition by which the 
 Parliament Bill might be exposed a second time to 
 defeat.' 
 
 This was decisive; from now onwards all but 
 the irreconcilables counselled submission, and, though 
 they scolded the Government, argued almost with 
 passion against the ' degradation ' of the patrician 
 order. At last the solemn Earl of Selborne put, 
 from the Die Hard or ' Ditcher ' side, the question: 
 
 * Shall we perish in the dark, by our own hands, or 
 in the light, killed by our enemies .? ' Then came 
 the division; by 131 votes to 114 the House resolved 
 not to insist on its amendments, in other words passed 
 the Bill; the majority included thirty-seven ' Hedger * 
 Peers, who were denounced as ' traitors', who had 
 
 * slain their brethren ' But their action had saved 
 their order and Lord Lansdowne's leadership, and 
 had deferred for some little time the resignation 
 of Mr Balfour, who was determined, had the Marquess 
 resigned, to go with him. 
 
 The furious outcry that followed was not all on 
 one side. If Mr Balfour and Lord Lansdowne were 
 attacked with an acerbity seldom reached in this 
 country, there were not wanting voices to accuse 
 Mr Chamberlain of having ' split the party in 1903, 
 committed it to a false step in 1909, and split it once 
 
 158
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 more in 19 ii.' There could be no doubt concerning 
 the split, whatever its origin; and it roughly, though 
 only roughly, corresponded with the division between 
 ardent Chamberlainite and old-fashioned Conservative. 
 The country itself had apparently done all its thinking 
 in 1909, and was curiously apathetic, perhaps because 
 there were other things to be thought about: a great 
 railway strike, for example, and the Anglo-German 
 crisis over Agadir — a matter on which Mr Balfour 
 showed that the utmost heat of domestic controversy 
 would not be allowed to weaken the Government 
 in dealing with foreign complications. 
 
 Mr Balfour, it may be noted in parenthesis, did 
 not stay to witness the last round in the fight of Lords 
 and Commons. On the morning of August 10, 
 while the issue was still uncertain as between the 
 ' Hedgers ' and ' Ditchers,* he left London for the 
 cure at Bad Gastein. He had done all he could; 
 he was tired out, as any man must be after exertions 
 so prolonged and so concentrated; what was the 
 use of sentimentalising over the result ? So, no 
 doubt, the matter would appear to a mind of Mr 
 Balfour's texture: a mind, according to Mrs Asquith, 
 
 * metaphysical and religious,' with a ' vivid sense of 
 the present life being of very little importance.' 
 The same observer says that Mr Balfour once told 
 her that in his view death, apart from the pain of it 
 — * and I am a coward in regard to pain,' he said, 
 
 * being altogether without that kind of courage ' — 
 was an incident no more alarming than the passage 
 from this room into that, the world to come being 
 infinitely more important and amusing.^ ' It is for 
 that reason,' she adds, * that he has no profound 
 convictions about politics; they attract him only as 
 a game which he thinks he plays well . . . but he 
 
 ^ 'My Diaries,' Wilfred Scawen Blunt.
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 does not really care for the things at stake, or believe 
 that the happiness of mankind depends on events 
 going this way or that.' However fanciful this 
 picture, it has the kind of essential truth which lurks 
 in the best examples of an exaggerated impressionism. 
 Mr Balfour did think the passage of the Parliament 
 Bill a matter of some, and even of very great, im- 
 portance. He had fought it at every stage with 
 immense ingenuity and pertinacity. But now the 
 thing was done, and there was an end of it; the 
 solid facts remained of the springs of Bad Gastein 
 and their competence to do him a certain amount of 
 good. But Mr Balfour, like so many clever men, 
 made a mistake in not considering how the stupid 
 man would interpret his philosophical acceptance 
 of the accomplished fact. Forty-eight hours more 
 in town would have satisfied every notion of decency. 
 This departure for Gastein before the last scene 
 savoured to the vulgar of cynicism. 
 
 i6o
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 On his return from the Continent Mr Balfour seems 
 to have entertained some hopes of being able to 
 mend the rents in the fabric of the Unionist party. 
 At Haddington, early in October, he waved away, 
 with that gay audacity which had so often served 
 his turn, the whole episode of August. He actually 
 spoke of the ' Hedger ' and * Ditcher ' controversy 
 as * of no more importance than the authorship of the 
 letters of Junius.' He had taken one view; 'able 
 and loyal members of the party' had taken another; 
 but that was now all * ancient history.' 
 
 The reply of the malcontents was prompt and 
 decisive. The Duke of Bedford accused Mr Balfour 
 of ' blowing first hot, then cold, and then not at all,' 
 of having for years * damped down enthusiasm for 
 Tariff Reform,' and of having filled workers in that 
 cause with ' dismay and blank despair.' A Halsbury 
 Club was formed, ostensibly for the purpose of 
 ' restoring a free constitution to the United Kingdom,' 
 really to perpetuate the revolt against the party 
 leadership. The ' Die Hards ' (as they were now 
 generally called) were evidently determined that 
 Mr Balfour must go; and he decided to go the moment 
 it became clear that his tarrying must create a real 
 split. Mr Balfour had never been attached to office 
 for office's sake. His fortune was ample to secure 
 him, without the addition of an official income, all 
 that he valued in a material way. * They tell me I 
 am ruined,' he said once, in the worst days of agri- 
 cultural depression, ' but if I am ruined I should not 
 
 i6i
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 have known it unless I had been told. I have every- 
 thing in life I care for exactly as I had before.' Large 
 means and small wants make for independence, and 
 Mr Balfour's complete lack of vulgar ambition no 
 doubt made the final decision easier. Long ago, in 
 a letter to the Duke of Devonshire, he had expressed 
 wonder at the ' curious fascination ' place has for 
 some men. At fifty-two, he said, he was not specially 
 enamoured of the responsibilities of a Cabinet Minister; 
 would he be eager for them at seventy or more ^ 
 
 Yet, despite this philosophical attitude, Mr 
 Balfour can hardly have left without a pang the great 
 position he had so long adorned. For there is no 
 doubt that he loved the political game, if he did not 
 love all the features of it; and he justly prided himself 
 on his skill in playing it. So, though we have Mr 
 Wyndham's authority for the statement that Mr 
 Balfour had for some time been ' tired of politics,' 
 it is pretty certain that he would not have resigned 
 of his own motion. He was not, perhaps, actually 
 dismissed; but he was placed in such a position that 
 he could not conceal from himself that party unity, 
 which he had always placed before any other domestic 
 consideration, was endangered by his remaining. 
 
 So, in a dull room of the City of London Con- 
 servative Association, looking its dullest on a gloomy 
 November afternoon, Mr Balfour laid down his 
 stewardship. His speech was a model of valedictory 
 dignity, equally without the cough of deprecation 
 or the whimper of hurt self-love. He recalled a 
 Parliamentary career of unequalled duration and 
 distinction. Of his thirty-seven years as a member 
 of the House of Commons, twenty had been spent 
 in Unionist leadership, and he had led the House of 
 Commons for ten years, ' a longer period of con- 
 tinuous leadership than that of any Minister since the 
 
 162
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 death of Pitt.' During the last quarter of a century 
 he had been for seventeen years a member of the 
 Cabinet. If there was just pride in this review of the 
 past there was a suspicion of irony in Mr Balfour's 
 references to the present. He had been told that 
 there was a danger, with advancing age, of 
 ' petrefaction ' of the faculties. He himself had been 
 conscious of nothing of the kind, but it might seize 
 him before he was aware, and he had made up his 
 mind not to control another Ministry. The question 
 was not whether to go, but when to go, and this 
 seemed to be the time. The rest of the session would 
 be relatively uncontroversial ; the next would be 
 replete with revolutionary proposals. It was said 
 that there was ' unrest ' in the party, but, added 
 Mr Balfour (with a humorously acid memory of 
 eight or nine years of perpetual trouble), he did not 
 think that ' anything exceptional ' existed. 
 
 * Remember,' he went on, in a long-remembered 
 passage of delicious satire aimed at the Halsbury 
 Club, * that parties are made up of human beings 
 . . . and there will always be people, when things 
 are not going right, who grumble and criticise. . . . 
 Such critics are like the microbes which (as doctors 
 tell us) always dwell within our organism. If we 
 sit in a draught or lower our vitality by fatigue, we 
 get a violent cold or slight fever, but when our strength 
 is recovered the microbe resumes its proper place.' 
 Mr Balfour evidently had as little respect for his 
 critics as the Archbishop had for Gil Bias when he 
 wished him all success and a little more taste. 
 
 Thus died politically Arthur James Balfour, ' the 
 greatest Parliamentary figure of the time,' and Mr 
 Andrew Bonar Law (who had spoken of him thus 
 only a few days before) reigned in his stead, not 
 indeed as leader of the party as a whole, but of the 
 
 163
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 Unionists of the House of Commons. Mr Law, 
 chosen because the selection of Mr Walter Long 
 or Mr Austen Chamberlain would probably have 
 enlarged and confirmed schism instead of ending it, 
 occupied the rather unhappy position of the citizen 
 king who succeeds a legitimate monarch; he was 
 largely dependent on those who placed him there, 
 and had, moreover, the discomfort of knowing that 
 in this case the dethroned was no puppet, but a man 
 of quite extraordinary ability and of exquisite taste. 
 The frantic cheers which greeted Mr Balfour on his 
 first appearance in the House of Commons after his 
 resignation were, in essence, a vote of censure, from 
 all but a fraction of the assembly, on the intrigues 
 which displaced him. 
 
 Mr Balfour himself, whatever may have been his 
 private reflections, most scrupulously played the 
 game. He could not have been human had he 
 refrained from an inward chuckle when Mr Law, 
 once the Bois-Guilbert of the Confederates, began 
 to experience precisely the same difficulties against 
 which Mr Balfour had contended so long, and, 
 lacking the latter's skill in mystification, was forced 
 into an almost ridiculous position. For, after the 
 Conservative and Liberal Unionist parties had been 
 * fused,' after Mr Balfour's referendum pledge had 
 been solemnly repudiated, and after Mr Austen 
 Chamberlain had declared how a Tariff" Reform 
 Government, free from restrictions of any kind, 
 would act on assuming office, the Free Trade element 
 in the party suddenly discovered its full strength. 
 Or, rather, the constituencies began to speak. It so 
 happened that while almost all the ardent Tariff 
 Reformers held extremely safe seats, a full hundred 
 Unionist members, otherwise inclined to be luke- 
 warm, were far less favourably situated. These men 
 
 164
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 felt that the removal of all obstacles to the immediate 
 adoption of Mr Chamberlain's fiscal policy must 
 have a most unfavourable effect on chances already 
 none too good of coming back to the House of 
 Commons at the next election. ' Depend upon it, 
 when a man is to be hanged in a fortnight,' said 
 Dr Johnson, ' it concentrates his mind wonderfully.* 
 The prospect of electoral disaster roused these 
 Laodiceans, largely belonging to Lancashire, to a 
 great effort, and the result was that Mr Law, who 
 was pledged to every letter of the Birmingham Bible, 
 was obliged to return to that very policy of procras- 
 tination — the policy of * two elections ' — for which 
 Mr Balfour had been so roundly condemned. The 
 retired statesman could hardly have expected so 
 prompt a justification of his view, expressed consistently 
 in action if only intermittently in words, that Tariff 
 Reform was a ' great change ' which must be ' fully 
 discussed ' before any attempt was made to impose it. 
 Mr Balfour naturally refrained from intervention 
 in the curious series of transactions which led to the 
 virtual abandonment, just at the moment when its 
 acceptance seemed assured, of the full fiscal policy. 
 But he supported the new leader with point, vigour, 
 and even passion in all that related to the Irish con- 
 troversy, though, with his usual adroitness, he just 
 missed giving that unqualified support to the Ulster 
 case of ' fighting and being right ' which Mr Law's 
 zeal or inexperience freely yielded. In moving the 
 rejection of the Home Rule Bill in January, 191 3, 
 he accused the Government of duping everybody — 
 the Irish by a promise of nationality, the British by 
 promises of peace from the Irish question; the people 
 of the South had been told that they had a right to 
 govern themselves according to their own ideas; 
 the people of the North were told that they would be 
 
 165
 
 J\dr. Balfour 
 
 happier if they were governed according to the ideas 
 of others. Five months later he warned the Govern- 
 ment of an approaching collision, recalling that 
 between the Victoria and the Camperdown. Ulster 
 was determined to maintain what she considered 
 to be her inalienable rights; let members search 
 their consciences as to whether, for the sake of this 
 Bill, they could approve the shooting of Ulstermen. 
 Thus, from time to time, did Mr Balfour go to the 
 extreme of energetic criticism concerning the one 
 domestic subject on which he seems to have felt 
 strongly; but the line was never quite passed which 
 separated him from the followers of Sir Edward 
 Carson, and he could not be said to have added his 
 name to what Mr Asquith termed the counter- 
 signature by the Unionist leaders of the ' whole 
 grammar of anarchy.* Despite, and perhaps because 
 of this fact, his attacks on the Government in relation 
 to Ulster were the most damaging it had to meet; 
 Mr Balfour has always been unequalled in the con- 
 struction of Irish dilemmas. 
 
 On another subject, that of the Marconi charges, 
 his attitude was characteristic. He repudiated the 
 charges of corruption, but held that the Attorney- 
 General had acted without making proper inquiries, 
 and ridiculed the description of Mr Lloyd George's 
 purchase as an investment; were not five-sixths of 
 the shares sold at a profit within two days } And 
 what would Mr Gladstone have said of a Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer who speculated } Mr Balfour, 
 indeed, rather resembled the Japanese mother who 
 burns her children with the moxa, primarily for the 
 good of their health, but also to remind them not to 
 be naughty again. 
 
