It would be hard to say whether this speech made more stir at home or abroad. For more than a week the declarations upon British foreign policy were the chief theme of the Continental press. And in Berlin, Vienna and Rome they received a measure of welcome which grew as their phrasing was more carefully examined. Lord Randolph’s outspoken condemnation of the Bulgarian kidnapping conspiracy was declared to give a satisfaction to the moral feelings of Christendom which had been looked for in vain in the late utterances of European statesmen. The announcement that Great Britain would take her part in the work of preserving international peace, and that her influence would be exerted upon the side of the Central Powers—not for the sake of the old pro-Turkish policy, but in the name of the liberties of the Balkan peoples—was accepted with the utmost satisfaction in Berlin. The style of the declaration created an impression of calm authority; and ‘Palmerston Redivivus’ is an expression which repeatedly appears in the foreign despatches and articles of that time.
At home the Conservative party was too much astonished to give vent immediately to any effective opinion. The party newspapers generally applauded the proposals and tone of the speech as ‘temperate, reasonable, and practical.’ The Times observed that the programme in its scope and fulness ‘recalled the palmy days of Mr. Gladstone.’ The Opposition, with evident disgust, denounced the Chancellor of the Exchequer as ‘an unscrupulous opportunist’ who had stolen the policies of his Radical opponents and had calmly appropriated their famous motto of ‘Peace, Retrenchment and Reform.’ It was not until some days had passed that the perplexed anxiety in Tory circles found expression in grumblings that the Prime Minister was being effaced by his lieutenant. But even then no sign could be discerned in any quarter of a wish or intention to repudiate the policy declared.
From all this buzzing, friendly and unfriendly alike, Lord Randolph fled secretly and silently. For more than a week he was lost to the public eye. It was rumoured that he had passed through Paris and Berlin on October 7; but it was not until the 12th that ‘Mr. Spencer,’ an English tourist, who with his friend Mr. Trafford had been looking at picture galleries, museums and theatres at Dresden and Prague, was identified with the orator of Dartford.
Few things were more remarkable in Lord Randolph Churchill’s brief career than the quickness with which he acquired a European reputation. All over the Continent he was already regarded as the future master of English politics. The tension in the East was unrelieved and the diplomatic skies were grey and shifting. Here was the second personage in the British Cabinet, fresh from a most important public statement, travelling incognito through Germany and Austria. What had he done in his passage through Berlin? Had he a mission to Bismarck? Had he been to Varzin or not? From this moment his movements were watched with the most minute and provoking curiosity and the fullest details were telegraphed to every capital. The press revived memories of Gambetta’s journey to Frankfort, and perhaps beyond, two years before his death. We learn from the foreign intelligence of the Times of October 13 that ‘Mr. Spencer’ and Mr. Trafford, ‘the two travellers whose every step is watched by the European press,’ have been ‘residing at the Imperial Hotel [Vienna] since yesterday.’ They had been received by a crowd at the station, and several persons who had seen Lord Randolph Churchill in England had ‘maintained most positively’ that ‘Mr. Spencer’ was identical with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We are told that ‘Mr. Spencer’ looked somewhat fatigued, and retired to rest after telling the landlord ‘in emphatic terms’ that he had come to Vienna for nobody, and proposed without exception to receive no one; that he walked about the town both in the morning and afternoon, and visited among others the shop of Herr Weidmann ‘where the most exquisite Vienna leather goods are made’; that in the evening he had heard Millöcker’s operetta ‘The Vice-Admiral’ at the Theater an der Wien; and that he was everywhere dogged by journalists, who gave the public elaborate descriptions of his person, the shape of his hat and the colour of his coat.
‘I am hopelessly discovered,’ wrote Lord Randolph to his wife (October 12). ‘At the station yesterday I found a whole army of reporters, at whom I scowled in my most effective manner. Really it is almost intolerable that one cannot travel about without this publicity. How absurd the English papers are! Anything equal to the lies of the Daily News and Pall Mall I never read: that Pall Mall is most mischievous.... W. H. Smith is here, and we had a long talk last night. I have got him to go and see Paget—who wanted me to go and dine with him—and tell him that as I saw no one at Berlin I did not wish to see anyone here. The reporters have been besieging the hotel this morning, but I have sent them all away without a word. The weather is fine and bright, though there is an autumn chill in the air.... This pottering about Europe de ville en ville suits me down to the ground, if it were not for the beastly newspapers.’
His holiday was a short one. On his way back through Paris he had an interview which would certainly have interested those curious folk who had pried so zealously upon his unguarded leisure:—
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Iddesleigh.