Importations of foreign produce have increased to the full amount that we anticipated they would do under the system of free trade. Prices have fallen to the full amount, and to a greater amount, than we ventured to predict, and for predicting which our apprehensions were ridiculed as exaggerated and absurd. The distress has gone on increasing. That distress is still increasing. That distress is pressing upon every portion of the community; and it is the most lamentable part of this case that I feel convinced--and here I must speak to you frankly and plainly--that the reversal of that policy can only be obtained at the expense of still greater suffering on the part of still more extended interests. (Hear.) Mr Layton has stated that we have been taunted in the House of Commons, and taunted in the House of Lords, with bringing forward no specific measure, and asking for no decision by parliament on the merits of this question. Gentlemen, the taunt proceeds from our political opponents, and the advice implied in the taunt being the advice of an enemy, I must take the liberty of regarding it in that light, and not looking upon it as most likely to forward the objects and to be productive of the results which we desire. (Hear, hear.) Firmly adhering to the principle of protection--going along with the resolutions which have been read by Mr Layton--believing that a return to a system of reasonable import duties is indispensable to the prosperity of this country--not accepting the experiment which has been tried as an accomplished fact--not acquiescing in that policy, and determined to do all in my power to reverse it, I in the House of Lords, and my friends in the House of Commons, must be guided as to the course which is most likely to attain our ends in the several assemblies which we have to address, by our own knowledge of the dispositions of the bodies with which we have to deal. I know there are those who say we are slack, that we are not bringing forward measures, nor asking for the decision of the Houses of Parliament. Take the House of Commons to begin with. If we bring forward a distinct proposition, embodying our own principles, what have we to expect from the present House of Commons? Have we to expect--can we believe that that House of Commons, which has sanctioned the free-trade measures of the Government, will stultify itself by reversing its own decision, and pronouncing against the policy which it has approved? (Hear, hear.) If it will not, and still more, if there be some who, agreeing with us, but doubting the policy of bringing forward the question, would desert our ranks, and if the result of raising the question in the House of Commons would be to show an apparently diminishing minority for us, and an apparently increasing majority against us, I ask what advantage have we gained for our cause within the walls of parliament, and what encouragement have we given to our friends out