 Regarding purely English affairs, Mr Balfour 
 only shared in debates in which he took special interest. 
 
 i66
 
 J\4r, Balfour 
 
 Once, in a discussion on education, he delivered 
 himself of the dictum that competitive examinations 
 are ' soul-killing '; and in his criticism of the Plural 
 Voting Bill of 1 9 14 he was in his element in defending 
 the * happy anomaly ' of the University vote. His 
 last notable speech before the war had for its subject 
 the death of Mr Joseph Chamberlain : ' a great 
 idealist, a great friend, a great orator, and a great 
 man.' It was a subject which might well have inspired 
 his highest powers; yet the tribute seemed strangely 
 formal for one who had worked so long and intimately 
 with Mr Chamberlain, and suggested that, well as 
 they got on together on the whole, Mr Balfour, as 
 has already been suggested, was less the lover than 
 the one who allows himself to be loved. For Mr 
 Chamberlain's powers as orator and debater so 
 excellent a judge could not fail of sincere admiration; 
 the ' vehement confidence ' remarked by Lord 
 Morley as Mr Chamberlain's great characteristic 
 must sometimes have filled him with wondering envy. 
 But Mr Balfour, fastidious and finished, was never 
 wholly uncritical even on this side. ' A little, perhaps, 
 in the style of the Colonial Secretary, don't you 
 think ? ' he is said to have remarked to his sister 
 when she told him how she had retorted crushingly 
 but somewhat obviously on a rude fellow-traveller 
 in a third-class carriage. Whether well founded or 
 merely well found, the story is not without point; 
 it was never possible to watch Mr Balfour, while his 
 great colleague was speaking, without feeling that 
 a certain temperamental revolt mingled with his 
 intellectual appreciation. Both the strong and the 
 weaker side of Mr Chamberlain were, indeed, equally 
 calculated to jar on the sensitive taste and ironical 
 mind of his leader. In the inoffensive sense of the 
 word, Mr Chamberlain was a great demagogue; 
 
 167
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 from first to last the power of popular appeal was his 
 strength; it was to the people he addressed himself, 
 whether to promote his own case or to damage that 
 of his opponents. Mr Balfour, on the other hand, 
 was never less happy than in condescending, as he 
 occasionally did, to the prejudices of the vulgar, and 
 was always better suited to small companies than 
 large. His best speaking was in the nature of 
 conversation, and conversation on a low emotional 
 level. ' For him,' it has been well observed, 
 * the passions are too common and the emotions too 
 intimate for public use.' He occasionally used 
 invective, but never quite convincingly; he had 
 always the air on such occasions of deliberately 
 working himself up into a false passion. His true 
 weapon, in which he had no rival, was satirical analysis, 
 and that has small effect on popular audiences. Thus, 
 while Mr Balfour's Irish speeches in the House of 
 Commons showed him, at this period, at his best, 
 he was almost at his worst in making his maiden 
 appearance (in April, 19 14) as a Hyde Park orator 
 on the occasion of the ' demonstration ' against the 
 Coercion of Ulster. But if Mr Balfour had his 
 limitations, so had Mr Chamberlain; and to those 
 who listened to Mr Balfour's panegyric on that great 
 man a sense of the tragedy of their long association 
 could not have been absent. This nobly gifted pair, 
 the qualities of the one supplementing those of the 
 other, seemed destined at one time to hand down to 
 posterity an example of fruitful co-operation between 
 unlikes. But a malign fate decreed that they should 
 wear out themselves (and incidentally much else) 
 in a contest which can hardly be said to have involved 
 any substantial difference of principle. * What a 
 cursed business is politics! ' Lord Salisbury is said 
 to have remarked v/hen the unhappy Earl of Iddesleigh 
 
 168
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 died at the Foreign Office, his last moments em- 
 bittered, if his death was not actually hastened, by 
 the humiliations he had undergone. Lord Salisbury's 
 nephew, speaking by the open grave of Joseph 
 Chamberlain, might be conscious of no spasm of 
 self-reproach; he had acted in good feeling and in 
 good faith. But he could hardly avoid experiencing 
 the ' dint of pity ' and exclaiming internally against 
 the unreason of things political. 
 
 169
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Barren to the verge of futility from the point of 
 view of domestic pohtics, the forty months of Mr 
 Balfour's Premiership were of high moment to the 
 British Empire, to the Continent of Europe, and to 
 the world at large. During this short space of time 
 a fundamental and (as it proved) an irrevocable change 
 took place in British foreign policy, and for that 
 change Mr Balfour, more than any other statesman, 
 was responsible. 
 
 Up to 1902 he had acquiesced in the policy of 
 Lord Salisbury, which was, broadly speaking, to 
 prolong that sleeping partnership with Prussia which 
 had endured during all the important years of Queen 
 Victoria's reign. Bismarck had declared that there could 
 be no quarrel between the whale and the elephant, 
 but it was obvious that each could be useful to the 
 other. It was, in truth, a considerable advantage to 
 Great Britain to have Prussia acting as a policeman 
 on the Continent, so long as the constable remained 
 content with his wages and such little luxuries as 
 might be spared from our abounding kitchen. 
 •British Radicalism as well as British Imperialism, 
 the Quakerish ideals of John Bright no less than the 
 brilliant opium-dreams of Benjamin Disraeli, reposed 
 on the same solid fact: the power of Prussian 
 militarism. The very liberalism of our speculative 
 thought was ultimately due to our virtual alliance 
 with the least liberal of European Powers. Stuart 
 Mill's individualism and Herbert Spencer's anarchism 
 would have failed to secure the assent of any consider- 
 able part of the nation had it not grown to believe, 
 
 170
 
 Air. Balfour 
 
 first in the invincibility, and secondly in the good- 
 will, of Prussia. It is hardly an exaggeration to say 
 that the whole character of British life for nearly 
 forty years was determined by faith in the Prussian 
 military tradition and confidence that there could be 
 no antagonism between Prussian ambitions and our 
 own. From Cecil Rhodes to the Nonconformist 
 pastor whose ' unctuous rectitude ' he derided, almost 
 every British person took it for granted that there 
 were only two considerable dangers to be feared, 
 the greed of Russia and the restlessness of France, 
 and that in respect of both the sharpness of the 
 Prussian sword was our best safeguard. 
 
 It is not strange that politicians were to a special 
 degree under the domination of this notion, still less 
 strange that the most sturdily patriotic politicians 
 should be most sturdily pro-German. For the patriot 
 almost always tends to be behind the times; he is too 
 much occupied with old enemies to notice new ones. 
 Our patriots under Mary helped Spain against 
 France, merely because they were a century behind 
 the times. Our patriots under Cromwell hammered 
 rejoicingly at a sinking Spain, under the influence of 
 ideas which were antiquated not long after the defeat 
 of the Armada. Our patriots under Pitt helped 
 Frederick the Great because they could not forget 
 that Louis XIV. had once been the enemv. In the 
 same way British patriots during the greater part of 
 the nineteenth century were acutely conscious of 
 every word and deed of French and Russian statesmen, 
 but watched with indifference or approval the con- 
 solidation of the great Germanic power. 
 
 On the Prussian side there was also a considerable 
 motive for the maintenance of this singular partner- 
 ship. Prussia had come late into the field of world- 
 politics, and if she were to secure her share of world 
 
 171 M
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 trade and dominion it must be, for the present at all 
 events, through the greatest of colonising and naval 
 Powers. Whether from indifference or policy, 
 Bismarck exacted only a small part of the price which 
 was to be ultimately demanded. But with the acces- 
 sion of William II. a more extortionate spirit became 
 manifest at the German Foreign Office, and one of 
 the main tasks of Lord Salisbury as Foreign Minister 
 was to meet the ever-growing desire of the German 
 Empire for its * place in the sun.' It was natural that 
 Mr Balfour should acquiesce in his uncle's policy of 
 making things as easy as possible for Germany. 
 He had a deep respect for Lord Salisbury's sagacity; 
 he had himself grown up in the Victorian tradition; 
 he might well think that the world was wide enough 
 for the Colonial ambitions of both Powers, and that 
 the German Empire would be a better neighbour 
 and a less dangerous rival if it possessed valuable 
 hostages overseas. In any case, we have, in Prince 
 Lichnowsky's disclosures, a hint as to the extent to 
 which Lord Salisbury and Mr Balfour were prepared 
 to go, about the time of the Diamond Jubilee, to 
 purchase the extension of the conditions which alone 
 made ' magnificent isolation ' possible. Emperor 
 William had given a broad hint, in his telegram to 
 President Kruger after the Jameson Raid, that 
 Prussian friendship, and even Prussian tolerance, 
 must be paid for. Two years later, in 1898, according 
 to Prince Lichnowsky, a secret treaty was signed by 
 Mr Balfour and Count Hatzfeldt, the German 
 ambassador at the Court of St James's, which divided 
 the Portuguese colonies in Africa into economico- 
 political spheres of interest between Germany and 
 Great Britain. The extension and full implementation 
 of this singular compact was a constant aim of German 
 diplomacy for many years; and it is tempting to 
 
 172
 
 Afr. Balfour 
 
 speculate what might have been the result of these 
 efforts had the relations between the two Courts and 
 the two Foreign Offices remained during the early 
 years of the twentieth century what they had been 
 during the nineteenth. 
 
 The accession of King Edward, however, brought 
 into play a wholly new set of influences. In 1910, 
 Mr Balfour, speaking on the resolutions of condolence 
 on the King's death, * referred to those who supposed 
 that in foreign affairs the King took upon himself 
 duties which were commonly left to the Monarch's 
 servants, and suggested that when the secrets of 
 diplomacy were revealed it would be found that he 
 took a part not known, but half-suspected, in the 
 transactions of his reign. That was to belittle the 
 King. They ought not to think of him as a dexterous 
 diplomatist. It was because he was able, naturally 
 and simply, through the incalculable gift of personality, 
 to embody in the eyes of all men the friendly policy 
 of this country that he was able to do a work in 
 bringing the nations together, which it had fallen 
 to the lot of few men, whether Kings or subjects, to 
 accomplish.' This carefully worded tribute does not, 
 it will be observed, exclude the view so generally 
 held — and not least firmly by German statesmen — 
 that the King's liking for France and his lack of 
 liking for the German Emperor had much to do 
 with the abrupt modification of British policy which 
 followed his accession. As early as 1875 Gambetta 
 had based hopes of an Anglo-French understanding 
 on the character of the Prince of Wales, who, in his 
 belief, had ' the makings of a notable statesman '; 
 and it would be blindness to facts to accept the view 
 that the King's happy talent for saying and doing 
 the right thing merely served the convenience of 
 Ministerial policy. The truth is probably that King 
 
 173
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 Edward, while keeping well within the limits that 
 hedge a constitutional king, did not conceal his own 
 views. Under no form of monarchy can the expressed 
 convictions of the Monarch be negligible; and it 
 would be quite in the order of things that Lord 
 Salisbury, soaked with the Victorian tradition, too 
 old and too tired to change the whole current of his 
 thoughts, should give place to a more supple and 
 receptive intelligence. 
 
 It is certain that Mr Balfour, whether he con- 
 ceived or merely adopted the idea of the Entente 
 Cordiale, carried it into execution with great energy 
 and ability. Lord Lansdowne at the Foreign Office 
 was merely the agent; the directing mind in the 
 negotiations of 1903 and 1904 was that of the Prime 
 Minister. An atmosphere of amity, miraculously in 
 contrast with the fierce bickering of two or three 
 years before, rendered possible the speedy settlement 
 of questions not few or unimportant, respecting 
 Egypt, Newfoundland, West Africa, Madagascar, 
 the New Hebrides, and Siam; and on April 8, 1904, 
 the publication of the Anglo-French agreement 
 affirmed a solidarity which stood the strain of vehement 
 German objections to the special position of France 
 towards Morocco, no less than the passing danger 
 of British embroilment with France's ally, Russia, 
 over the unfortunate affair of the North Sea fishing 
 fleet — the latter an incident treated by Mr Balfour 
 with a mingled firmness and tact which extorted the 
 admiration of his bitterest domestic critics. During 
 the visit of the French Fleet in August, 1905, Mr 
 Balfour, speaking to the officers who were the guests 
 of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall, 
 emphasised the ' pacific and entirely non-aggressive ' 
 nature of the understanding. Nevertheless, it was 
 generally believed that during the Moroccan crisis 
 
 174
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 which led to the retirement of M. Delcasse, one of 
 the chief architects of the Entente on the French 
 side, Great Britain had given France to understand 
 that she would not stand idly by if the Republic 
 were the victim of unprovoked attack. A hint of 
 this may be discerned in Mr Balfour's speech at the 
 Lord Mayor's banquet on November 9, 1905. He 
 was certainly not dealing in mere platitude when he 
 said: — 
 
 * I think, for my part, that in future we shall 
 not see wars, unless, indeed, we can conceive that 
 either a nation or a ruler should arise who felt that 
 they cannot carry on their schemes of national 
 aggrandisement except by trampling upon the rights 
 of their neighbours. I see no prospect of any such 
 calamity in Europe.* 
 
 * There has been no Prime Minister,' Lord 
 Lansdowne had said a few days before, ' who has 
 given a closer and more unremitting attention to 
 foreign affairs than Mr Balfour.' In truth he had, 
 amid all the distractions of the fiscal controversy, 
 laid so firmly the foundations of the new policy that 
 he could at last without qualm contemplate his own 
 supersession. Had his Government been displaced 
 in 1903, when Mr Chamberlain had in mind an 
 immediate appeal to the country, the whole history 
 of the twentieth century might well have been 
 different. At the end of 1905 the Entente Cordiale 
 was so far accepted as the basis of our foreign relation- 
 ships that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as Liberal 
 Prime Minister, found it possible, ' without departure 
 from Liberal tradition,' to promise ' substantial 
 continuity.' The subsequent work of Sir Edward 
 Grey was, indeed, chiefly the execution of plans he 
 
 175
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 found at the Foreign Office. In opposition Mr 
 Balfour afforded valuable support to a Government 
 generally more harassed in foreign matters by its 
 own nominal followers than by its nominal antagonists. 
 Thus Mr Balfour upheld Sir Edward Grey in his 
 much criticised agreement with Russia, steadily 
 gave him succour in each recurring Anglo-German 
 crisis, from Algeciras to Bosnia, and from Bosnia to 
 Agadir, and made it clear to the future enemy, on 
 every appropriate occasion, that those who calculated 
 on domestic dissensions misunderstood the temper 
 of the British people and underrated the patriotism 
 of the Opposition. Even in the heat of the Parliament 
 Bill fight of 191 1, he could declare (on the subject 
 of Germany's provocative despatch of the Panther 
 to Agadir) that no party difference must interfere 
 with national solidarity when British interests were 
 at stake — though he could not help adding that 
 adherence to this salutary rule had never been made 
 so difficult. 
 
 The mixture of flexibility and tenacity in Mr 
 Balfour's character was undoubtedly a considerable 
 asset to the country in the very peculiar circumstances 
 of his Premiership. A less adroit man must have been 
 wrecked in the confusion wrought by Mr Chamber- 
 lain's fiscal adventure. A less quietly obstinate man 
 must have given up in despair and disgust the task 
 of carrying on and fighting for time. Mr Balfour, 
 having decided what to do and how to do it, went 
 his way with perfect stoicism, regardless of private 
 friendships, of the taunts of the Opposition, of the 
 mutiny of his own followers, of the affrighted 
 expostulations of party agents, of the jeers of the 
 mob, of the destruction of what hopes he may have 
 entertained of his own career as a domestic statesman. 
 It is only when we consider him, it may be as a fiscal 
 
 176
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 pococurante^ but also as a man of European nnind 
 mainly intent on the enormous European problem 
 shaping itself at the beginning of the century, that 
 we can appreciate the quality, not far short of heroism, 
 which dignified the dexterous sophister of Economic 
 Notes and the * half sheet of note-paper.' 
 
 177
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 The opening of the Great War found Mr Balfour 
 confirmed in his new status as an Elder Statesman. 
 He held a position somewhat resembling that of 
 Mr Gladstone in the middle and late seventies; 
 without responsibilities he nevertheless exercised more 
 influence of a certain kind than any member of his 
 party. Indeed, in some respects his authority in 
 the country was greater than in his official days; 
 for it was felt that, always free from the temptations 
 which assail the ignoble sort among politicians, he 
 was now less subject to those more subtle but not 
 less imperious influences which deflect the judgment and 
 blunt the conscience of the most upright party leader. 
 Thus it was a considerable support that he was 
 able to give, on the fateful 3rd of August, 19 14, 
 to that section of Mr Asquith's Cabinet which, 
 convinced of its duty, had still to encounter much 
 opposition both within and without Downing Street. 
 Mr Balfour intervened rather late in the discussion 
 on Sir Edward Grey's statement, and when he did 
 so it was to declare that ' the dregs and lees of debate ' 
 had been reached. With his usual perception, he 
 had realised the essential unimportance of the Pacifist 
 voices; with his usual decision (when he cared to 
 be decisive) he declined to pay the opposition the 
 compliment of even recognising it as rational. It 
 was more necessary to create abroad an impression 
 of firmness and unity than to conciliate a small 
 minority at home, and in the circumstances an almost 
 casual expression of contempt was more powerful 
 than argument. 
 
