that they shall continue to purchase all articles of manufacture as before! We observe that a contemporary journal, which naturally feels rather sore on the subject of the Corn Laws, has twitted Mr Alison with a failure of prophecy, in not having allowed for a sufficient lapse between the passing of the Reform Bill and the notable era when the lion and the lamb coalesced—when Sir Robert Peel finally became a convert to the dazzling discoveries of Mr Cobden. Our respected brother seems to think that Mr Alison must feel disappointed that the march of democracy has been so slow; that the avatar of Free-trade was so long in coming; and that our fields were not, several years ago, abandoned by the disappointed husbandman. For the satisfaction of the kindly critic, we shall quote the following passage, penned in 1832, immediately after the passing of the Reform Bill, and then, perhaps, refresh his memory as to the manner in which the later measure was carried:— “Dark and disastrous, however, as is the future prospect of the British empire, we do not think its case hopeless, or that, after having gone through the degradation, distraction, and suffering which must follow the destruction of the Constitution, it may not yet witness in the decline of its days some gleams of sunshine and prosperity. The laws of nature have now come to aid the cause of order; its usual suffering will attend the march of revolution; experience will soon dispel the fumes of democracy; the reign of Political Unions, of Jacobin Clubs, and tricolor flags, must ere long come to an end; the suffering, anxiety, and distress consequent on their despotic rule, the suspension of all confidence, and the ruin of all credit, must consign them to the dust, amidst the execrations of their country, if they are not subverted by the ruder shock of civil warfare and military power. The distress, misery, and stagnation, in every branch of industry, already consequent on the Reform Bill, have been so extreme, that they must long ago have led to its overthrow, not only without the resistance, but with the concurrence, of all the Reformers who are not revolutionists, had it not been for the delusion universally spread by the revolutionary journals, that the existing distress was not owing to Reform, but to the resistance which it had experienced, and that the danger of revolution, great in the event of the measure being thrown out, was absolutely nugatory in the event of its being passed. These two sophisms have alone carried the bill through the resistance it experienced from the property, education, and talent of the country, and blinded men’s eyes to the enormous evils which not only threatened to follow its triumph, but attended its progress. But these delusions cannot much longer be maintained. Reform is now victorious: the bill is passed unmutilated and unimpaired; and its whole consequences _now rest on the heads of its