“Corn has fallen so low in value, that _the farmers, anxious to secure their rents, are not in a position to pay their tradesmen’s bills; and we have been assured that, in numberless instances, their Christmas accounts for last year are still unpaid_. This falls immediately on the wholesale dealers, from them on the importing merchants, and eventually, if no revival take place, must act with double force on the manufacturers in a diminished home trade and in crippled exports, which latter must ever depend on our power to take the products of other countries as returns for our manufactures. To what class, then, are the present ruinous low prices of grain a blessing? We emphatically say _to none_; indeed it is quite impossible for so large a portion of the community as that connected with agriculture to be depressed, and the other portions long to continue prosperous; and probably the best impulse we could receive, in the present inactive state of our colonial markets, would be an advance of 5s., to 10s. per qr., in the price of wheat. There is no doubt, also, that the fearful depreciation of railway property, which appears a bottomless abyss of mismanagement and ruin, tells cruelly on the available resources of a very large proportion of the people, and adds seriously to the embarrassment of trade.” In glancing over this circular in detail, we find opposite nearly every important item the words, “has moved off at easier prices,” “is less inquired for,” “is dull,” or some other phrase significant of commercial depression; yet, during the preceding month, the stocks on hand, owing to the prevalence of easterly winds, which had kept a large number of vessels windbound outside the Channel, had received very little augmentation. It must be borne in mind that the dealings of this firm extend over nearly every description of foreign produce—certainly every large one, timber and iron excepted;—and that the money amount of their annual transactions may be reckoned by many millions sterling. Further inquiries amongst other houses enable me to state confidently that, with the exception of a few trifling articles, the mass of the produce, which is pouring into Liverpool, arrives at an unprofitable market. In cotton alone, amongst the leading imports, a small margin of profit may at present be secured, the abundance of unemployed money in the hands of the banks allowing the speculators, for a short crop, to inflate prices. Such a case, however, tells nothing in favour of a sound state of things. The question of most material import is, whether either the foreign demand, or the home consumption, is so urgently requiring supply, as to enable the manufacturer of cotton goods to concede the advanced rates demanded for the staple, by the American grower, or the speculator at home. Present appearances scarcely warrant such an expectation. The following opinion upon the subject, given by a leading