 178
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 A month later Mr Balfour, speaking at the 
 Guildhall with the Prime Minister and Mr Bonar 
 Law, took * unbroken unity ' for his text. Yet in 
 the interval the negative in him had asserted itself. 
 On the last day of August, it had been deemed 
 necessary for Parliament to return to the Home Rule 
 Bill, the Buckingham Palace conference as to which 
 had broken down just before the war. Ireland was 
 then a ' bright spot,' the only bright spot in an over- 
 cast sky. The Government believed that, by placing 
 the Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book (and by no 
 other means) the spot could be kept bright. Mr 
 Balfour dissented with some vigour. The question, 
 he said, could not be touched without rousing ' great 
 bitterness of feeling between parties '; he did not 
 proceed to point out how bitterness of feeling could 
 be avoided by simply leaving the matter alone. But 
 if on Ireland Mr Balfour remained the ' Everlasting 
 Nay ' incarnate, subsequent speeches showed that, 
 to a far greater degree than some of his associates, 
 he had grasped the moral significance of the Great 
 War. For those who represented it as essentially the 
 fight of two great Empires for the hegemony of the 
 world, there was implied reproof in Mr Balfour's 
 declaration at the Lord Mayor's banquet in November 
 that we were fighting * not for ourselves alone, but 
 for civilisation.' His condemnation of German 
 cynicism was equally a rebuke to the native article. 
 Cynicism in diplomacy was familiar enough to him, 
 and perhaps not wholly foreign to his nature; yet 
 his attitude is quite understandable. A difference 
 in degree often amounts to a difference in kind, and 
 what might be comparatively venial in skilled and 
 polished hands was wholly unsightly when illustrated 
 by Prussian Junkerdom. At Bristol, a month later, 
 Mr Balfour talked of the superman as a ' monster 
 
 179
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 of aggressive egotism,' who, if he were materialised, 
 would have to be dealt with by the police, and the 
 ' super-state ' he described as wholly inconsistent 
 with the true notion of a great community of civilised 
 and mutually dependent nations. 
 
 Indeed, Mr Balfour, though at one time by no 
 means free from the tendency of Victorian Englishmen 
 of culture to exalt Prussia as the one progressive 
 element of Continental Europe, had stopped short well 
 this side of idolatry. To some degree attracted 
 by the dialectical brilliance of Nietzsche, his mind 
 had recoiled from the ultimate absurdities of the 
 Nietzschean creed. In one of his Gifford lectures 
 at Glasgow, a few months before the war, he had 
 trenchantly criticised Nietzschism, maintaining that 
 altruism and all the higher values of the ethical scale 
 must be judged apart from their effect in helping or 
 hindering a merely internecine struggle for existence. 
 This view was never absent from his mind during 
 the war; from first to last he laid due stress on the 
 imponderables. 
 
 Mr Balfour, as a member of the Committee of 
 Imperial Defence which he had so largely helped to 
 fashion, was from the first in close touch with Ministers, 
 and was as busy as most members of the Cabinet. 
 It was in this capacity that he issued a defence of 
 the blockade of Germany as a measure in retaliation 
 for the ' sink at sight ' policy of the enemy. While 
 perfectly firm in tone, it hinted apology to the neutral 
 world alike for the practical inconvenience caused 
 and for technical infringements of the conventions 
 of war; Mr Balfour has never believed in that kind 
 of strength which consists in creating unnecessary 
 difficulties by an economy in the cheap article of 
 international courtesy. 
 
 In the spring of 19 15 Mr Balfour refused to join 
 180
 
 J\4r, Balfour 
 
 in the fashionable chorus of pessimism; he declared 
 that in April Germany was morally and materially 
 weaker than in the preceding autumn; he paid a 
 glowing tribute to the Headquarters Staff in London, 
 and spoke cheerfully of the future. In the famous 
 * shells ' controversy he vigorously supported Lord 
 Kitchener, and when he took Mr Churchill's place 
 at the Admiralty, on the construction of the First 
 Coalition, he was in the position of one presenting 
 an invitation card rather than (as in certain other 
 cases) a crowbar. The appointment was in some ways 
 appropriate. Mr Balfour had always belonged to 
 the * Blue water School.' In his opinion the world 
 would have been intolerable had supremacy on sea 
 and land been vested in one power. His faith and 
 pride in the Navy separated him from those who 
 thus early cried out on the inadequacy of the British 
 effort. Thus at the London Opera House in the 
 summer of 191 5, he reminded his audience that if 
 Britain had not joined her friends, a German fleet 
 would have ridden triumphant over the North Sea, 
 the Adriatic, and the Mediterranean, and ' all the 
 anticipations of Germany in Germany's most sanguine 
 mood would have been accomplished and more than 
 accomplished.' Rather scornfully he spoke of those 
 who showed patriotic fervour by belittling our 
 contribution to the allied cause. Also, he dwelt on 
 the enemy's mistakes. The Germans had been 
 right about big guns and munitions, but had they 
 been right in their diplomatic or in any of their other 
 calculations } He seemed to realise what was hidden 
 from many, that our mistakes could be remedied, 
 but that those of Germany could not. This speech, 
 delivered on the first anniversary of the declaration 
 of war, was a typical Balfour speech of the period. 
 It did not put the material issue in the foreground; 
 
 181
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 it showed an appreciation of factors invisible to 
 those who regarded episodes rather than tendencies. 
 In the same spirit Mr Balfour could speak of the 
 Zeppelin as ' brutal but not effective.' Writing of 
 the German submarine policy a little later, he could 
 note the difference between Germany's triumph 
 over the sinking of the Lusitania and her melancholy 
 silence over the sinking of the Arabia. * Deeds,' he 
 said, ' which were merely crimes in May are seen 
 to be blunders in September.' 
 
 As First Lord, Mr Balfour lived somewhat in 
 mystery. The public heard most of him on such 
 matters as the defence of London — matters which 
 probably absorbed more of the attention of the man 
 in the street than of the Cabinet. When a ' gingerous ' 
 Liberal member wanted to know whether our anti- 
 aircraft guns were of the right kind, powerful enough, 
 manned by the right crews, in charge of the right 
 men, and in every way as satisfactory as those of 
 Paris, Mr Balfour showed no inclination to accept 
 the proffered portion of humble pie. Guns, he 
 remarked, could not be obtained by merely saying 
 we were ready to pay for them, nor until we knew 
 the kind of gun wanted. There were things foreseen 
 and things unforeseen; also there were things 
 unforeseeable. When another member, this time 
 Conservative, pressed for information as to where 
 lay the responsibility for sending up naval and 
 military planes, Mr Balfour gave the succinct 
 answer that ' the military were responsible for sending 
 up military planes, and the Navy were responsible 
 for sending up naval planes.' Equally thirsty for 
 knowledge, an Irish member questioned the First 
 Lord as to what new steps were being taken to protect 
 the population of the great city of which, during the 
 session, he was himself an inhabitant. The official 
 
 l82
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 reply was that the matter was * a subject for anxious 
 study.* 
 
 Domestic criticism, indeed, had little effect on 
 Mr Balfour. ' We British,' he said in reference to 
 attacks on the Government in the press, ' have 
 always taken a gloomy joy in self-depreciation.* 
 Leading articles, in which we were daily styling 
 ourselves miserable sinners, were however translated 
 and circulated abroad, and he asked those prophets 
 who were * not very sanguine of success * to have 
 a care. The entry of Bulgaria into the war gave 
 point to his warning. Mr Balfour had realised 
 that shrieks of ' Wake up, England ' might not 
 only rouse a somnolent John Bull, but would possibly 
 be interpreted in Europe as evidence of panic and 
 weakness. For the rest, he had a fastidious dislike 
 of sensationalism, even as an emergency measure. 
 However, in those days of public excitement, Mr 
 Balfour could not retire to an ivory tower, or even 
 to a golf pavilion. Thus when it was adjudged 
 necessary to advertise the British Nav)^, he responded 
 willingly, if with a private shrug of deprecation. At 
 the Empire Music-hall — ' a rather unaccustomed 
 theatre of operations ' — the First Lord introduced 
 to the London public a cinematograph show illustra- 
 ting the work of the Fleet. 
 
 Mr Balfour took little public part in the controversy 
 over conscription. He regarded the matter as one 
 of simple expediency, and was, with Mr Asquith and 
 the majority of the Liberals, content to wait until 
 Lord Kitchener declared that voluntary enlistment 
 would no longer suffice for the needs of the armies. 
 On the other side the most notable politicians were 
 Mr Lloyd George and Lord Curzon. The influence 
 of Mr Balfour behind the scenes was mainly exerted 
 to prevent, or at least postpone, the split which 
 
 187
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 afterwards took place. When the first Military- 
 Service Act became a necessity, Mr Balfour defended 
 it on grounds of pure expediency, but also declared 
 that until quite recently he had not favoured com- 
 pulsion. From this standpoint he could deal equally 
 with the specific opposition of Sir John Simon, and 
 with the vague alarm of many worthy people who 
 might have been frightened by the enthusiasm of 
 the conscriptionists for conscription's sake into 
 believing that the alleged national necessities were 
 being made a pretext for the introduction of a principle 
 repellent to perhaps a majority of the inhabitants of 
 the British Islands. The whole matter, said Mr 
 Balfour, was a question of ways and means, and 
 the operation of the measure would be only temporary. 
 All this could not be described as a clarion call to 
 the youth of Great Britain. But there could be little 
 doubt of the tactical superiority at the moment of 
 arguments based purely on national emergency over 
 arguments based on the general virtues of conscription. 
 Early in 191 6 there was a scare about the German 
 naval guns which, it was said, could and would 
 outrange our own. The return of the Mozve from 
 a raiding expedition caused excitement. Our East 
 Coast was said to be ineffectually defended. Members 
 of Parliament were talking again about air raids. 
 Mr Balfour had to absorb himself in the work of his 
 department, and may not have been sorry for this 
 excuse for holding aloof from the controversy about 
 extending conscription from the single to the married. 
 His old skill in dialectics was shown in his defence 
 of the Admiralty. He admitted that German 
 superioiity in material was undoubted. Those who 
 had made the war had naturally prepared for it. 
 ' Possibly,' he added, after a moment's pause, ' we 
 might have foreseen,* and the apparent sign of 
 
 184
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 contrition was greeted by a burst of cheers. As 
 they subsided Mr Balfour completed his sentence: 
 * had we been endowed with that wisdom after the 
 event with which all honourable gentlemen have 
 been in such large measure blessed by Providence.* 
 But this raillery only spurred the sterner critics to 
 renewed activity, and, on a certain day in March, 
 1916, the regular forces operating against the First 
 Lord were joined by Colonel Winston Churchill, 
 who, doubtful whether he could save England from 
 the chancellery of the Duchy of Lancaster, had 
 decided on a short spell of active service. Fresh 
 from the trenches. Colonel Churchill declared his 
 displeasure at the conduct of the existing Board of 
 Admiralty, which, he claimed, contrasted unfavour- 
 ably with that of his day. It happened that the same 
 day, in Whitehall, a score of sandwich-men were 
 exhibiting an appeal for the return of Lord Fisher, 
 this somewhat mysterious demonstration claiming 
 to represent the views of 25,000,000 readers of the 
 public press. Within the House, Lord Fisher 
 himself sat above the clock and listened to the eulogy 
 of his former civilian chief. After five months he 
 had refused to work longer with Mr Churchill; 
 now he heard Colonel Churchill suggesting that he 
 (Lord Fisher) ought to be summoned from retirement 
 to work with Mr Balfour. Lord Fisher's smile 
 suggested that the irony of the situation was not 
 lost on him. 
 
 On this occasion Mr Balfour brought really 
 heavy guns to play on the critics of his administration. 
 He dealt first with the accusation that there had 
 been a sudden stoppage of shipbuilding. There 
 was, he said, no truth in the suggestion, and he did 
 not know who it was who ' disseminated such fictions, 
 who fed, watered, cultivated and spread them.' 
 
 185
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 * We have,* he added, * pursued to the utmost of our 
 ability the broad, general lines marked out for us 
 by the distinguished board which went before us.' 
 If in any way he and his associates had been cramped, 
 it was by lack of labour. It was useless for the 
 Churchill-Fisher Board to arrogate to itself a monopoly 
 of ' bustle, hurry, and push.' Some of the monitors 
 created a while ago in six months had been so hastily 
 designed, so ill-contrived for their purpose, that 
 they were still being remodelled. Mr Churchill, 
 on leaving a civil for a military career, had complained 
 that Lord Fisher had given him neither clear guidance 
 before the event, nor firm support after it; yet here 
 was Colonel Churchill insisting that Lord Fisher 
 ought to return to take the place now held by Sir 
 Henry Jackson. Mr Balfour clearly deprecated 
 the charge that was to be thrust upon him. The 
 only complaint, it seemed to him, that could be 
 advanced against Sir Henry was that he was not a 
 newspaper favourite. Moreover, why should it be 
 imagined that Lord Fisher could work more easily 
 with one First Lord than with another ? ' Is it my 
 merits ? ' Mr Balfour demanded, and the smile on 
 the face of the Admiral of the Fleet grew wider. 
 Finally, Colonel Churchill's criticisms had been 
 inaccurate, and, if they had been accurate, they 
 would have been detrimental to the national safety. 
 If, on the outbreak of war, somebody had said that 
 the Fleet had not a single naval base on the East Coast 
 that could be called safe from submarine attack, 
 and that the trade routes were imperfectly policed 
 by fast cruisers, the statement would have been 
 perfectly true and entirely unpatriotic. The 
 ' deliberate desire to suggest doubts, fears and 
 alarms to the public was against the public 
 interest.' 
 
 i86
 
 J\4n Balfour 
 
 The House of Commons regarded this vigorous 
 riposte as a decided Parliamentary victory for Mr 
 Balfour. But the larger public has a way of dis- 
 regarding such triumphs, and, under the influence 
 of constant press attacks, it was beginning to form 
 the opinion that the Balfour-Jackson regime, if safe, 
 was not brilliant. A fillip was given to this sentiment 
 by the Jutland Battle, in regard to which Mr Balfour 
 (as might have been expected) proved himself 
 a poor publicity agent. The first news was of 
 our losses, and all the leading articles were based 
 on them; the better news arrived in time for insertion, 
 but not for comment. Hence the universal editorial 
 mind was irritated, and remained irritated. Mr 
 Balfour, not for the first time in his career, suffered 
 from his real or assumed indifference to * public 
 opinion.' From this time it became the fashion in 
 some quarters to make Mr Balfour the butt of solemn 
 denunciation and lively satire. He was severely 
 cross-examined as to his air policy; and his reply 
 to the ' Air Committee ' of both houses, containing 
 among other things statistics as to the number of 
 oxen necessary to provide gold-beaters' skin for a 
 single Zeppelin, was condemned as highly unsatis- 
 factory. From the particular, the attack enlarged 
 to the general. It was suggested either that Sir 
 Henry Jackson should have a more energetic civilian 
 chief than Mr Balfour, or that Mr Balfour should 
 have a more * active ' body of naval advisers than 
 that of which Sir Henry Jackson was the head. 
 German raiders had again slipped into the Channel, 
 the German submarines were meeting with alarming 
 success, and want of energy in shipbuilding was 
 alleged. All through the autumn the agitation for 
 a change at the Admiralty proceeded, and at the end 
 of November Sir John (now Viscount) Jellicoe was 
 
 187 N
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 taken from the command of the Grand Fleet to be 
 First Sea Lord. 
 
