of Mr Villiers, or even if we make the largest allowance for exaggeration. The merest tyro in political science knows that land incapable of cultivation is comparatively worthless in price: we have a practical instance of that at present before us in Ireland, where estates have been actually abandoned by their owners. Now, if land at present under tillage should go out of cultivation, on account of the sale of the produce being inadequate to its cost—a catastrophe to which our northern districts are fast approaching—it must become, to all intents and purposes, waste; and the creditor who has lent money on its security will find that, instead of grain-bearing acres, he can take possession of nothing save a wilderness of heather and furze. Every man, therefore, whose life is insured, has a direct interest in the maintenance of the agricultural prosperity of the country. If _that_ is not maintained, the provision which he has prudently made for his family is placed in extreme jeopardy, and free-trade legislation may utterly neutralise his thrift. Nor let him quarrel with the security, for there is none better. If the land goes down, the tenure of the existence of the Funds is worse than precarious. If the imports of foreign corn and provisions shall augment materially during the next two years, and if “the great experiment,” as it has been called, shall be persevered in so long, the fortunes and apparent destiny of this great country must be materially and radically altered. In any case, there must be a change, and a change of an important description. The unprincipled Currency Act of 1819 has yet to undergo a revision. In spite of _dilettante_ arrangements, and financial hocus-pocus, sedulously invented to blind the eyes of the community to the rottenness and peculation of our present monetary system, that matter must be thoroughly probed and examined by the aid of a clearer light than the lamp of the Jew Ricardo. But, for the present, it would be unwise to complicate the immediate question. Our stand is taken upon the broad basis of justice to native industry. We care not in what form or shape that industry is developed—whether it be applied to agriculture, trade, or manufactures—so long as it is industry seeking but its own, and disclaiming the selfish and sordid end of making an individual profit at the expense, and from the ruin, of other classes of the community. Sometimes, in calmly considering the course of our legislation for the last few years, this reflection irresistibly obtrudes itself—whether men have altogether lost the old feeling of patriotism and devotion, which, more than anything else, placed Britain in her proud position in the scale of the European nations? Certainly, when we read the speeches and harangues of the Free-traders, there is no trace of any such sentiment. They are cosmopolitans, not Britons: and, discarding the landmarks of the Almighty, they seem to hope that the laws of nature will be