This account, it will be observed, is dated posterior to the opening of Parliament. We may therefore be told that the depression had no existence at the time when the royal speech was framed. Such was not the case. The depression was felt much earlier, as appears by the following extract taken from a favourite organ of the Free-traders. On 1st December last, the _Economist_ thus spoke of the cotton trade— “At the beginning of this year, great expectations were entertained of our home demand. It was argued, and with good reason, that we never yet had a year of general employment and low prices of provisions combined, which was not also a year of very large domestic consumption of manufactured fabrics. This year labour has been in very brisk request, and food has never been so cheap and plentiful since 1836. Yet our expectations from these facts have not been fully answered. The sellers of printing-cloths and medium shirtings report that their home demand has, on the whole, been good; the sellers of domestics report, on the contrary, a decidedly dull business, worse than that of last year; but we believe that all agree that the anticipations with which they began the year have by no means been realised. We suspect the cause to be this:—The depreciation in railway property, the effects of the Irish famine, and the commercial crash in 1847, have impoverished all classes of the community to a much greater extent than has been allowed for in the calculations of our tradesmen. We question whether ‘the power of purchase,’ on the part of the British community, is nearly equal to what it was in 1845.”