 The change, though it preceded, was only 
 incidental to a larger revolution. For some time 
 the groups which had always existed in the Govern- 
 ment had hardened into parties and into factions. 
 Mr Balfour, tending to side with the Prime Minister, 
 naturally shared in the campaign of disparagement 
 of which Mr Asquith was the main object; to discredit 
 the old Conservative leader was a move in discrediting 
 the old Liberal leader. In the manoeuvres which 
 thrust Mr Asquith from power Mr Balfour had 
 neither part nor lot; and he seems to have been 
 taken over by the new Government almost as a piece 
 of the official furniture. Mr Asquith regarded him, 
 not unnaturally, as an essential in the composition 
 of the inner circle of the Cabinet. Mr Lloyd George, 
 however, ignored all considerations of his Parlia- 
 mentary prestige, his statesmanlike experience, and 
 his acute intellect. Mr Balfour was appointed to 
 fill the vacancy caused by Viscount Grey's retirement 
 from the Foreign Office, but, for the first time in our 
 political history, the Foreign Secretary was ranked 
 as a mere departmental chief. Sir Edward Carson, 
 who had succeeded Mr Balfour at the Admiralty, 
 also displaced him in the supreme council of the nation. 
 Mr Balfour had been loyal to Mr Asquith while 
 he remained; Mr Asquith gone, there was no 
 reason why he should not serve under Mr Lloyd 
 George. But history will probably pay a warm 
 tribute to the patriotism which rose superior to all 
 personal considerations when, with his great powers 
 and his unequalled prestige, Mr Balfour agreed to 
 consider himself the subordinate of every member of 
 that constitutional curiosity, the 'War Cabinet.'^ 
 
 ^Mr Balfour, however, frequently attended meetings of the War Cabinet. 
 
 i88
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 It may be esteemed a fortunate circumstance that 
 Mr Balfour permitted no self-love to stand between 
 him and his duty in the last days of 1916. The times 
 demanded precisely the qualities which he, almost 
 alone among the disposable statesman, possessed. 
 Our Allies wanted most tactful handling; our 
 relations with neutral States were delicate in the 
 extreme. America's attitude, above all, called for 
 equal vigilance and dexterity. 
 
 The American people were beginning to recognise 
 that they must play a decisive part in the war. But on 
 which side ? The tendency in this country to regard 
 a great foreign Power, with a most strongly developed 
 national ego^ as in some mysterious way bound to 
 see every world problem through British eyes, had 
 obscured the plain fact that American opinion was, 
 on the whole, far from friendly to Great Britain. 
 The humanitarian and sentimental side of the 
 American character was, indeed, early outraged by 
 the acts of German militarism, and early impressed 
 by the unequal struggle gallantly maintained by 
 France. But it did less than justice to the British 
 case and the British effort, and not only sentimental 
 but practical considerations operated to create an 
 atmosphere of suspicion and almost of hostility. 
 The War of Independence, the War of 18 12, and 
 the voyage of the Alabmna^ forgotten on our side of 
 the Atlantic, were vividly remembered on the other; 
 and but for the singular stupidity of the heads of 
 the German State, in almost making a point of sinking 
 American ships, it might well have been that the 
 
 189
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 ghost of George III would have prevailed over the 
 living iron-and-blood of William of Hohenzollern. 
 Apart from his submarines, the German belligerent 
 interfered little with the United States; our inter- 
 ference was necessarily constant and world-wide. 
 Moreover, United States citizens were not a little 
 irritated by British clamours that they really must 
 come into the war, and British jeers because they 
 had not come into it. They might regret President 
 Wilson's ' too proud to fight ' solecism. But, fully 
 conscious of their own freedom from the smallest 
 taint of cowardice, they could hardly be human 
 without resenting the ridicule which greeted that 
 lapse. 
 
 Towards the end of 191 6 President Wilson 
 deemed it proper to put forward proposals for peace 
 on the basis of a League of Nations, and it was one 
 of Mr Balfour's first duties to return a reasoned reply 
 to the invitation. The task was accomplished with 
 admirable tact and firmness. Defining our ' war 
 aims ' Mr Balfour declared for the restoration to 
 France of her lost provinces, for the expulsion of 
 the Turk from Europe, and for ' some form of 
 international sanction ' to support treaties and give 
 pause to disturbers of the peace. He insisted on 
 the indispensability of carrying on the war until the 
 aggressive policy of the Central Powers had been 
 discredited even among their own peoples, but in 
 no way shut the door on a ' clean peace,' and made 
 it clear that our aims were not * imperialistic' A 
 comparison of this frank and specific declaration 
 with the rather clumsy evasions of Berlin had 
 unquestionably much to do with determining the 
 attitude of the American nation when, a few weeks 
 later, the revival of unrestricted submarine warfare 
 (announced in a speech of unrivalled cynicism by the 
 
 190
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 German Chancellor), induced President Wilson to 
 break off diplomatic relations. 
 
 Active support of the Allied cause was, however, 
 for some time problematical. In April, 19 17, Mr 
 Balfour, announced to take the chair at the Pilgrims* 
 Dinner in London, was absent from his place, and some 
 were ready to see in his absence a slight to our new 
 associates. He was in fact at the time crossing the 
 Atlantic, in company with the late Lord Cunliffe, 
 then Governor of the Bank of England, and certain 
 military and naval officers. It was a mission in 
 which the utmost circumspection was needed. German 
 propagandists, disguised as Pacifists, were at work, 
 and Mr Balfour had to lay emphasis on the fact that 
 he had come to discuss practical details of a limited 
 partnership, and not any grandiose scheme for an 
 alliance. To his earliest interviewers, therefore, 
 he returned soft answers of the kind which had so 
 often turned away fiscal wrath and curiosity. He 
 paid warm tribute to Mr Gerard and Mr Hoover; 
 talked of ' the memorable doings of a benevolent 
 neutrality,' and gave no countenance whatever to 
 the little band of enthusiasts who wanted from him 
 a message that should ' awaken America.' It was 
 easy enough, as Mr Balfour knew, to ' awaken 
 America ' ; the real point was whether when awakened 
 she would get out of the right side of the bed. So 
 Mr Balfour contrived to talk of everything but high 
 politics. Arriving in Washington, he remarked 
 that the weather reminded him of England at its 
 best. ' On landing in America I was struck,' he 
 added, ' by a somewhat unusual feeling which at the 
 first moment I did not analyse, and suddenly it came 
 upon me that this was the first time for two years 
 and a half or more in which I had seen a properly 
 lighted street.' 
 
 191
 
 JUr, Balfour 
 
 Mr Balfour was a little disconcerted with the 
 American press. In England, of course, he has 
 always resisted the interview. In the United States 
 such an attitude was unthinkable. Mr Balfour, 
 however, to some extent reconciled private feelings 
 and public duty by treating the reporters as if they 
 were a public meeting. ' He talked,' writes one who 
 saw him, ' looking at a circular stained glass window 
 in the rear and high above the gathering of news- 
 paper men, seldom lowering his eyes to the level of 
 the eyes in front of him. He fumbled uneasily with 
 his coat and almost stammered — a little, more than 
 a little, in awe of the greatness of the American 
 institution that confronted him.' 
 
 In general he talked very little, listened a great 
 deal, dressed fairly well, rode a bicycle, and occasionally 
 made a pun with an American * punch.' In a quiet 
 way he made himself popular. He let it be known 
 that, like President Wilson, he enjoyed detective 
 stories, and that ' no treaty could increase British 
 confidence in the United States.' In the right 
 quarters he discussed supplies of food and munitions, 
 leaving the question of a fighting force to Joffre and 
 the French. The people of the Middle West were 
 soon convinced that he was a ' sincere democrat,' a 
 fact which, while it reflects no little credit on Mr 
 Balfour the diplomat, does, perhaps, show how 
 dangerous it is to judge a Briton from his words and 
 conduct outside his own country. 
 
 At least one notable distinction fell to Mr Balfour 
 during his American visit. He was the first 
 ' Britisher ' privileged to address Congress. With 
 much tact, he opened his speech by a phrase that 
 almost abolished distinctions of nationality, reminding 
 his audience that he was himself a member of a free 
 assembly like their own. When he spoke of the 
 
 192
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 war, it was its * democratic ' character that he empha- 
 sised; democracy was a word always on Mr Balfour's 
 lips at this time, and he was quick to put his finger 
 on the one indisputable argument regarding repre- 
 sentative government as a guarantee against war. It 
 is not that peoples are less ready to fight than kings, 
 but that whole peoples cannot plot, and that ministers 
 of self-governing states are seldom long enough in 
 office to plot for them. * A people and the representa- 
 tives of a people,' he said, ' may be betrayed by some 
 momentary gust of passion into a policy which they 
 ultimately deplore, but it is only a military despotism 
 of the German type that can through generations, 
 if need be, pursue, steadily, remorselessly, un- 
 scrupulously, and appallingly, the object of dominating 
 civilisation and mankind.' 
 
 Mr Balfour's address to Congress made an 
 excellent impression, but his success in informal 
 intercourse was even more remarkable. Going on 
 the President's yacht to lay a wreath on the Washington 
 tomb, he was discovered in the forecastle devoting 
 his cigar-case and conversation to the sailors, and 
 in a country given to picturesque journalism the 
 incident, trivial as it was, assured his popularity. 
 With the New York Chamber of Commerce he was 
 able to hold an amiable discussion on the ' freedom 
 of the seas,' and once he even ventured to rebuke 
 those super-Americans who were belittling their 
 country's efforts. Only as to post-war problems 
 did he admit any misgivings, but for these he invented 
 a formula which, if somewhat vague, was temporarily 
 satisfactory. The ' political moderation ' of the 
 English-speaking races promised well, he said, for 
 the restoration of civilisation. What subjects he 
 discussed with American statesmen in conclave are 
 unknown. They may have ranged from Ireland 
 
 193
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 to Mexico, but there is little doubt that beyond the 
 Atlantic he was brought face to face with new ideas, 
 which had at least a transient effect on his attitude 
 to after-war problems. 
 
 During a short stay in Canada, the Foreign 
 Secretary showed himself equally diplomatic. Bitter 
 feeling then reigned between Quebec and the other 
 provinces. It was a local edition of the Irish difficulty; 
 the French Canadians, cherishing grievances on the 
 language and education questions, were by no means 
 whole-hearted in the prosecution of the war. The 
 British Canadians, raising division upon division, 
 were naturally incensed at Quebec's poor contribution, 
 and regarded their discontent as factious and parochial. 
 Mr Balfour, in addressing the Parliament at Ottawa, 
 spoke first in French, to the gratification of the 
 discontented minority. It was not much, but the 
 most that could be done by a statesman who could 
 hardly have intruded in a domestic quarrel. Mr 
 Balfour, though quieter than most of our amateur 
 diplomatists, was not the least successful of those 
 who invaded foreign countries in the cause of propa- 
 ganda; and the extreme modesty with which he 
 regarded his efforts was perhaps misplaced. ' I felt,' 
 he said, * it was very easy to do harm, and very easy 
 to do good.' Judging from the comments of the 
 American press, he did no harm, and no inconsider- 
 able good. 
 
 The performance, however, was not a showy one; 
 and Mr Balfour on his return found demands for a 
 reform of the Foreign Office no less insistent than 
 had been those for an invigoration of the Admiralty. 
 Lord Hardinge, the chief of the permanent staff, 
 had been impugned (as Indian Viceroy) by the 
 Mesopotamian Commissioners. Mr Balfour took 
 the view that Mesopotamia had nothing to do with 
 
 194
 
 7^/r. Balfour 
 
 the Foreign Office; Lord Hardinge might have 
 committed errors as an Indian administrator, and 
 yet be m.ost successful in his new position. This 
 reasoning was supported by a broad hint at resig- 
 nation if the point were insisted on, and the victory 
 remained with Mr Balfour. A little later, however, 
 the attack was resumed from another direction, and 
 this time with success. Lord Hardinge had written 
 a letter, more candid than discreet, to Sir George 
 Buchanan, our ambassador at Petrograd. In it he 
 had alluded to the narrow-mindedness of a British 
 ex-minister and the evasiveness of a foreign Premier. 
 The letter was captured by a German submarine, 
 and, of course, used to make mischief. Events took 
 the course common in such circumstances; Lord 
 Hardinge tendered his resignation; it was refused 
 twice and accepted at the third time of asking. Mr 
 Balfour himself offered to resign, but his colleagues 
 of the Ministry would not let him go. 
 
 The autumn of 1 9 1 7 saw a great revival of pacifism, 
 heralded by the Pope's note to the Powers and 
 emphasised by the Marquess of Lansdowne's famous 
 letter. Lord Lansdowne was, of course, a valuable 
 recruit. Hitherto, the pacifist had had no decorative 
 asset beyond Mr Lees-Smith's corporal's stripe, and 
 their unexpected capture of a Conservative statesman 
 naturally made them clamorous. Early in November 
 there was a full dress debate on ' peace by negotiation,' 
 but the Foreign Secretary had no difficulty in routing 
 his critics. Asked to define the war aims of the 
 Allies, he instanced the independence of Poland and 
 the rescue of Armenia. As to a conference — the 
 air was not yet cleared of Stockholm — he dismissed 
 it as useless; the mere drawing into a circle of persons 
 who had no measure of agreement would be futile. 
 That Mr Balfour was steering a middle course was 
 
 195
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 obvious. If he cared little for the Pacifists, who were 
 active and zealous rather than numerous, he cared 
 much for American opinion, and, in consequence, 
 he became an object of suspicion in quarters in which 
 vigour of language was deemed the only test of the 
 strong man. Only a few days after he had dealt 
 with Mr Ramsay Macdonald and the would-be 
 negotiators, * the present dispensation on the south 
 side of Downing Street ' was described as ' the night- 
 mare that haunted every patriot.' Mr Balfour was 
 unmoved. At a public welcome to M. Venizelos, 
 he declared that we aimed neither at the destruction 
 of the German Empire nor of German commerce, and 
 at a luncheon to the American Ambassador, he 
 defended the idea of the League of Nations against 
 the ' cynical critic' Mr Balfour got the worst of 
 both worlds. On the one side he was represented 
 as a dreamy innocent unfit to meet unscrupulous 
 ' real-politicians ' of the Central Empires; from the 
 other side, the secret treaties, divulged through the 
 Russian Revolution, were flung at him by the Pacifists. 
 Mr Balfour met the double storm by an affectation 
 of being more innocent than ever. He really could 
 not see his way to having our foreign policy ' pro- 
 claimed to the sound of the trumpet at Charing 
 Cross,' but, on the other hand, the aims of the Allies 
 were known to be honourable, so why insist on 
 highly technical details } 
 
 His elusiveness was well illustrated in the 
 early months of 191 8 by his references to Russia. 
 Of the Bolshevik Government he did, indeed, 
 speak plainly. ' Starvation, murder, and wholesale 
 execution ' were, he said, the methods by which it 
 existed, but he left quite undefined British policy 
 towards this criminal organisation. In January, 
 he mentioned that Russia was still an Allied State 
 
 196
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 * so far as treaties could make her so.' The Petrograd 
 administration was not recognised as either de facto 
 or de jure, but ' unofficial relations ' were to be opened 
 through Litvinoff, a Jew who had married into a 
 much respected Anglo-Jewish family. During the 
 spring it seemed possible that the Japanese would, 
 in quite a friendly way, invade Siberia, and that 
 Britain would smile approval, but a little later Mr 
 Balfour explained that the Government desired to 
 secure Russia's restoration, politically and economi- 
 cally, ' without external influence and without 
 infringement of territorial integrity.' Even his 
 deference to America could not convert Mr Balfour 
 to belief in open diplomacy. ' I have no secrets from 
 President Wilson,' he said. ' Every thought I have 
 of the war, or of the diplomacy connected with the 
 war, is as open to him as to any other human being.' 
 This was doubtless true, but it invited the retort 
 that in the English statesman's mind were recesses 
 to which neither the President nor any other mortal 
 man had ever penetrated. The real Balfour doubtless 
 appeared in his declaration made at about this time 
 that it would be * idiotic ' to discuss in public contro- 
 versial matters in which national sentiments or 
 international interests were profoundly concerned. 
 
