Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/428

 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1855- Graham, Gladstone, Herbert, and Card well, were in a different position. They were bound both by inclination and by honour to defend the character of their friend and late chief, Lord Aberdeen, and the vote for a committee directly im- pugned his ability, if not his political honesty. To take office, in the face of a national emergency, under a Premier who had succeeded him, was possible to them ; but to consent to what was virtually a continuance of a vote of censure was quite another matter, and they resolved to resign, the announce- ment being made on the 23rd of February. It was indicative of the peculiar state of parties that secessions of such importance did not for a moment shake the stability of the Ministry. Had there been any question of political principle involved in the arrangements or in the thought of Parliament, such a transaction could not have taken place. It suited the views of the Prime Minister to consider his Government merely as an administrative machine ; he neither desired nor intended to raise any constitutional issue, and a change in the details of the machinery was there- fore not a matter of supreme importance. Equally significant was the way in which the vacancies were filled up and the Cabinet completed. In appearance the Ministry was made /more homogeneous, all the new members being Whigs, and there was no character of coalition left. In reality the Government was not made more Liberal in itself, and it was more at the mercy of one or other section of the Opposition. The most peculiar point was the acceptance of office by Lord John Russell, who now took a place under the man " whom but a short time before he had dismissed from his own administration for insubordination. That was a personal matter only, and no one would have thought the worse of Russell for sinking considerations of his individual dignity in the desire to serve the country in a time of difficulty. But Russell, who had previously made his alliance with Aberdeen conditional on Parliamentary reform being adopted as a Cabinet question, now accepted as his chief the man who was a well-known opponent of reform. The old characteristic