THE NEW ENGLISH LEADER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 44, 31 October 1891, Page 533

THE NEW ENGLISH LEADER.

(SEE ILLUSTRATION EKONT I’AGE.) On our front page appears a portrait of the Kight Hon. A. J. Balfour, the new leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons. He is only forty-three, and his attainment to so distinguished a position at such an early age has rarely been equalled in the arena of English politics. Mr Balfour is the son of the late James Maitland Balfour, Esq., of Whittinghame, and Lady Blanche Mary Harriet, daughter of the second Marquis of Salisbury, and was Jborn July 25th, 1848, educated at Eton, and at Trinity College, Cambridge (M.A. 1873, Hon. LL.D. Edinburgh 1881, St. Andrew’s 1885, and Cambridge 1888); is a D.L. for East Lothian and Ross-shire; was private secretary to the Marquis of Salisbury when Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1878-80; employed on special mission of Lords Beaconsfield and Salisbury to Berlin, June 1878; P.C., 1885; president of Local Government Board June 1885 to January 1886 ; and secretary for Scotland, July 1886 to March 1887 ; since which time he has been chief secretary for Ireland, with a seat in the Cabinet since November 1886. He sat for Hertford, February 1874, to November 1885, of and since then he has sat for the Eastern division of Manchester. He was elected Lord Rector of St. Andrew’s University, November 1886; was Keeper of the Privy Seal, Ireland, 1887 ; Chancellor of the Order of St. Patrick, 1887; vice-president of the Committee of Council on Education for Scotland ; chairman of the Commission on Bi-Metallism, 1887; elected F.R.S., 1888; member of the Senate of London University, 1888 ; the Freedom of the City of London was conferred on him in 1888 ; and he was elected member of the Committee on Town Holdings, Procedure of the House of Commons, etc. He is the author of a ‘ Defence of Philosophic Doubt,’ published 1879, and various magazine articles.