Arthur Balfour - Service in Lord Salisbury's Governments

Service in Lord Salisbury's Governments

In 1885, Lord Salisbury appointed Balfour as President of the Local Government Board; the following year he became Secretary for Scotland, with a seat in the cabinet. These offices, while offering few opportunities for distinction, served as an apprenticeship for Balfour. In early 1887, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, resigned because of illness and Salisbury appointed his nephew in his place. The selection took the political world by surprise and possibly led to the British phrase "Bob's your uncle!". Balfour surprised his critics by his ruthless enforcement of the Crimes Act, earning the nickname "Bloody Balfour". Balfour's skill for steady administration did much to dispel his reputation as a political lightweight.

In Parliament he resisted any overtures to the Irish Parliamentary Party on Home Rule, and, allied with Joseph Chamberlain's Liberal Unionists, strongly encouraged Unionist activism in Ireland. Balfour also broadened the basis of material prosperity to the less well off by creating the Congested Districts Board for Ireland in 1890. It was during this period of 1886–1892 that he sharpened his gift of oratory and gained a reputation as one of the most effective public speakers of the age. Impressive in matter rather than in delivery, his speeches were logical and convincing, and delighted an ever wider audience.

On the death of W.H. Smith in 1891, Balfour became First Lord of the Treasury—the last one in British history not to have been concurrently Prime Minister as well—and Leader of the House of Commons. After the fall of the government in 1892 he spent three years in opposition. When the Conservatives returned to power, in a coalition with the Liberal Unionists, in 1895, Balfour once again assumed the positions of Leader of the House and First Lord of the Treasury. His management of the abortive education proposals of 1896 were thought to show a disinclination for the continuous drudgery of parliamentary management, yet he had the satisfaction of seeing the passage of a bill providing Ireland with an improved system of local government, and took an active role in the debates on the various foreign and domestic questions that came before parliament between 1895 to 1900.

During the illness of Lord Salisbury in 1898, and again in Lord Salisbury's absence abroad, Balfour was put in charge of the Foreign Office, and it was his job to conduct the critical negotiations with Russia on the question of railways in North China. As a member of the cabinet responsible for the Transvaal negotiations in 1899, he bore his full share of controversy and, when the war began disastrously, he was the first to realise the need to put the full military strength of the country into the field. His leadership of the House of Commons was marked by considerable firmness in the suppression of obstruction, yet there was a slight revival of the criticisms of 1896.