 The Austrian peace proposals made through 
 Prince Sixte de Bourbon whilst Mr Balfour was in 
 America furnished the Pacifists with good rhetorical 
 ammunition. Mr Balfour's characteristic rejoinder 
 was that he had * very little time for dealing with 
 history.' But though it was clear that the new Mr 
 Balfour, with his faith in the League of Nations, 
 bore a strong family resemblance to an earlier Mr 
 Balfour, there was in his considered utterances a note 
 very different from that animating some of his 
 colleagues' speeches. He might be too old to absorb 
 
 197
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 the new ideas, but he was not one of those who had 
 lived through the war and learned nothing. In 
 August, 191 8, he was heard regretting that 'this 
 war had not yet produced a universal change of 
 heart ' and that it was not yet recognised that * two 
 great States ought no more to fight each other than 
 a civilised man should knock his neighbour down 
 when he happens to jostle him in the street.* If 
 sometimes depressing, he was never coarsely cynical, 
 and in every debate on foreign policy he did insist 
 on something of the larger view. 
 
 Thus, in considering the Austrian proposals of 
 September, 191 8, while declaring ' victory — complete 
 victory * to be ' absolutely essential,' he emphasised 
 as the chief peace aim such an arrangement of the 
 maps of Europe and the world that occasions for 
 wars would not recur. ' Peace,' he said, * was going 
 to put a high strain on the moral and intellectual 
 qualities of the peoples concerned,' and Germany 
 looked for the old breach between America and 
 Great Britain to be re-opened, but, he declared, 
 ' there is such a thing as the English-speaking method 
 of looking at the great affairs of mankind.' When 
 negotiations really began, Mr Balfour would do 
 nothing to satisfy the curiosity of Parliament; for 
 secrecy as a virtue in itself he retained a reverence 
 that Metternich could not have excelled; the mere 
 notion of communications passing between the Allies 
 being debated by the people who were shortly to be 
 asked to vote on the question of peace-making 
 seemed to him inexpressibly shocking. 
 
 On Sunday, October 27, after reading the first 
 lesson at the morning service at St Margaret's, 
 Westminster, Mr Balfour left for France in company 
 with Mr Lloyd George. For some months after- 
 wards he was much in Paris and at Versailles, but 
 
 198
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 the history of his part in the Peace Conference must 
 remain unwritten. Perhaps there was no history; 
 perhaps there was much. Only those who know 
 can say. The surface facts are that in all the great 
 matters Mr Lloyd George took not only the leading 
 but the only role; while that part of the peace which 
 concerned the League of Nations was made a side- 
 show and left to Mr Balfour's kinsman and former 
 subordinate, Lord Robert Cecil. Mr Balfour himself 
 occasionally flits across the cinematograph film as a 
 picturesque figure. He joined the best lawn tennis 
 club in Paris, was frequently photographed in a soft 
 hat, and displayed an amiable interest in Zionism 
 in harmony with his famous declaration for a Jewish 
 Palestine under British protection. Once he emerged 
 in full official dignity; as chief British delegate he 
 signed, in the Prime Minister's absence, the treaty 
 with Austria at St Germain. When the German 
 representatives spoke at Versailles he was observed 
 to yawn. It was the action of a man certainly tired, 
 perhaps bored, possibly disappointed. 
 
 ' I am more or less happy,' Mr Balfour once said, 
 * when being praised; not very uncomfortable when 
 being abused, but I have moments of uneasiness 
 when being explained.* With such warning it would 
 be inhuman to enter into surmise on this last 
 phase of his statesmanlike activities, to theorise as 
 to the advice he may have offered behind the scenes, 
 or to speculate as to those parts of the Treaty which 
 were his handiwork. It bears no internal evidence 
 of that expanded intelligence, that large knowledge 
 of European questions, that considerable grasp of 
 political principle which, whatever his deficiencies 
 as a social theorist, were certainly Mr Balfour's as a 
 European statesman. During the war, though often 
 reviled by the ignorant, Mr Balfour constantly 
 
 199
 
 J\4r. Balfour 
 
 added to the kind of esteem which alone has value. 
 As a peace plenipotentiary, his light was so success- 
 fully hidden that the delegates of Liberia and Siam 
 were, by comparison, world figures. It was chiefly 
 the enterprise of the photographers that reminded the 
 British people that he was in Paris at all. Some 
 months after the last scene at Versailles, Mr Balfour 
 left the Foreign Office. Lord Curzon, whom he 
 had encouraged and promoted as a young man, 
 whom as Indian Viceroy he had supported in the 
 diff^erence with Lord Kitchener, and with whom, 
 in spite of political diff^erences, he had steadily main- 
 tained relations of cordial friendship, took his place. 
 A few months after this change the Prime Minister 
 happened to want to refer to Mr Balfour, and had 
 some difficulty in remembering that he had accepted 
 the position of Lord President of the Council! So 
 passes the glory of the world of Westminster. 
 
 200
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 It was suggested in the opening chapter that Mr 
 Balfour belongs to the class of public men whose powers 
 of comprehension are quite disproportionately greater 
 than their initiative or judgment : men who ordinarily 
 think too quickly to act with energy and decision, 
 and are often too intelligent to be quite wise. Lord 
 Morley's comparison of Mr Balfour with Halifax the 
 Trimmer, as portrayed by Macaulay, has already been 
 noted. It may now be useful further to cite the historian 
 on Halifax's defects as a man of public business: — 
 
 * That very fertility, that very acuteness, which 
 gave a singular charm to his conversation, to his 
 oratory, and to his writings, unfitted him for the 
 work of promptly deciding practical questions. He 
 was slow from very quickness. For he saw so many 
 arguments for and against every possible course 
 that he was longer in making up his mind than a 
 dull man would have been. Instead of acquiescing 
 in his first thoughts, he replied on himself, rejoined 
 on himself, and surrejoined on himself. Those who 
 heard him talk owned that he talked like an angel; 
 but too often, when he had exhausted all that could 
 be said, and came to act, the time for action had 
 passed.' 
 
 It would be unjust to suggest that in Mr Balfour 
 over-subtlety was carried to such extravagant lengths. 
 There have been many occasions on which he has 
 acted vigorously on first thoughts, and even, perhaps, 
 some occasions on which he has acted first and 
 
 20I
 
 M}\ Balfour 
 
 reflected afterwards. In some personal matters 
 and, on occasion, in questions of foreign policy, not 
 Richelieu himself could have dealt more in decision 
 and less in self-question. But when we come to survey 
 the whole field of Mr Balfour's activities it remains 
 broadly true that his admirably keen intellect would 
 have been more potent in performance had it been 
 allied with greater energy and the capacity of deciding, 
 once and for all, that one course is right, and all 
 others wrong. One may borrow a metaphor from 
 trade, and suggest that Mr Balfour's handicap was 
 that of a grocer who attempts to weigh his cheese 
 with the scales and weights of a chemist. Politics 
 is a rough business, and the judgment needed for it 
 is a rule-of-thumb judgment. Something closely 
 approaching accuracy is necessary, but it is better 
 to be a little out than too finicking; in the attempt 
 to measure to a millimetre and weigh to a grain one 
 is pretty certain to miss the essence of the calculation. 
 Many times Mr Balfour has lost his market by 
 debating too long whether it was the best time to 
 sell: many times also he has been too indolent to 
 instruct the auctioneer in time. It might almost be 
 said that the most brilliant episodes of his political 
 life have been due to accident. Something has 
 happened — it happened during the Irish Secretary- 
 ship and also during the Tariff Reform controversy 
 — to sting him into a kind of fever in which the 
 sceptical intellect lost some of its power of veto on 
 his passions, and allowed full assertion to the con- 
 siderable latent store of nervous energy he really 
 possesses. There are minds only at their best when 
 wine removes the restraint of shyness or timidity. 
 There are other natures which need the stimulus of 
 danger to call forth their highest powers. Mr 
 Balfour's seems to be such a nature. His early 
 
 202
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 sauntering tendency has remained the one constant 
 factor of his character. In his recreations, as in his 
 serious business, intense effort alternates with complete 
 collapse. At tennis, the moment the necessity for 
 fierce exertion was over, he would lie flat on his back, 
 relaxed in every fibre. The late Bret Harte has 
 described his method of carrying on a conversation 
 in a country-house party: he exercised the utmost 
 economy of exertion, never moving from the recumbent 
 position he had taken up, and gazing in the intervals 
 of talk * in silent enjoyment or philosophical reverie ' 
 on the cloudless blue sky. In the same way between 
 every round in the political fight he relapsed into 
 lethargy. But when he had to bestir himself, he 
 used all his complication of weapons with an energy 
 quite marvellous to those who had only seen him 
 bored and supine. 
 
 It is natural that the career of such a man should 
 resemble less the masterpiece of a great novelist 
 than a series of brilliant short stories strung together 
 on a thread of personality. Mr Balfour's history 
 contains passages of extraordinary vitality, but, like 
 the romance of Vivian Grey^ it constantly declines 
 into the relatively commonplace. There is signifi- 
 cance in the fact that, apart from foreign politics, 
 the nearest approach to a consecutive story is found 
 before 1902. Up to the retirement of Lord Salisbury 
 it might be suggested, but it could not be definitely 
 pronounced, that the extraordinary promise of Mr 
 Balfour's early years would not be adequately ful- 
 filled. A few months after Lord Salisbury's death, 
 the discerning saw clearly that Mr Balfour's chief 
 practical achievements as a domestic statesman lay 
 behind him. It is within just surmise that the nephew 
 lacked a quality which he could supply from without 
 while his uncle lived, but that this quality was no 
 
 203 o
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 longer available after his uncle's death. The history 
 of art supplies examples of pupils who were perhaps 
 greater than their masters, but who only remained 
 at their greatest while the master's influence was 
 operative. Van Dyck occupied such a relation to 
 Rubens. It may be suggested that Mr Balfour 
 occupied a similar relation to Lord Salisbury. He 
 surpassed his master in many ways. In sheer intellect 
 he was fully the elder Cecil's equal; in subtlety, 
 breadth, ingenuity, tact, delicacy of perception 'there 
 could be no question with which of the two superiority 
 lay. But Mr Balfour was lacking in some of the more 
 robust and virile qualities in which Lord Salisbury 
 abounded, and it doubdess counted much with him 
 to have in the background that sturdy lump of man- 
 hood. At any rate, while Lord Salisbury was there, 
 certain deficiencies were hardly noticeable; when 
 Lord Salisbury was gone those deficiencies became 
 at once of quite enormous importance. Before Lord 
 Salisbury's retirement, the main impression of Mr 
 Balfour was power, and his very affectations and 
 peculiarities were understood to be the foibles of 
 a strong man. After Lord Salisbury's death the 
 main impression is dexterity. Over-simplification is 
 always dangerous, and one must hasten to add that 
 there were signs of some defect of backbone even in 
 the strongest days of the Irish Secretaryship, just 
 as there was ample evidence of strength of nerve 
 and wrist to the very last moment of Mr Balfour's 
 fighting career. But on the whole the popular im- 
 pression is probably just. Apart from other tempera- 
 mental peculiarities, Mr Balfour was not only a 
 sceptic, but he was sceptical even of scepticism, and 
 little less resentful of the confident denier than he 
 was contemptuous of the fanatical believer. Excluding 
 the case of Ireland, there was scarcely a domestic 
 
 204
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 political issue on which he could not see with equal 
 clearness the arguments for and against. For a man 
 to be a power of the first magnitude in politics, as in 
 religion, it is not enough that he should possess a 
 creed; the creed must possess him. Mr Balfour 
 possessed much, but was possessed by nothing; and 
 his one constant positive feeling was a cold dislike 
 of enthusiasm. It might almost be said that he had 
 often more in common with the sedater official chiefs 
 of the opposite party than with the wilder spirits of 
 his own. 
 
 The moral lack of strength inseparable from 
 such leadership would have been minimised had 
 Mr Balfour possessed the quality of binding to himself 
 men of more positive and vivid personality. So 
 exquisite a study in low tints would have gained by 
 the neighbourhood of other good things in stronger 
 colour. His premiership would no doubt have been 
 as much a success as was his Irish Secretaryship (from 
 its own point of view) had he been able to make himself 
 heartily at one with Mr Chamberlain, who could 
 give what he wanted, and wanted what he could 
 give. But it was one of Mr Balfour's peculiarities 
 that he could ill endure the comradeship of equals. 
 Mr Chamberlain was an inheritance, and had to be 
 taken over with the estate; but Mr Balfour took care, 
 with regard to his own appointments, not to encourage 
 men who could by any possibility threaten his position. 
 He was compared, about the time of Mr 
 Churchill's secession, to a beech tree: 'Very 
 beautiful, but nothing could live under its shade.' 
 As the older politicians, the Goschens and Hicks- 
 Beaches, dropped out, he filled their places with 
 those who, through character, mind, or circumstance, 
 were likely to develop no inconvenient individuality. 
 Whether it was his brother, or his kinsman, or his 
 
 205
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 friend whom he elevated, the understanding was the 
 same; they were to be less Ministers of the Crown 
 than retainers of Mr Balfour. With the possible 
 exception of Mr Wyndham, Mr Balfour appointed 
 nobody whose qualities were likely to compete with or 
 supplement his own. He had talented subordinates 
 like Mr Alfred Lyttleton, others much less talented, 
 and still others with no discernible qualifications of 
 any kind. But of all those whom he chose without 
 pressure from Birmingham, hardly one stood out 
 as a personage. A virile character, indeed, seemed 
 to rouse in Mr Balfour a certain feeling of repugnance, 
 and he specially disliked people with ' views ' and 
 ' principles.' He seems to have considered the one 
 a species of folly, and the other (in ordinary men) 
 a species of impertinence. His anger against the 
 Free Fooders was really the expression of a con- 
 temptuous irritation that men of inferior position 
 and understanding should presume to talk of conscience 
 in a matter of pure expediency. It was the cold 
 anger of a Roman magistrate against sectaries stupid 
 enough to object to things so harmless as a libation 
 or the invocation of a god. 
 
