As Foreign Secretary in the Salisbury and then Balfour governments (1900–05) Lansdowne negotiated the Anglo‐Japanese Alliance (1902) and the entente cordiale (1904) with France. From 1906 Lansdowne led the Conservative Opposition in the House of Lords. His use of the veto on legislation from the House of Commons resulted in the Parliament Act (1911), which reduced the power of the Lords to a two‐year suspensory veto. He was the author of the Lansdowne letter of November 1917 in the Daily Telegraph advocating a negotiated peace with Germany.