ABSTRACT
In December 1905 Arthur Balfour, the Conservative Prime Minister resigned as he could not heal the split between free traders and those advocating ‘tariff preference for colonial products'. It had been his advocacy of this new tariff policy which had led to Joseph Chamberlain's earlier resignation as Secretary of State for the Colonies. The King asked the Liberal leader Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to form a new interim government; the Liberals won the subsequent election by a massive landslide.
