Pease had apparently indicated that he was in declining health before the general election of 1900 but was pressed by his local Liberal Association to contest that election. He did so on condition that if his condition made it impossible for him to sit for the whole Parliament he would be allowed to resign, and by September 1902 he referred to ill-health and asked to step down. He did so with the appointment as Steward of the Manor of Northstead on 21 October 1902. With the failure of the family business interests in 1902, he thus brought his political career to a close and amidst the wreckage sought out new opportunity, which was to take him to South Africa.