"Me ispectator," Olarch 1St, 1851
LORD JOHN RUSSELL has failed to work the political machine to good purpose, but he has shown that he can bring it to a dead stop: he has broken up his oft Cabinet, apparently beyond the possibility of reconstruction or patching ; and at the time we write no one has appeared who is prepared to make a new one.
Only three Ministerial arrangements appear to have presented themselves to men's minds as at all feasible: a Russell Ministry, patched up of the least damaged portions of the old and the friends of Sir John Graham ; a Stanley Ministry, to be com- pounded of any materials Lord Stanley could get together ; and a Graham Ministry of pure " Peelites," or with an admixture of Whigs and Liberals. The Reform Act is well nigh twenty years old, yet its system has produced no man capable of leading. Nay, every one of three possible leaders was a member of the Ministry which originated and carried the Reform Bill. That measure seems to have narrowed instead of extending the nation's choice of statesmen.
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