Treasury and Leader of the House, in lieu of his uncle, who preferred to live at home, the passion for politics latent in his blood had grown with growing skill and power. Yet it did not disturb his temperamental detachment. When meeting criticism he would regard it, not as something to resent, but as a thing to be examined like an interesting beetle. “Quite a good fellow,” he would say of an opponent, “has a curious view, not uninteresting.” He was at heart both a conservative who wanted to retain the best of the world he knew and a liberal with, as his sister-in-law remarked, “a sympathetic outlook for all progress.” People felt in him “a natural spring of youth,” in the words of one friend, and a “freshness, serenity and buoyancy” in the words of another. Later, as Prime Minister, he was the first in that office to go to Buckingham Palace in a motorcar and the first to go to the House of Commons in a Homburg hat.
He thought of himself as belonging to the younger generation of Tories who recognized the necessity of responding to the rising challenge of the working class. Yet bred as they were in privilege they could not, when issues came to a test, range themselves on the side of the invaders. In his first years in Parliament, Balfour had joined the four “Radical” Tories of the Fourth Party led by Lord Randolph Churchill. They occupied the Front Bench below the gangway and Balfour sat with them, because, he said, he had room there for his legs, but the choice indicated a point of view. The Fourth Party were gadflies in the cause of what was called “Tory Democracy,” the belief that the rising political power of Labour could be harnessed in partnership with the Tories. If Labour, stated Lord Randolph in 1892, found that it could “obtain its objects and secure its own advantage” under the existing constitution—which it was the Tories’ business to preserve—then all would be well; but if the Conservatives stubbornly resisted these demands in “unreasoning and shortsighted support of all the present rights of property,” then Labour would be ranged against them. Since the Tories were a minority in the country, it was incumbent on them to enlist in their support “a majority of the votes of the masses of Labour.”
Balfour was never thoroughly persuaded of this convincingly worded argument, any more than, when it came to a practical test, was Lord Randolph himself. In the abstract, Balfour believed in democracy and extension of the suffrage and in improvement of working conditions and of the rights of Labour but not at the cost of breaking down the walls of privilege that protected the ruling class. Here was the fundamental difficulty of Tory Democracy. Its advocates thought it possible to meet the demands of the workers while at the same time preserving intact the citadel of privilege, but Balfour suspected the bitter truth of history: that progress and gain by one group is never accomplished without loss of some permanent value of another. He continued to express his belief that Socialism would never get possession of the working classes “if those who wield the collective forces of the community show themselves desirous … to ameliorate every legitimate grievance.” But when it came to specific acts of amelioration he was not enthusiastic or deeply concerned. “What exactly is a ‘Trade Union’?” he once asked a Liberal friend. Margot Asquith said to him that he was like his uncle in having a wonderful sense of humor, literary style and a deep concern with science and religion. Was there any difference between them? “There is a difference,” Balfour replied. “My uncle is a Tory—and I am a liberal.” Yet the fact that his uncle remained undisturbed by Balfour’s early association with the Tory “Radicals” and that the perfect confidence between them remained unclouded suggests that there was a basic identity of belief stronger than the difference.
Balfour seemed an
He thought of himself as belonging to the younger generation of Tories who recognized the necessity of responding to the rising challenge of the working class. Yet bred as they were in privilege they could not, when issues came to a test, range themselves on the side of the invaders. In his first years in Parliament, Balfour had joined the four “Radical” Tories of the Fourth Party led by Lord Randolph Churchill. They occupied the Front Bench below the gangway and Balfour sat with them, because, he said, he had room there for his legs, but the choice indicated a point of view. The Fourth Party were gadflies in the cause of what was called “Tory Democracy,” the belief that the rising political power of Labour could be harnessed in partnership with the Tories. If Labour, stated Lord Randolph in 1892, found that it could “obtain its objects and secure its own advantage” under the existing constitution—which it was the Tories’ business to preserve—then all would be well; but if the Conservatives stubbornly resisted these demands in “unreasoning and shortsighted support of all the present rights of property,” then Labour would be ranged against them. Since the Tories were a minority in the country, it was incumbent on them to enlist in their support “a majority of the votes of the masses of Labour.”
Balfour was never thoroughly persuaded of this convincingly worded argument, any more than, when it came to a practical test, was Lord Randolph himself. In the abstract, Balfour believed in democracy and extension of the suffrage and in improvement of working conditions and of the rights of Labour but not at the cost of breaking down the walls of privilege that protected the ruling class. Here was the fundamental difficulty of Tory Democracy. Its advocates thought it possible to meet the demands of the workers while at the same time preserving intact the citadel of privilege, but Balfour suspected the bitter truth of history: that progress and gain by one group is never accomplished without loss of some permanent value of another. He continued to express his belief that Socialism would never get possession of the working classes “if those who wield the collective forces of the community show themselves desirous … to ameliorate every legitimate grievance.” But when it came to specific acts of amelioration he was not enthusiastic or deeply concerned. “What exactly is a ‘Trade Union’?” he once asked a Liberal friend. Margot Asquith said to him that he was like his uncle in having a wonderful sense of humor, literary style and a deep concern with science and religion. Was there any difference between them? “There is a difference,” Balfour replied. “My uncle is a Tory—and I am a liberal.” Yet the fact that his uncle remained undisturbed by Balfour’s early association with the Tory “Radicals” and that the perfect confidence between them remained unclouded suggests that there was a basic identity of belief stronger than the difference.
Balfour seemed an
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