"JOHN" RUSSELL'S REASONS FOR WHIG UNPOPULARITY.
THE defeat of the Ministerial candidates at Gloucester and Dudley, and the unequivocal assurance given to Mr. WARRE by his con- stituents at Hastings, that his proposed connexion with Govern- ment would cost him his seat, were alluded to by Colonel EVANS in the House of Commons on Wednesday, in such terms as to pro- voce Lord JOHN RUSSELL to a very unfortunate display of what, we presume, he intended for jocularity. The reason why the Mi- nisterial candidates lost their seats in the House, could, said Lord Joirs, be very easily explained.
" The members of former Cabinets had a really course to regain entrance to ti,e llouse, through a constituency of but few individuals. That, however, was not the case since the passing of the Reform Bill ; and the present Ministers, almost to a man, represented large constituencies. What had, therefore, taken place was not to be wondered at. At the time of the discussion of the Reform Bill he foresaw that such might be the case, even though the Government enjoyed the fall share of the confidence of the People, which it ought to have; and in that be was not mistaken. With respect to the two instances in which the elections had failed, Gloucester and Dudley, he thought that the fair inferewe to be drawn from the result of those elections was, that Government land been going too rapidly on in the was of innovation ; and the people, in order Is put a stop to such things, bad sent Conservatives into Parliament."
The subject is hardly one for joking with. Mr. CRAVEN BERKELEY and Sir JOHN CAMPBELL think it a very serious mat- ter ; and what is of more consequence, the Reformers of England are displeased and disappointed, not by any means amused, with the turn things have taken. The Reformers have the power in their own hands of returning whom they choose from Gloucester, Dudley, and Hastings ; but they no longer consider it a recom- mendation to a candidate that he is the colleague of Lord JOHN RUSSELL and his fellow Whigs. They see little difference between the mere partisans of the present Government and the Con- servatives, and therefore will not bestir themselves to secure the election of the former. Lord JOHN RUSSELL himself will probably take refuge in Tavistock from the ire of his Devonshire consti- tuents; for it happens, luckily for him, that his father still retains a pocket borough, with a "constituency of but few individuals." Lord JOHN RUSSELL does not believe that Government is un- popular because it has been going on too rapidly with the work of innovation. He knows too well that its spiritless policy, its tampering with Toryism, has blown its popularity to tatters. It may be very dignified and aristocratical to pretend indifference on the subject, and to sneer at the displeasure of the nation ; but it was by quite a different road that Lord JOHN RUSSELL found his way into the Cabinet. What is he, and what are his Whig colleagues, when deprived of the popular respect and attachment ? Helpless aristocrats, of less popular manners than the Tories.
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