27 DECEMBER 1845, Page 11

THE WHIG ABORTION.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL accepted office and framed his Ministry in such manner as if his sole object were to show how utterly in- competent he was to execute the task—bow very objectionable his Ministry would have been. He, as the leader of her Majesty's Opposition, solemnly proclaims the country in danger ; he is graciously deputed to rescue it ; he gallantly undertakes the enterprise ; and—breaks down at the outset. He cannot even muster his men. He did not realize even a promise or shadow of success. If he had been joking—making game of his Country and his Sovereign,—if he had intended to back out of a boast.. beg scrape by a pretended failure, a kind of political swindle, the appearances would not have been very different. We do not impute to him anything so unworthy : doubtless, he was not in- sincere—he would have repealed the Corn-laws if he could : but he wanted heart, and above all, strength, for so rough a job. He wanted the courage, or vigour, or whatever you please to call it, which a man must have to be a leader in trying times.

Lord John's notions of a "Liberal" Cabinet are equally inept. Where has the man been slumbering for these five years, who could imagine that a revival of the Melbourne Ministry would do to begin the year 1846 withal ? Yet such was his intended Cabinet.

Every name was stale ; each, almost in each office assigned to it, raised a ghost of dreary helplessness in old times. Lord Palmer- ston retained in the Foreign Office suggests nothing but visions of French hostilities driving English sojourners in disgust from Paris ; losing litigation, never ending, with the United States ; and trouble everywhere. But fancy Sir John Hobhouse, with the tra- gedy of the Afghan invasion yet unforgotten, retained at the Board of Control! There was not a new man of mark among them : the ablest suffered from being thus restored to an alliance which savoured of nothing but memories of wearisome pertinacity in de- feat. There was not a single infusion of freshness, of young strength, in a Ministry which undertook the task of grappling with the ancient spirit of Monopoly—which had to face a hostile majority in both Houses, and could not possibly have achieved success except by a certain 'audacity in making the attack. Lord John had mustered a forlorn hope of Chelsea pensioners ; and he gave up the command because he lacked the personal influence to snake them agree together ! Like the Bourbons, it may be said of him that he had neither forgotten nor learned anything during his exile from power. Earl Grey, as Lord Howick, had escaped the last worst debase- ments of the Whig decay in Lord Melbourne's time : as a Peer, he is in a new position, with every probability of excelling his former repute. The Whig place-hunters are furious because they think (erroneously, as we have the means of showing in our news) that he it was who spoiled this their last opportunity. On the con- trary, he alone would have made the opportunity worth anything. 'The choice of Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary looked like an evil destiny : it excited an ague-fit in the City ; it spread a "gloom" over the Bourse at Paris : if the Ministry had not been laughed to death beforehand, the distrust occasioned by Lord Pal- merston would have destroyed it. Lord Grey would fain have removed that incubus ; and if his wiser counsel had been followed, the Whigs might really have enjoyed place for a time—all, down to Mr. Vernon Smith, would have had a chance. Even as a leader for the party, therefore, Lord Grey appeared to be a safer man than Lord John Russell. The coming session must bring forth some curious explanations : it will also severely try the men who were to have constituted Lord John's abortive Ministry ; and not less severely, Lord John himself. We suspect that he has at least done one thing effectually—proved himself not at all the man that ought to be "sent for" in the next national emergency.