Balfour The Right Hon Arthur James

Balfour, The Right Hon. Arthur James, LL.D., born in 1848, educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, was returned to Parliament for Hertford in 1874, and from 1878 to 1880 acted as private secretary to his uncle, Lord Salisbury, whom he accompanied to the Berlin Conference. After the general election of 1880 he joined for a time the "Fourth Party," under Lord Randolph Churchill. On the accession of the Conservatives to office in 1885 he became President of the Local Government Board. In 1886 he undertook the arduous duties of Chief Secretary for Ireland. His five years of office were marked by the famous Parnell Commission, the Criminal Law and Procedure Act, the extension of the Land Acts, and Land Purchase Acts. In 1891 he became First Lord of the Treasury, and in 1892 Leader of the Opposition, when the Conservatives went out of office. In 1895 he became First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House. Mr. Balfour is the author of A Defence of Philosophic Doubt and The Foundations of Belief.