inspired by the same feelings and actuated by the same interests, the scattered elements of British greatness and renown. But apart altogether from Colonial considerations, the Reform Bill has been productive of the most serious consequences to the internal economy of this country. Under its benign operation the National Debt, instead of being diminished, is augmented; whilst, at the same time, by a system of ruinous cheapness, induced by the free admission of foreign produce to compete in the home market with our own, incomes have been lowered by nearly a half, and the means of paying the increased taxation have been proportionably curtailed. We do not believe that the Whigs, while straining every energy to carry the Reform Bill, meditated the possibility of any such results. We have their own statements—at least those of Lords Melbourne and John Russell—to the contrary; and even were it otherwise, we are not disposed to attribute to that party so great a share of political prescience, as to assume that they foresaw the consequences of their own deliberate act. It was, however, foreseen by others. In 1831, Mr Alison, arguing from historical precedents, predicted that the natural effect of the passing of the Reform Bill would be the repeal of the Corn Laws. “When it is recollected,” wrote he, “that 300 English members of the Reformed house are to be for the boroughs, and only 150 for the counties, it may easily be anticipated that this effect is certain. And in vain will the House of Peers strive to resist such a result: their power must have been so completely extinguished before the Reform Bill is past, that any resistance on their part would be speedily overcome. “This first and unavoidable consequence of this great change will at once set the manufacturing classes at variance with the agricultural interest; and then will commence that fatal war between the different classes of society, which has hitherto been only repressed by the weight and authority of a stable, and, in a certain degree, hereditary government, composed of an intermixture of the representatives of _all_ interests. When it is recollected that wheat can be raised with ease in Poland at prices varying from 17s. to 20s. a quarter, and that it can be laid down on the quay of any harbour in Britain at from 33s. to 40s., it may easily be anticipated what a revolution in prices will, in the _first instance_, be effected by this measure. We say in the _first_ instance—for nothing seems clearer than that the _ultimate_ effect will be, by throwing a large portion of British land out of cultivation, and in its stead producing a more extensive growth of grain on the shores of the Vistula, to restore the equilibrium between the supply of corn and its consumption, and, by means of destroying a large portion of British agriculture, raise the prices again to their former standard.”