They professed that their sole object was to prevent extravagant fluctuations in price; and they were quite as touching and lachrymose in the pictures which they drew of the evils certain to arise from a range of low prices, as in those descriptive of the opposite extreme. Let us again refresh ourselves with a few sentences from the work of Mr James Wilson—sentences which afford good ground for hope that, upon the next agricultural division, we may find the member for Westbury using his best endeavour to repair some of the mischief which recent legislation has inflicted. The reader will bear in mind that Mr Wilson distinctly enunciated 52s. 2d. to be the proper price for wheat, at which an exactly sufficient amount of production would be kept up. “It never can be advantageous for the community at large that they should consume the produce of any one party below the cost of production; for a period is not very far distant when the consequences must react, and infallibly produce high prices and great scarcity; and we will show that the evils of the reaction are far greater than any advantage derived from the low prices.”—_Influences of the Corn Laws_, p. 28. Again: “Our belief is, that the whole of these generally received opinions are erroneous; that if we had had a free trade in corn since 1815, the average price of the whole period, actually received by the British grower, would have been higher than it has been; that little or no more foreign grain would have been imported; and that if, for the next twenty years, the whole protective system shall be abandoned, _the average price of wheat will be higher than it has been for the last seven years_, (52s. 2d.,) or than it would be in the future with a continuance of the present system; but with this great difference, that prices would be nearly uniform and unaltering from year to year; that the disastrous fluctuations would be greatly avoided, which we have shown in the first proposition to be so ruinous under the present system.”—P. 56. Perhaps we cannot better illustrate this part of our subject, than by transcribing the second “proposition” laid down by the present Secretary of the Board of Control. It is so unambiguous in its terms that we are saved the necessity of a commentary. Mark, and perpend! “PROPOSITION THE SECOND.—That the agricultural interest has derived no benefit, but great injury, from the existing laws; and that the fears and apprehensions of the ruinous consequences which would result to this interest by the adoption of a free and liberal policy with respect to the trade in corn, are without any foundation: THAT THE VALUE OF THIS PROPERTY, INSTEAD OF BEING DEPRECIATED, ON THE AGGREGATE WOULD BE RATHER ENHANCED, AND THE GENERAL INTERESTS OF THE OWNERS MOST DECIDEDLY BENEFITED THEREBY.”