Legislation, in fact, had been brought to a standstill by the anti-Papal Bill, which had been obstinately obstructed. The prestige of the Ministry was gone, and their natural strength completely abated by the mutiny of the Irish Whigs. And yet, when Lord John Russell resumed office after his resignation, he gained rather than lost in power, and the attack on him became more and more languid every day. The truth is that the people did not think much about politics after May, 1851. The Ministry was safe after the failure of the Tories to take their places. But it was no stronger than when it had been beaten on Mr. Locke King’s motion, and its lease of office depended largely on the tolerance of disdain. The people were indeed preoccupied with the Great Industrial Exhibition of All Nations to such an extent that they paid no more attention, during the latter half of the Session, to the doings of the Government, than to the debates of a local vestry. “There is,” writes Mr. Greville on the 8th of June, “a picture in _Punch_ of the shipwrecked Government saved by the ‘Exhibition’ steamer, which really is historically true, thanks in great measure to the attractions of the Exhibition, which has acted on the public as well as upon Parliament.... There has been so much indifference and _insouciance_ about politics and parties that John Russell and his Cabinet have been released from all present danger. The cause of Protection gets weaker and weaker every day; all sensible and practical men give it up as hopeless.”[36] That he had been saved by the “Great Exhibition” steamer evidently did not satisfy Lord John Russell. Hence he seems to have been ever hankering after a plan for strengthening his Cabinet by the addition to it of a Peelite element. Sir George Cornewall Lewis was sent down to Netherby in September to intrigue with Sir James Graham for this purpose, but Graham, though offered the Board of Control, or as it would now be called the India Office, refused to join the Cabinet because he was afraid lest Lord John Russell might make dangerous concessions to the Party who were agitating for Parliamentary Reform. It is interesting to note that Lord Palmerston strongly opposed this project of inviting Graham to join the Whig Cabinet, and strove hard to induce his colleagues to make their overtures to Mr. Gladstone. It is impossible to blame Sir James for the course he took. Lord John Russell’s incurable antipathy to statistical research induced him to hand over the question of Reform to a small Ministerial Committee, consisting of Lord Minto, Lord Carlisle, and Sir C. Wood, and so little did the Whigs love Reform, that some of them, like Lord Lansdowne, had resolved to leave the Cabinet if a strong Reform measure were proposed.