 The natural consequence was that those members 
 of Mr Balfour's Ministry who entered it by way of 
 Mr Chamberlain's headquarters were generally men 
 of some strength of character, while his own personal 
 following was singularly lacking in distinction. Mr 
 Chamberlain was like a Plantagenet Earl at the 
 head of his knights and men-at-arms; Mr Balfour 
 rather resembled a Carolean squire leading his game- 
 keepers into battle. The history of the Tariff Reform 
 controversy might have been very different had Mr 
 Balfour commanded a number of talented men who 
 were in essence more than retainers. But in fact he 
 fought his fight for all practical purposes alone, and 
 
 206
 
 A^r, Balfour 
 
 had tlius to adopt measures very different than those 
 he could have employed with a formidable force 
 under good subordinate generalship. 
 
 In such circumstances it is not surprising to 
 find a considerable contrast between the earlier and 
 later Balfour manners. During the Salisbury period 
 Mr Balfour, though essentially Conservative, was 
 relatively constructive. His Irish administration 
 left much more than a negative mark on the history 
 of Ireland. His Education Act, the most important 
 since 1870, gave a new and valuable impetus, not 
 yet exhausted, to public instruction in this country. 
 At the same time it would be difficult to point to any 
 marked change in Conservative thought between 
 1886 and 1903; there was a slight broadening as 
 the result of the Liberal Unionist alliance, and that 
 was all. But between 1903 and 191 1, Conservatism 
 was singularly barren in the matter of works and 
 extraordinarily volatile in the matter of faith; it 
 produced little but new rubrics; the party doctrines 
 seemed to be — 
 
 *. . . intended 
 For nothing else but to be mended.* 
 
 It is scarcely possible to believe that, had Lord 
 Salisbury lived to reach Mr Gladstone's age in Mr 
 Gladstone's vigour, the Conservative party could 
 have trodden during those eight years such strange 
 places. Lord Salisbury knew, none better, the uses 
 and the limitations of the House of Lords as a political 
 weapon. He used it remorselessly on occasion; 
 but in the face of a firm national demand the sword 
 was lifted gracefully in salute; it was never brandished 
 in ineffectual menace. ' It is no courage,' he said, 
 as long ago as 1868, 'it is no dignity to withstand 
 
 207
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 the real opinion of the nation '; and his will would 
 have prevailed, in any party council in which he 
 took part, against the ' double or quits ' gambling 
 in which Mr Balfour, however reluctantly, acquiesced. 
 It may further be noticed that during the earlier 
 period Mr Balfour, though always given to subtle- 
 ties, harnessed his matchless dialectical ingenuity to 
 real business carts, meant to carry real calves to and 
 from market. In the latter time he drove his blood 
 sophisms, so to speak, in a trotting sulky, almost as 
 if he had come to believe that the skilful construction 
 of dilemmas for an adversary were an end in itself. 
 There is a different quality in the speeches made 
 between 1886 and 1903, and those made between 
 1903 and 191 1, and again a different quality between 
 these latter and those of the war period. In the 
 Spring, as in the Indian summer, of Mr Balfour's 
 career we find a moral force which was lacking in 
 the most brilliant performances of the middle manner. 
 In the first period we feel a real man who at least 
 believes in Conservatism; in the last we feel a real 
 man who at least believes in British victory. In the 
 middle period we are simply conscious of an extremely 
 dexterous politician already in Botheration Mansions 
 and trying to keep clear of Queer Street. There is 
 the impression of a supremely clever advocate who, 
 because he dare not call witnesses, has to exhaust 
 every resource of his mind and learning in framing 
 objections to the indictment. 
 
 Not that Mr Balfour was fighting for nothing. 
 As to the essential points, first of gaining time for 
 the new European policy with the execution of which 
 he was charged, and secondly of saving his party 
 from the fate which overtook Liberalism in 1886, 
 he was intensely and even desperately in earnest. 
 But the end alone mattered; the means signified 
 
 208
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 only so far as they were effective, and they were the 
 means most naturally employed by a man highly 
 courageous and (in his own way) excessively obstinate, 
 but one whose courage and obstinacy savoured rather 
 of the mediaeval Florentine than of the modern 
 Englishman. Infinitely supple in detail, no man 
 could be more patiently firm with regard to the main 
 matter; and he had that rare kind of bravery which 
 is even content, if anything is to be gained by it, to 
 incur the reproach of its absence. Few of Mr 
 Balfour's virtues or defects are, in fact, English; 
 he has neither the English heartiness nor the English 
 cloudiness of thought; and his political course to 
 the discerning was a standing reminder that Edin- 
 burgh is morally and spiritually nearer the Continent 
 than London. When Scotland had politics of its 
 own, they were not managed by * tremendous cheers,* 
 and Mr Balfour's greatest feats as a politician have 
 not been on the platform or in the House of Commons. 
 Nevertheless he always did his duty in these 
 ways. It is quite a mistake to regard him as a slack 
 Party leader; like most indolent men who are forced 
 to it, he got through a vast deal of work. He often 
 addressed public meetings at the rate of one a fort- 
 night, and few leaders have been more constant in 
 their Parliamentary attendance. Mr Balfour seldom 
 missed an important debate, and he assumed, as 
 none of his predecessors in the leadership did, 
 responsibility for the preparation and passage of 
 important measures. Further, he attended with 
 exemplary minuteness to the details of party manage- 
 ment, and he was always deeply interested in the 
 deliberations of the Committee of Imperial Defence, 
 the formation of which was perhaps the greatest of 
 his administrative reforms. Foreign affairs have 
 ever interested him, and his mind has a natural 
 
 209
 
 Jidr. Balfour 
 
 aptitude for questions of strategy; he would, one 
 suspects, have been really at home in the politics of 
 the sixteenth century. All these varied duties, added 
 to the immense anxieties arising from party differences, 
 made his task a heavy one during his Premiership. 
 It would have been eased by devolution, but Mr 
 Balfour no more favoured that policy in his own 
 affairs than in regard to Ireland. His jealousy of 
 any power near the throne might condemn him for 
 months together to answer daily not far short of a 
 hundred letters — many on the most insignificant 
 subjects — and to keep him busy till all sorts of hours 
 at night. But every letter went out signed by himself, 
 though in the handwriting of a secretary (the type- 
 writer was not in favour in the Downing Street of 
 those days), and a collection of these missives would 
 laughably illustrate the mixture of small things with 
 great in modern politics. To call indolent a man 
 charged with these enormous labours may well seem 
 fantastic, and Mr Balfour could always confound, 
 by the mere indication of his activities, those critics 
 who complained of ' lassitude ' in the conduct of 
 party affairs. But there was still something in the 
 indictment. So long as his interest was wholly 
 engaged, or his self-love implicated, Mr Balfour's 
 power of work was prodigious. But he had long 
 intervals of inaction and lack of interest; he could 
 never acquire that unhasting, unresting, methodical 
 habit of business which enabled many men of smaller 
 qualities, giving themselves far less strain, to main- 
 tain for many years complete mastery of the machines 
 of party and of government. Mr Balfour has always 
 given a slight suggestion of the brilliant amateur, and 
 in nothing more than in the amateur's vice of over- 
 doing both work and holiday. 
 
 2io
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 No. 4 Carlton Gardens represents, perhaps more 
 closely than Whittinghame, the personal tastes of 
 Mr Balfour; there still remain the fine Burne-Jones 
 paintings which proclaim his taste in modern art. 
 But in either place the visitor would be favoured 
 with ample evidences cf the perfect sincerity of that 
 aloofness which has always distinguished this eminent 
 man. Mr Balfour has a wide range of interests, and 
 is in some ways extremely modern. He was, for 
 sxam.ple, among the first to take up cycling on the 
 removal of the social ban which condemned users 
 of the early bicycle as ' cads on castors.' Old members 
 recall how he came down to the House of Commons 
 one day in the nineties with one arm in a sling and 
 one foot in a slipper, the result of a collision with a 
 carriage. With equally fresh enthusiasm he threw 
 himself into motoring when it was only a craze, and 
 he remained an enthusiast after it had reached the 
 dignity of a social necessity. There are numerous 
 stories of his exceeding the speed limit; on one such 
 occasion he had with him the Recorder of a midland 
 city. The accusing constable, imputing excessive 
 celerit)'', was met by courteous argument. ' Look 
 at your indicator,' he said, ' and you'll see that I'm 
 right.' ' I'm sorry,' replied Mr Balfour apologetically, 
 ' I haven't an indicator, but ' (with emphasis) ' I've 
 got a Recorder.' Fearing some hideous contrivance 
 which would bring him to confusion in the witness- 
 box, the constable apologised and withdrew, and 
 Mr Balfour went on his journey with a rejoicing 
 chuckle. As a golfer, Mr Balfour's repute is great; 
 
 211
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 he may almost be said to have invented golf as an 
 English pastime, though he only took to the game, 
 appropriately enough, when he was appointed 
 Scottish Secretary in 1886. 'Golf,' he has said, 
 * has all the thrilling excitement of deer-stalking 
 without its inconveniences and dangers.' At tennis 
 he is excellent, with a peculiar style and * a service 
 and return extremely difficult to take owing to the 
 spin which he gives to the ball ' — needless to say 
 ' most misleading to his opponents.* In earlier days 
 he was an excellent shot, and a tireless deer-stalker. 
 At school he played a certain amount of football. 
 
 In this addiction to outdoor sports (encouraged, 
 no doubt, by his great horror, that of getting fat) 
 Mr Balfour is fully in touch with the times; so, too, 
 in his eager interest in the progress of science and 
 the most modern tendencies of speculation. Nor is 
 he in any sense remote from what is going on in 
 society. His own circle is rather narrow, but he is 
 amused and interested by the ' daintier kind of gossip,' 
 and his ignorance of what appears in the newspapers 
 is merely a jest. It is true that he is curiously un- 
 aware of many things, including some which a 
 Minister of experience might be supposed to know; 
 some of his ideas on Imperial geography are piquant 
 in so distinguished an Imperialist. But on most 
 matters of the day, not only political, but social and 
 personal, he is quite remarkably informed; he is 
 by no means averse from young society, and the late 
 Mr Alfred Lyttleton described him as ' deeply 
 interested in the human comedy.' 
 
 But for all this there is a good deal that is old- 
 fashioned in the houses where Mr Balfour is host 
 and Miss Balfour the charming hostess. To put it 
 more accurately, perhaps, they suggest an imperfect 
 sympathy with the present. Mr Balfour's great 
 
 •212
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 collection of Handel's works — it is one of the finest 
 in the world — is in a sense a reproach to Strauss and 
 Debussy; fondness for any other master might 
 sound no note of challenge, but Handel! Mr Balfour 
 is not only an impenitent but an aggressive enthusiast. 
 Handel, he says, was the ' greatest master of choral 
 effect the world has ever seen,' and he has remarked 
 on the singularity of the fact that the age of Voltaire 
 produced the most profoundly religious music we 
 have. 
 
 In literary matters Mr Balfour tends equally to 
 the eighteenth century. He loves the ease and 
 polish, the calm rationalism, the sword-and-periwig 
 mixture of virility and polish that distinguished 
 the great writers of that age. His interest in nine- 
 teenth century literature diminishes from about the 
 time of the Reform Act. For him the Victorians 
 are on the whole an inferior race; if they are giants 
 at all, then they are giants with a limp; moreover, 
 Mr Balfour would probably think, what is the good 
 of being a giant } He finds a thin lucidity in Mill 
 and a windiness in Carlyle; he has a considerable 
 contempt for the * Corn Law squabbles ' and all the 
 literature arising therefrom; and neither Browning 
 nor Newman impresses him. He prefers Miss 
 Austen to either Thackeray or Dickens, and Coleridge, 
 Wordsworth, and Shelley to any modern poet. It 
 is rather curiously significant that Mr Balfour in 
 his * backwardation ' stops short at the eighteenth 
 century. The seventeenth rather repels his essentially 
 tolerant spirit; the seventeenth century was an age 
 of cranks and faddists, and with fads and cranks of 
 any kind Mr Balfour has small sympathy. Though 
 a member of the Scottish Church, he has no pleasure 
 in Puritanism, and not much interest in Puritans. 
 Cromwell he described as a great soldier, but * on 
 
 213
 
 Air, Balfom- 
 
 the whole ineffectual, and certainly the most pathetic 
 figure in history.' Nor do the great Elizabethans 
 seem to attract any large share of his devotion. As 
 for the classics, he has little of Mr Gladstone's 
 enthusiasm for the Greek and Latin poets. * What 
 at first was the delight of nations,' Mr Balfour once 
 said, ' declines by slow but inevitable gradation 
 into the luxury, or the business, or even the vanity 
 of the few. What was once read for pleasure is now 
 read for curiosity.' One gathers that he at least 
 would never turn in a spare half hour to Homer or 
 Virgil, or even to Horace or Catullus. 
 
 The modernist, however, will get from him as 
 little satisfaction as the enthusiast for antiquity. 
 Perhaps no living man at all approaching him in 
 celebrity has said less in commendation of people 
 now writing. He has a fellow-philosopher's fondness 
 for Bergson, but of the purely literary men of this 
 generation we can only presume ignorance, or dis- 
 approval, or mere toleration. Mr H. G. Wells 
 amused him with his scientific romances, but 
 was dropped when he began to preach: Mr 
 Chesterton is enjoyed as an epigrammatist; but 
 Mr Arnold Bennett and Mr Conrad seem hardly to 
 exist for Mr Balfour, and even the meteoric splendour 
 of Mr Kipling appears to have made little impression. 
 Of Mr Bernard Shaw as a dramatist Mr Balfour has 
 a due appreciation; that keen irony and wicked wit 
 could hardly fail to appeal to one side of him; it is 
 said that he went no fewer than five times to the 
 first production of John BulPs Other Island^ inviting 
 first Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and then 
 Mr Asquith, But there is no indication that he 
 looks on Mr Shaw as more than an amusing journalist 
 who spins out a leading article to the length of a play 
 and contrives to make it interesting throughout. 
 
 214
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 Mr Balfour's attitude to contemporary literature 
 is, in short, tolerant and no more. ' I have no sym- 
 pathy,' he said in a Rectorial address at St Andrews, 
 ' with the horror over the incessant accumulation 
 of books. They need hurt no one who possesses 
 the very moderate degree of social courage required 
 to make the admission that he has not read the last 
 new novel or the current number of a fashionable 
 magazine. ... It is certainly remarkable that 
 any person who has nothing to get by it should destroy 
 his eyesight and confuse his brain by a conscientious 
 attempt to master the dull and doubtful details of 
 the European diary daily transmitted by " our special 
 correspondent." ' The fallacy that ' a little learning 
 is a dangerous thing ' once roused Mr Balfour, 
 himself an amateur of the desultory, to a spirited 
 protest. * He has only half learned the art of reading,' 
 he said, ' who has not added to it the even more 
 refined accomplishments of skipping and skimming.' 
 On another occasion he speaks of ' the advantage 
 of an omnivorous, universal, and insatiable curiosity 
 to know everything that can be known. ... It is a 
 pleasure that lasts longer than any other. It is an 
 appetite not followed by satiety, which is independent 
 of changes and circumstances, or of the love or 
 dislike of your fellow-men.' 
 
