scheme proposed by Sir Robert Peel, and judged of accordingly, with reference also to the necessity of his position, arising from the last acts of his predecessors--from the spirit and temper of the age. The long-continued languor and prostration of our commerce, undoubtedly required some decisive, but cautious and well-considered movement, in the _direction_ of free-trade. How far we shall be met, in the same spirit, by France, Germany, Russia, and America, as has been long confidently predicted by those whose opinions have been perseveringly and vehemently urged upon the public, now remains to be seen. _Felix faustumque sit!_ But at present, at all events, our example seems not likely to be followed by those on whom we most calculated, and time alone can decide between our course and theirs--between the doctrines of the old and of the new school of political economy--as to which is the short-sighted and mischievous--which the sagacious and successful policy. The powerful protection afforded by the new Tariff to our colonial produce, is one of its most interesting and satisfactory features. That, however, which has justly attracted to it incomparably the greatest share of public attention and discussion, is the introduction of foreign cattle. This topic is one requiring to be spoken of in a diffident spirit, and most guarded language. Whether it will effect its praiseworthy object of lowering the price of animal food, without being overbalanced by its injurious effects upon our all-important agricultural interests, we shall not for some considerable time be in a condition to determine. At present, it would appear, that the alarm of the farmers on this score was premature and excessive, and is subsiding. The combined operation of this part of the new Tariff, and of the reduction in the duties on the importation of foreign corn, may ultimately have the effect of lowering the rent of the farmer, and of stimulating him into a more energetic and scientific cultivation of the land; and generally, of inducing very important modifications in the present arrangements between landlords and tenants. In some of the most recent agricultural meetings, speeches have been made, from which many journalists have inferred the existence of rapidly-increasing convictions on the part of the agricultural interest, that a sweeping alteration in the Corn-Law is inevitable and immediate. They are, however, attaching far too much weight to a few sentences uttered, amidst temporary excitement, by a few country gentlemen, in some eight or ten places only in the whole kingdom. Let them _pause_, at all events, till they shall have more authentic _data_, viz. what the agricultural members of Parliament will say in their places, in the ensuing session. Much of the sort of panic experienced by the country gentlemen alluded to, may be referred to a recent paragraph in the _Globe_ newspaper, confidently announcing the intention of Ministers to propose a fixed duty on corn.