It was, however, rather remarkable that, whilst making these broad assertions, the Free-traders manifested a distinct uneasiness as to the working of their favourite scheme. If the measures which they advocated and carried were indeed final, there was surely no need for the bluster which was repeated, week after week, and day after day, from platform and from hustings, in Parliament and out of it, in pamphlet, broad-sheet, and review. If no considerable party cared about Protection, and still less meditated a vigorous effort for its revival, why should Mr Cobden and his brother demagogues have uselessly committed themselves by threatening, in so many words, to shake society to its centre, and overturn the constitution of the realm? Men never resort to threats, when they deem themselves positively secure. Such language was, to say the least of it, injudicious; since it was calculated to create an impression, especially among the waverers, that the temple of Free Trade, (which, by the way, is to be roofed in next year,) might after all have its foundation on a quicksand, instead of being firmly established on the solid stratum of the rock. No charge can be made against the country party, that they have precipitately commenced their movement. On the contrary, we believe it would be impossible to find an instance of a vast body of men betrayed by their appointed leader; aggrieved by a course of legislation which they could not prevent, since a direct appeal to the suffrages of the nation was denied; injured in their property; and taunted for their apathy even by their opponents--yet submitting so long and so patiently to the operation of a cruel law which day by day was forcing them onwards to the brink of ruin. The practical working of the withdrawal of agricultural protection dates from February 1849, when that event was inaugurated by a Manchester ovation. In April the price of wheat had fallen to about 44s.--in December it was below 40s.; and then, and not till then, was the spirit of the people fairly and thoroughly aroused. We need not here advert to the foolish and deplorable trash put forward by the political economists in defence of a system of cheapness, caused by an unnatural depreciation of the value of British produce. That such a depreciation could take place, without lowering in a corresponding degree the rates of labour all over the country, and curtailing the demand for employment in proportion to the diminished means of the consumers, was obviously impossible. Nor could the wit of man devise any answer to the proposition at once so clear and so momentous, that the burden of taxation, already felt to be severe, was enormously aggravated and increased by the measures which virtually established a new standard of value for produce, and which violently acted upon the incomes of almost every ratepayer in the kingdom. But it is well worth noting that the leading advocates of Free Trade, previous