 We have here, no doubt, the clue to Mr Balfour's 
 real enthusiasm. Like Bacon, he takes all knowledge 
 as his province. Art he regards, on the whole, 
 simply as a solace, much on the same plane as a cigar 
 or a liqueur — at the best as an embrocation to ease the 
 rheumatism of the soul. The bent of his mind is, in the 
 widest sense, scientific. ' Newton,' he says, * was 
 perhaps the greatest man the world has ever seen.' 
 The eulogy is significant. Such a selection is only 
 possible to one who places far above every other 
 
 215
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 human activity the accumulation and systematisation 
 of knowledge. ' I would rather be known,' he once 
 said, * as having added something to our knowledge 
 of truth and nature than for anything else I could 
 imagine.' In this enthusiasm for science he, no doubt, 
 seriously underrates the importance of the prophet, 
 the poet, the man of letters, the artist in various 
 kinds, those who guide and those who bring sweetness 
 to life. * If in the last hundred years,' he once said, 
 * the whole material setting of civilisation has altered, 
 we owe it neither to politicians nor to political insti- 
 tutions. We owe it to the continued efforts of those 
 who have advanced science and those who have 
 applied it. If our outlook upon the universe has 
 suffered modifications in detail so great and so 
 numerous that they amount collectively to a revolution, 
 it is to men of science we owe it, not to theologians 
 or philosophers. On these, indeed, weighty responsi- 
 bilities are being cast. They have to harmonise and 
 to co-ordinate, to preserve the valuable essence of 
 what is old. But science is the great instrument of 
 social change, all the greater because its object is not 
 change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation 
 of this dominant function, amid the din of political 
 and religious strife, is the most vital of the revolutions 
 which have marked the development of modern 
 civilisation.' 
 
 It would be interesting to know whether the 
 eloquent author of this eulogy would now repeat it 
 without modification. Its fallacy, discernible at any 
 time, has been emphasised by recent events. But 
 it would have been possible even a dozen years ago 
 to point out that nearly all the progress of science 
 was ultimately traceable to the very political insti- 
 tutions, the very theologians and philosophers, whom 
 Mr Balfour belittled. The nineteenth century saw 
 
 216
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 I 
 
 no great march of scientific innovation in Mohammedan 
 or Buddhist Asia, and the contribution of the Southern 
 European States was small. A great part of the 
 Germanies, to their credit, had proved that much 
 freedom and vigour of speculation could co-exist 
 with a highly defective political system, and in fact 
 the loosely-knit but fairly free Germany of the first 
 half of the nineteenth century was, on the whole, 
 more distinguished for originality of scientific thought 
 than the later and more constrictive Empire. But, 
 apart from Germany, what are the facts ? Great 
 Britain, France, and the United States of America 
 between them supplied all that vast effort which 
 produced the world-wide social change of which 
 Mr Balfour speaks; and these three nations were 
 for the greater part of the century the only nations 
 at once powerful and free both politically and 
 intellectually. The great scientific progress of 
 Italy dates from the exclusion of a foreign tyranny 
 and the establishment of something which, whatever 
 its defects, was tolerable in comparison with what 
 had gone before. The scientific progress of Spain, 
 less remarkable but still noteworthy, corresponds 
 with the gradual liberalisation, if not of Spanish 
 political institutions, at any rate of the spirit of 
 Spanish administration. The scientific progress of 
 Japan is a still more remarkable example of the 
 connection between progress and political institutions; 
 it was the direct result of a political revolution, provoked 
 by contact with the three leading nations of the West. 
 \n short, there is the closest possible relation between 
 the march of science and the reasonable efficiency 
 and freedom of political institutions; where there 
 was liberty, greater or less, there was progress, 
 greater or less ; where there was want of liberty, there 
 was in almost exact correspondence stagnation. But 
 
 217
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 whence spring * political institutions ' r They do 
 not grow spontaneously from the soil; they are not, 
 as Mr Balfour almost seems to suggest, an affair of 
 carpentery. Political institutions, so far as they are 
 real, are an emanation of the human soul; they are 
 the offspring of conscious thought or sub-conscious 
 feeling, and both thought and feeling ultimately 
 derive from the despised * theologians and 
 philosophers.* The theologians (using the word in 
 a wider sense than customary) may be placed, as 
 Mr Balfour places them, first; for the philosophers, 
 though often denying with oaths and curses the 
 source of their inspiration, are really as fully saturated 
 with the Christian ethic as the poets and novelists 
 who clamour for a sort of atheistic theocracy in 
 which, for the first time, we should see Christianity 
 in perfect operation. Thus a Japanese statesman, 
 who thinks of the Trinity as one with Shaka Muni, 
 will quite unconsciously reinforce an argument by 
 reflections in the very spirit, if not of Nazareth, at any 
 rate of the Metropolitan Tabernacle. 
 
 Surely the truth is, not (as Mr Balfour infers) 
 that * politicians and political institutions,' * theo- 
 logians and philosophers,' are comparatively unim- 
 portant, but that they are quite stupendously important, 
 and that the whole present trouble of the world is 
 that the theologians have been too timid, the philoso- 
 phers too dull, the politicians too dishonest or 
 incapable, and the political institutions too inelastic. 
 With half the progress in science, and twice the 
 progress in political and ethical development, the 
 world (or at least the world of the white man) would 
 be to-day absolutely happy, and well on the road to 
 far greater happiness. It is surely a grim satire on 
 Mr Balfour's eulogy of science, and disparagement 
 of politics, that most intelligent people in every part 
 
 218
 
 Mr, Balfour 
 
 of the civilised world are puzzling how best to escape, 
 by political means, from the horrors with which 
 an unfettered science threatens to overwhelm the 
 race in the next war. 
 
 These words, spoken by a politician concerning 
 his own trade and his fellow-tradesmen, vividly 
 illustrate Mr Balfour's view, during at least the 
 greater part of his life, of the destinies of his race. 
 Assuredly Mr Balfour is neither inhumane nor 
 insensitive. He is as free from the rigidly class 
 spirit as any of the men of the eighteenth century 
 whom he admires. Let a man have the manners, 
 the accomplishments, and the habits of mind of a 
 gentleman, and he will not inquire, any more than 
 the great Whig nobles did, as to his bank balance or 
 his family tree. But, unless his American experiences 
 wrought any considerable change, he has always 
 taken the essentially aristocratic view of society. 
 There is a certain amount of culture and comfort 
 to go round; to enlarge the circle of sharers, 
 without enlarging what is to be shared, will do a 
 certain positive harm, and can do no appreciable good. 
 Try to irrigate the desert with the springs of the 
 oasis, and you shall not make the desert blossom, 
 but you shall lose the one island of verdure and plenty. 
 Attempt to get too many on a raft, and you shall 
 condemn all to drown. To Mr Balfour the mass 
 of mankind is necessarily doomed to hard, unthankful, 
 unremitting toil; it was so in every past age, it must 
 be so, more or less, in every age to come. He thinks 
 in much the same terms that a kindly Pagan slave- 
 holder thought two thousand years ago, as a kindly 
 Virginian planter thought eighty years ago. What 
 has been shall be, and there is nothing new, morally, 
 under the sun. But this modern magic of science — 
 this is new; this is something the old pessimist of 
 
 219 p
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 Ecclesiastes could not possibly foresee; it is even, 
 in a sense, hopeful; the dwellers in the oases may 
 be appreciably increased, and the ' congested ' desert 
 may be relieved by emigration to other oases once 
 afar off, but now brought nearer by space-annihilating 
 inventions. Hence the ' din of political and religious 
 strife ' (to which, so incongruously, we have to 
 add our own cultured voice) is really of very small 
 importance — an ' organised quarrel * over trifles, 
 compared with which the watching of a retort or the 
 measurement of an electric current is of real moment. 
 That Mr Balfour, with his considerable intellect, 
 should have taken such a view of the business to 
 which he devoted the best years of a long and active 
 life might be called astonishing were astonishment 
 on such a -subject permissible. Astonishment is so 
 little permissible that the first instinct is to thank him 
 for at least not being a gratuitous humbug, and for 
 refraining to talk ' shop ' in ordinary society. An 
 architect who talked of the comparative futility of 
 design in building, a butcher who enlarged on the 
 unsatisfying qualities of chops, a dentist who declared 
 that listening to a Christian Science sermon was a 
 more efficacious remedy for toothache than the most 
 skilful stopping — all these would occasion mild 
 surprise. We even lift our eyebrows when a Dean 
 of the Church of England grows enthusiastic over 
 the perfections of the Buddhist philosophy and ethic. 
 But a very great politician, and even statesman, may 
 speak cheerfully of the * organised quarrel ' and of 
 the comparative unimportance of politicians and 
 political institutions, and his audience merely smiles 
 at his frankness. ' Science, not politics, dominates 
 ;.nd directs the world in an era more fruitful of change 
 than any of which we have record,' says Mr Balfour. 
 He never seems to have anticipated the retort, * Why, 
 
 220
 
 3/r. Balfour 
 
 then, being a free man who could choose your career, 
 came you to be a politician ? * 
 
 The truth, of course, is that in all indifferent 
 matters Mr Balfour thinks with freedom and sincerity; 
 in politics, while free from the faintest suspicion of 
 unworthy motive or personal self-seeking, he adopts 
 the habitual cynicism of all players in that fascinating 
 game of mixed chance and skill of which he has been 
 so accomplished a player. He lauds science at the 
 expense of politics because he does not recognise 
 politics as a science or as an art, though he enjoys it 
 as a game, and has a deep respect for most of the rules 
 which should govern players. One side, of course, 
 he has always treated quite seriously. All questions 
 of foreign policy, all questions affecting the defence 
 of the country, he has placed in a category apart. 
 On Ireland and education, also, his attitude, though 
 modified often by prejudice and sometimes by 
 opportunism, was that of serious and responsible 
 statesmanship. But with regard to the greater part 
 of the affairs coming within his province as a Unionist 
 and a party leader, his first aim was to let the sleeping 
 dogs lie, his second to secure that, if they must wake, 
 they should bite the other side. 
 
 To a French critic he at first appeared * a living 
 problem, a personality of irreconcilable elements all 
 compact — a Tory preaching democracy, a sceptic 
 with a mania for theology, a politician profoundly 
 disgusted with politics. ... If he were sincere, 
 what a riddle! And if he were not, what a comedy! ' 
 But, as Mr Augustin Filou proceeded with his 
 analysis, it appeared to him that Mr Balfour was 
 ' perfectly sincere — more sincere than the greater 
 part of the statesmen that I have had the good or 
 bad fortune to encounter.' 
 
 * What a riddle! ' is. indeed, the ultimate comment 
 
 22 1
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 on this strange and elusive personality, at once so 
 familiar and so remote. It is the nature of riddles 
 that there should be a perfect answer to them, if one 
 had the wit to find it. The perfect answer to this 
 riddle may be found when all the diaries of to-day 
 are published to the world. But it has still to be 
 sought, and Mr Balfour himself, with his infinite 
 capacity for laying false scents, only confuses the 
 pursuit. 
 
 222
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Enthusiastic Liberal politicians are understood to 
 have occasionally regretted in private those animated 
 but disastrous excursions of Mr Gladstone into the 
 stricken field of religious polemics which they dutifully 
 applauded in public. It is probable that enthusiastic 
 Tories have occasionally regretted Mr Balfour's 
 mysterious excursions into metaphysics. But there 
 is a more than superficial difference between these 
 amateur employments of two great statesmen. Nobody 
 outside politics ever believed for a moment that Mr 
 Gladstone might possibly have left a greater reputation 
 behind him had he eschewed the service of the State 
 for the meditation of the study. Some few admirers 
 of Mr Balfour may reasonably wonder whether his 
 name would not have bulked larger in the long run 
 if he had deserted politics for philosophy. 
 
 Five hundred years hence it will probably not 
 matter very much in history that the accident of a 
 Unionist victory in 1895 established Mr Balfour in 
 Downing Street for a full decade. But the Lecky 
 of that time may perhaps add a footnote to his colossal 
 work deploring that a thinker potentially of the 
 front rank should have devoted to the transient 
 Tariff Reform controversy those rare qualities of 
 subtle analysis which might have added a permanent 
 contribution to the most recondite problems of 
 theology. 
 
 As things are, Mr Balfour's two philosophical 
 works remind one rather of the outer and inner door 
 to a great house than of the house itself. Both doors 
 are of dignified design and ample proportions. They 
 
 223
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 are lavishly decorated by an artist whose work is 
 always in perfect taste. But the purpose of doors is 
 to conduct into interiors, and after admiring the doors 
 in detail, we are a little surprised to find that the 
 interior does not exist. And when one has sufficiently 
 discussed the beauty of the panels, it is disconcerting 
 to feel the open air still blowing about one's ears. 
 
 Mr Balfour's first work, A Defence of Philosophic 
 Doubt, probably finds few readers to-day. Nor is the 
 reason far to seek. It is not really necessary to defend 
 the majority. In the Middle Ages the title of the 
 book alone would have placed it on the Index, and 
 its author in the dungeon. But in our time the 
 scientist doubts the revealed philosophy of religion; 
 the religious doubt the deduced philosophy of science; 
 doubt is universal, and the propriety of what is uni- 
 versal is not really in doubt. He who defends the 
 custom of living in houses as beneficial to humanity 
 may draw crowded and excited audiences in Tierra 
 del Fuego, but he will hardly rank as a prophet in 
 Middlesex. 
 
 The second and more important work, The 
 Foundations of Belief , is avowedly constructive; and, 
 despite the wrath of Huxley, who devoted the last 
 weeks of his life to attacking it, the book is of con- 
 siderable importance and may prove of permanent 
 interest. 
 
 Its general argument is easy to follow. Citing, 
 but not accepting, the materialist argument that this 
 world is the only world we know, or can know, Mr 
 Balfour shows from the recognised limitations of our 
 senses that even the knowledge we possess of this world 
 must be fragmentary and imperfect. All this, of 
 course, is the small change of current controversy, 
 and the same may be said of an analysis of the 
 Spencerian system of morals and aesthetics that follows. 
 
 224
 
 Mr, Balfbtii 
 
 So far the author has merely outlined his general 
 antagonism to the Rationalist, or as he prefers to 
 call it, the Naturalist school; but it is to be noted 
 that his repugnance to the rationalist method is so 
 strong that he discounts rather heavily even the school 
 of Christian rationalism that flourished in eighteenth 
 century England. 
 
 What, then, are we to put in the place of Ration- 
 alism, which is to be deposed not so much because it 
 gives wrong as because it gives inadequate answers ? 
 Since we all seek certainty, Mr Balfour's answer is 
 clear: * Certitude is found to be the child, not of 
 Reason, but of Custom.* We cannot all investigate 
 everything with our reason; there is not time. 
 Moreover, there never has been time. * If we consider 
 what must have happened at that critical moment in 
 the history of organic development when first conscious 
 judgments of sense-perception made themselves felt 
 as important links in the chain connecting nervous 
 irritability with muscular action, is it not plain that 
 any individual in whom such judgments were habitually 
 qualified and enfeebled by even the most legitimate 
 scepticism would incontinently perish, and that those 
 only would survive who possessed, and could pre- 
 sumably transmit to their descendants, a stubborn 
 assurance which was beyond the power of reasoning 
 either to fortify or undermine t ' 
 
 The Certitude that is founded on Custom is 
 therefore our guide, and its proper name is Authority. 
 On his defence of Authority, as a thing apart altogether 
 from Reason, Mr Balfour has lavished all the resources 
 of his dialectical skill and subtlety; it is a finished 
 study that he gives us here, and not, like the rest of 
 the book, a series of introductory notes. It is easy 
 to attack it, and no doubt it has been attacked, as 
 Tory metaphysics. But the trouble is that Nature is 
 
 "^ 2. C
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 herself a desperate Tory; she works by evolution, 
 not revolution; her innovations are few, her imitations 
 innumerable. We may be the creatures of circum- 
 stance, but far more are we the creatures that our 
 ancestors have made us; their authority controls all 
 but a small fraction of our physical acts and our 
 mental processes. It is only the fraction that is free, 
 and even that fraction is free only during part, and 
 that not generally the greater part, of the normal life. 
 
