compelled to close their establishments for the want of a home market; and we should have no revenue left to pay the expenses of the cheapest kind of provisional government, far less the interest of the national debt. Are the Ministry really aware of what they are doing? According to their own admissions—according to the calculations of their supporters—according to the estimates of the leading Free-traders, the tenant-farmers are at this moment cultivating the soil at a prodigious annual loss. No possible reduction of rent can suffice to cure the evil, even if a reduction of rent, which would throw hundreds of thousands out of employment, were no evil in itself. And yet, in this state of matters, the Whigs have thought proper to issue a prosperity address, almost without qualification, in the name of their gracious Sovereign! We shall now entreat the attention of our readers to a point in which almost every man of ordinary means in this country is vitally interested. For a great many years the benefits to be derived from LIFE INSURANCE, as the best means of providing portions for families, have been acknowledged and largely sought. All classes have participated in these Assurances; and we believe that, in Scotland, it would be difficult to find any considerable number of professional persons, or tradesmen, who do not contribute to the funds of some of the numerous societies. We are not exactly aware what may be the method practised in England, but in Scotland by far the greater portion of the accumulated funds of these societies, amounting to many millions sterling, is lent on the security of the land. The value of the land, as every one knows, must in the aggregate depend on its productive power; and, if present prices are to rule, (and why they should not do so, under present legislation, no mortal man can tell us,) great tracts of the land of this country must go out of cultivation, and consequently be depreciated in value. In that case, how will the creditor fare? There is already a disposition shown, in some quarters, to make the creditor participate in the reduced income of the landed debtor. So hints Lord Drumlanrig, and he is not quite singular in his opinion. This is just repudiation; for could the idea be carried into effect, it would be necessary to apply the same rule to the principal as to the interest, and to provide that the lender of £100 under protection, should not be entitled to claim from his debtor more than £67 under the benign, just, and wholesome operation of free trade. Were this view to be adopted, and the adjustment made on the supposition that rents were only lowered by a third, the family of the man who has insured his life for £100, and regularly paid the premium, would lose rather more than £33. But a reduction of the whole rental of Great Britain and Ireland, to the extent of one-third, would amount to little more than £19,500,000,—a sum utterly insufficient to meet the depreciation, if we adopt the figures