In May 1905 Sir Edward Grey voiced the opinion that foreign affairs were not matters of party controversy. The public treatment of foreign affairs in speeches delivered towards the end of that year and during the election campaign that followed the resignation of the Conservative Government would seem to confirm that opinion. On 6 November Lord Lansdowne welcomed a number of speeches by leading Liberals which had been ‘almost without exception favourable to the general lines of foreign policy which [the Conservatives] have pursued’. He went on:

Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, the leader of the Liberal Party, followed this on 16 November with a speech designed to counter any alarm ‘lest on any change of hands there may be some breach of continuity in our foreign policy’. He assured his audience that ‘there will be no breach in the consistency and continuity of your foreign policy so long as your foreign policy is sound’. He found no fault with the general tone, spirit and aim of Lord Lansdowne's foreign policy. Indeed, the foreign policy of the Conservative Government was ‘the best thing about it’.