 So far we are on firm ground, but the firmness 
 of the ground has often been overlooked in the 
 recurrent controversies of the last three centuries 
 between Authority and Reason in politics and religion. 
 It is in his insistence on the too often forgotten fact 
 that Authority has a legitimate, and perhaps a major 
 place, in life that the true value of Mr Balfour's 
 philosophical work resides. Authority derived from 
 ancestral custom is the real basis of the bulk of our 
 actions and of nearly all our current beliefs, which 
 most of us have neither time nor perhaps inclination 
 to investigate; why, then, he asks in effect, should 
 the ancestral authority that we accept without question 
 in other respects be spurned or rejected in religion } 
 
 The dilemma appears momentarily awkward; 
 it is, as Huxley said of the book as a whole, a good 
 debating point. The answer is worked out with 
 sorne dialectical skill, but it fails to convince, for a 
 simple reason. The foundation of belief is admittedly 
 authority. But authority has no necessary connection 
 with truth; there is abundant authority for the belief 
 in witchcraft and for the hypothesis that the sun 
 moves round the earth. And when the authority 
 changes, what is then the foundation of belief if not 
 the new authority } Now this is precisely what has 
 happened in philosophy. The old authority taught 
 that man was the centre of the universe, and his destiny 
 
 226
 
 Mr. Balfour 
 
 the final purpose for which God had constructed it. 
 Mr Balfour has himself stated the standpoint of the 
 new authority in words so eloquent that they may 
 serve as an example of a literary style which, at its 
 best, is hardly surpassed in our language: — 
 
 ' The very existence of Man is an accident, his 
 story a brief and transitory episode in the life of one 
 of the meanest of the planets. Of the combination 
 of causes which first converted a dead organic com- 
 pound into the living progenitors of humanity, 
 science, indeed, as yet knows nothing. It is enough 
 that from such beings famine, disease, and mutual 
 slaughter, fit nurses of the future lords of creation, 
 have gradually evolved, after infinite travail, a race 
 with conscience enough to feel that it is vile, and 
 intelligence enough to know that it is insignificant. 
 We survey the past, and see that its history is of blood 
 and tears, of helpless blundering, of wild revolt, of 
 stupid acquiescence, of empty aspirations. We 
 sound the future, and learn that after a period, long 
 compared with the individual life, but short indeed 
 compared with the divisions of time open to our 
 investigation, the energies of our system will decay, 
 the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, 
 tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race 
 which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man 
 will go down to the pit, and all his thoughts will 
 perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this 
 obscure corner has for a brief space broken the 
 contented silence of the universe, will be at rest. 
 Matter will know itself no longer. Imperishable 
 monuments, and immortal deeds, death itself, and 
 love stronger than death, will be as though they had 
 never been. Nor will anything that is be better or 
 be worse for all that the labour, genius, devotion, 
 
 227
 
 Air, Balfour 
 
 and suffering of man have striven through countless 
 generations to affect.' 
 
 That is the new authority of philosophy. If it is 
 not the foundation of belief, it is at least the foundation 
 of such belief as many have. It may not be true. 
 But Mr Balfour does not formally deny its truth; 
 he only denies that it is the full truth, and he hopes 
 that somewhere, remote from, or perhaps invisibly 
 adherent to, these painful futilities whose unreal 
 glory has departed with the sunken sun of revelation, 
 there may be an ideal universe in which our spiritual 
 desires may be fulfilled. So do we all hope; but 
 we have no certain knowledge of these things. And 
 if we accept his central position in this as in other 
 matters, that * Certitude is the child of Custom, not 
 of Reason,' then is our position still no better. For 
 Custom has given us the certitude only of this material 
 world, and in the flesh we know no other, nor can 
 we know another save by hope or revelation. 
 
 It is here that Mr Balfour has not worked out 
 his theme. He has indeed made clear the foundations 
 of belief. But foundations are made for houses to 
 be built upon. And the architect who might have 
 done so much turned to other work. 
 
 GLASGOW : W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD.
 
 Some New Publications 
 
 from MESSRS COLLINS' 1920 
 AUTUMN LIST 
 
 Published from their London Offices, 48 PALL MALL, S.W. 
 
 Note. — f^essrs Collins will always be pleased 
 to send lists of their forthcoming books to 
 any one who will send their name and address. 
 
 I Wonder Why : sixteen Songs for the Children 
 
 Music by Sir ALFRED SCOTT-GATTY, k.c.v.o. 
 
 Author and Composer of Plantation Songs, Little Songs /or Little Voices, etc. 
 Words by THE HON. MRS STUART PLEYDELL-BOUVERIE 
 
 Pictures by W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON 
 
 Author of Pinkie and the Fairies, etc. 
 
 Large 4to. Boards. Sixteen Songs and 16 plates in colour. 12s. 6d. net. 
 
 Also an Edition de Luxe on hand-made paper, numbered and signed. 
 
 Limited to 100 copies. Price, £2 2s. net. 
 
 Prospectus on Application. 
 
 The many thousands of people who remember the Plantation Songs : 
 'Playin' on de ole Banjo,' 'Good-night,' 'Who Did?' and the rest, will 
 welcome this delightful song book by the same celebrated composer. 
 It is, in fact, rather more than a song book, for the charming plates that 
 Mr Graham Robertson has drawn for each song make it in addition an 
 almost perfect picture book for young folk. Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty, late 
 Garter King at Arms, was known throughout the length and breadth of 
 England in the days when he and Lady Gatty used to sing the Plantation 
 Songs together. The present volume is published posthumously and 
 contains sones that were written for his great nephews and nieces, full 
 of melody and full of fun.
 
 From the Unconscious to the Conscious 
 
 Dr. GUSTAVE GELEY 
 
 Translated from the French by S. De BRATH, M.I.C.E. 
 
 Demy Svo., with 23 Illustrations from photographs by the author. 
 
 Price, \os. net. 
 
 Dr Geley has those gifts of scholarship and imagination which are 
 so rarely found in the same individual; and in this volume he has under- 
 taken a work that places him not only among the great thinkers but 
 also among the great pioneers. The scientists of the nineteenth century 
 devoted all their best energies to unravelling the mysteries of matter. 
 The twentieth century seems more likely to undertake the greater investi- 
 gation of spirit. And Dr Geley, working from the basis of the masses 
 of knowledge stored up for us by the older scientists, has built up a theory 
 of the Being of Mankind that represents the first important synthesis 
 in this kind. He draws upon nearly every department of learning for 
 his argument, and with the typical French genius for lucid statement 
 and the arrangement of material, has endeavoured to indicate the road 
 of man's past and future development. Philosophically, he may be 
 called an idoalist in so far as he believes that spirit is an ' absolute ' and 
 matter only a representative complex; but the bulk of his argument is 
 drawn from science rather than from philosophy. In one sense this work 
 may be taken as a counterblast against Darwin's Descent of Man, and like 
 it will probably be regarded by posterity as marking the change of an 
 epoch in our beliefs concerning the fundamental problems of existence. 
 
 History of EngHsh Furniture 
 
 PERCY MACQUOID, R.I. 
 
 With plates in colour after Shirley Slocombe, and numerous illustrations 
 selected and arranged l)y the author; in four volumes : I. — The Age 
 of Oak; II. — The Age of Wolnut; III. — The Age of Mahogany; 
 IV. — The Age of Satinwood. £21 per set, or £5 5s. per volume. 
 Size, 15 in. x 11 in.; bound in red buckram, gilt. 
 
 A New Index 
 
 The subject has been divided into four periods, the first dating from 
 1500 to 1660, comprising furniture that can be attributed to the Renais- 
 sance, and its evolution from the Gothic. The second from 1660 to 1720, 
 when the change is varied by the Restoration and Dutch influence, 
 followed by a distinctly assertive English spirit. The third period covers 
 the introduction from France of fresh ideas in design, clearly marking 
 another change, lasting from 1720 to 1770. The' fourth, 1770-1820, 
 which was inspired by an affectation for all things classical. While the 
 book only purports to deal with English furniture, it is obvious that 
 reference is freely made to foreign styles in order to keep the matter in 
 perspective. 
 
 Illustrated Prospectus will be sent on Application.
 
 When Labour Rules 
 
 The Rt. Hon. J. H. THOMAS, M.P. 
 
 General Secretary National Union of Railwaymcn. 
 
 Large Crown 8t'o. Price 10s. net. 
 
 This book is written to answer the question that is on the lips of 
 almost every adult in the United Kingdom — what will labour do? In 
 the welter of speechmakins;, wages claims, arbitration, leading articles, 
 Roj'al Commissions, and the like, most of us have formed but a hazy 
 idea of the England of the future, coloured according as our sympathies 
 may be drawn at the moment, either as 'the new world fit for heroes 
 (and others) to live in,' or as the wild turmoil of bloodshed and starvation 
 that is revolutionary I^ussia. Who knows precisely what a Labour 
 Government will do in finance, property, constitution, or foreign policy? 
 
 Mr Thomas sets out to clear away the fog by stating succintly, without 
 the use of long words or catch-phrases, just what the Labour Party are 
 aiming to do and what they hope to make of England. Some of the 
 points covered arc: 'The Labour Government and the Constitution,' 
 'The Second Chamber,' 'Nationalisation,' 'Foreign and Home Trade,' 
 'Housing, Health, Drink, and Education,' 'National Finance,' 'Foreign 
 and Colonial Policies,' 'The Rights of Democracies.' It is a direct and 
 honest statement, and a book that should, without in any way desiring 
 to overstate the case, be read by every single intelligent citizen of the 
 British Empire. 
 
 The Coming Revolution 
 
 GERALD GOULD 
 
 Author of The Helping Hand, Monogamy, etc. 
 Crown %vo. 5s. net. 
 
 It may be taken as certain that the whole structure of social life in 
 this country will undergo complete change in the near future. The word 
 'Revolution' is an ugly one, but, if not on every lip, it is in every mind. 
 It need not be assumed that revolution necessarily brings the horrors 
 and bloodshed of the French or Russian upheavals in its train. But whether 
 bloody or bloodless, the change is imminent, and in this book Mr Gould, 
 who combines his labours as a poet and essayist with a peculiarly active 
 life as sub-editor of The Daily Herald, endeavours to foreshadow the 
 economic future of this empire under the coming conditions. As an 
 Oxford scholar he is fully qualilied to treat the subject academically, 
 while his constant contact with the leading political thinkers and practical 
 men in the most advanced camp, his interest and sympathy with the 
 movement as a whole, give him the power to speak with authority and 
 intimate knowledge of the probable trend of coming events.
 
 Mr Balfour 
 
 A Biography by E. T. RAYMOND 
 
 Author of Uncensored Celebrities, etc. 
 Demy ivo. With Portrait Frontispiece. Price 12s. Qd. net. 
 
 A famous editor used to say in times of political crisis, when the 
 columns of his daily paper were under discussion : ' 1 hope no one will 
 suggest that we should interview Mr Balfour.' The subject of this 
 biography is probably the least 'interviewed' prominent figure in England. 
 Therefore we are the more intrigued by his character. The proof of the 
 pudding is in the eating, maybe, but the ingredients are the real point 
 of speculation. Every one will welcome this searching and critical analysis 
 of a complex personality, whose public actions and utterances have so 
 often puzzled the coTintry. 
 
 Could a more suitable biographer have been found than the witty, 
 nimble Mr Raymond, whose recent books of portrait studies, Uncensored 
 Celebrities and All and Sundry — More Uncensored Celebrities, havQ lately 
 entertained thousands of readers? To many people this book will reveal 
 for the first time the guiding characteristics of one of the most varied 
 brains, charming personalities, and wisest counsellors in the whole of 
 British historj'. 
 
 The Press and the General Staff 
 
 The Hon. NEVILLE LYTTON 
 
 Demy Svo. With illustrations by the author. Price \os. net. 
 
 Here is possibly the wittiest and shrewdest view of the war that has 
 yet been given us, which will be read not only for its very striking matter 
 but also for its highly vivacious manner. Mr Lytton, who began life as 
 an infantry officer, takes us lightly and easily over the opening part of 
 his experiences in and out of the trenches, till we get to the pith of the 
 book when he tells of how he was put to organise the work of the press 
 correspondents at G.H.Q. 
 
 There is a good deal of inner hi.story revealed in his account, and 
 he gives sparl-ding anecdotes of nearly aU the big men of the war, with 
 many of whom he was in constant contact. There has been no book 
 like it, and although we are supposed to be tired of all that has to do 
 with the war, it will indeed be a tired man who does not find many hours 
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 The Journey : Odes and sonnets 
 
 GERALD GOULD 
 
 Large Crown %vo. Boards, Is. iid. net. 
 
 Mr Gould is a writer of graceful and distinguished verse of a very 
 high order, whose work has found acceptance not only among the critics 
 but also with a discriminating yet ample public. This volume of Odes 
 and Sonnets contains some of his finest work up to the present, showing 
 the development of his poetic talent and increasing technical skill.
 
 A History of Aeronautics 
 
 Er^ AriA/T A TVr Aulhor of Passion Fruit, rtc. 
 . L>. VlVl/\.i\, 1 ormerly Editor of F/yin* 
 
 AND LIEUT-COL. 
 
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 Secretary of the Royal Aeronautical Society. 
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 There has hitherto been no complete history of the art and develop- 
 ment of aviation, heavier or lighter than air. It is to fill the undoubted 
 gap left in the literature of this subject, a heterogeneous mass of disjointed 
 narrative and technical treatises, that this book has been designed. It 
 takes aviation from its legendary period right through to the facts and 
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 whole ground and is written in simple and very readable style. 
 
 Aspects of Literature: Essays m Literary criticism 
 
 J. MIDDLETON MURRY 
 
 Demy 8vo. Price lOs. net. 
 
 The theme developed in this book of essays by the Editor of The 
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 attempted with a minimum of abstract argument, since Mr Murry's 
 view is that criticism can only be of cogency and value when it deals 
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 Dostoevsky and His Creation 
 
 A Psycho-Critical Study JANKO LAVRIN 
 
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 Mr Janko Lavrin is probably the first Serbian author whose critical 
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 country. He was educated partly in Russia and while still a University 
 student was for two years editor of a Russian literary and political 
 monthly, Slavansky Mir (Slavonic World). He was subsequently on the 
 staff of the biggest Russian newspaper, Novoe Vremya. His contributions 
 to that paper written from Albania and Serbia during the first two years 
 of war were published in book form in Petrograd. He is now Lecturer 
 in Russian and Russian literature at the University of Nottingham. 
 Apart, however, from the interest of the origin of this highly modern 
 study, his criticism is admirably done and his scholarship on this particular 
 subject unimpeachable. 
 
 Modern Drama in Europe 
 
 STORM JAMESON 
 
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 The very low ebb to which the drama has fallen in recent years in 
 England is found also to be the mark in most European countries. An 
 amount of criticism has been levelled at the productions offered that is 
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 to be constructive is probably due to the fact that modern criticism is 
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