Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour
Conservative Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Cecil Bloc-Milner Group bridge (1848-1930)
Also known as: Balfour, Arthur Balfour, A. J. Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848-1930), was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1902-1905), Foreign Secretary (1916-1919) — author of the Balfour Declaration — and Lord President of the Council under several later governments. As Lord Salisbury's nephew and chosen heir, he is in Quigley's analysis the central node connecting the Cecil Bloc with the The Milner Group across half a century, and one of the original members listed on Rhodes's secret-society 'Circle of Initiates' in 1891.
Salisbury's heir
Balfour was Salisbury's nephew — 'his nephew, protege, and hand-picked successor' (T&H 487) — and entered politics through the Cecil family pipeline. He served as Chief Secretary for Ireland (1887-1891) and Leader of the House of Commons before succeeding Salisbury as Prime Minister in 1902. 'The Balfour government was nothing but a continuation of Salisbury's government, since, as we have seen, Balfour was Salisbury's nephew and chief assistant and was made premier in 1902 by his uncle' (AAE 15). The 1902-1905 government 'was really nothing but a continuation of the Salisbury government, but it was a pale imitation. Balfour was far from being the strong personality his uncle was' (T&H 494).
The Souls and the secret society
Balfour was a leading figure of 'The Souls' — the late-Victorian intellectual-social set that overlapped with the Cecil Bloc and that Quigley treats as a key recruitment pool for the Group. In Quigley's reconstruction of the 1891 founding of the secret society, Balfour appears on the original list of 'potential members of a "Circle of Initiates"': 'In this secret society Rhodes was to be leader; Stead, Brett (Lord Esher), and Milner were to form an executive committee; Arthur (Lord) Balfour, (Sir) Harry Johnston, Lord Rothschild, Albert (Lord) Grey, and others were listed as potential members of a "Circle of Initiates"; while there was to be an outer circle known as the "Association of Helpers"' (T&H 144). Brett's journal records that on 15 February 1890, 'at Lord Rothschild's country house... Cecil Rhodes, Arthur Balfour, Harcourts, Albert Grey, Alfred Lyttelton. A long talk with Rhodes today' (AAE 33).
Foreign Secretary and the Balfour Declaration
Balfour returned to high office as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915 and Foreign Secretary in 1916 under Lloyd George. As Foreign Secretary he issued the document for which he is best remembered: the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, a letter to Lord Rothschild expressing British support for 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people' (T&H 259-260). Quigley records the considerable Milner-Group involvement in the drafting and treats the Declaration as part of the larger Anglo-Jewish-Zionist negotiation around the disposition of the Ottoman Empire. Balfour also led the British delegation to the 1921-1922 Washington Naval Conference (AAE 131) and gave the famous Balfour Declaration on Dominion status (1926), which became law as the Statute of Westminster (1931): 'This point of view was restated in the so-called Balfour Declaration of 1926 and was enacted into law as the Statute of Westminster in 1931' (T&H 161).
The Versailles role
Quigley records Balfour as one of the senior British figures at Versailles, although on procedural questions he was deferential to Lloyd George. 'As late as May 22nd, Balfour, the British foreign secretary, still believed they were working on "preliminary peace terms," and the Germans believed it on April 25th' (T&H 282) — Quigley uses Balfour's confusion to illustrate how thoroughly the Council of Four had improvised its way past the planned procedure. Balfour was 'Lord President of the Council' through the 1920s and was an active participant in the inter-war policy decisions that produced the Dawes Plan, Locarno, and disarmament conferences. Quigley notes in passing that 'the machinery for collective security had been removed from the League of Nations by Conservatives like Curzon, Balfour, Sir A. Chamberlain, and Sir Cecil Hurst' (Book Reviews, 157).
Cited in
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 7 Quigley
By 1902, when the leadership of the Cecil Bloc had fallen from the masterful grasp of Lord Salisbury into the rather indifferent hands of Arthur Balfour, and Rhodes had died, leaving Milner as the chief controller of his vast estate, the Milner Group was already established.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 14 Quigley
One of his sisters was the mother of Arthur J. Balfour and Gerald W. Balfour.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 144 Quigley
In this secret society Rhodes was to be leader; Stead, Brett (Lord Esher), and Milner were to form an executive committee; Arthur (Lord) Balfour, (Sir) Harry Johnston, Lord Rothschild, Albert (Lord) Grey, and others were listed as potential members of a 'Circle of Initiates.'
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 259 Quigley
The next document concerned with the disposition of the Ottoman Empire was the famous 'Balfour Declaration' of November 1917. Probably no document of the wartime period, except Wilson's Fourteen Points, has given rise to more disputes than this brief statement of less than eleven lines.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 260 Quigley
Balfour's letter said, 'His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.'
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 161 Quigley
This point of view was restated in the so-called Balfour Declaration of 1926 and was enacted into law as the Statute of Westminster in 1931.