So far, then, from evincing a disposition to trifle with, or surrender, the principle of the sliding-scale, the Government have, with infinite pains and skill, applied themselves to effect such improvements in it as will secure its permanency, and a better appreciation of its value by the country at large, with every additional year's experience of its admirable qualities. There is a perfect identity of principle, both working to the same good end, between the existing corn-law and the new tariff. Their combined effect is to oppose every barrier that human wisdom and foresight can devise, against dearth and famine in England: securing an abundant supply of corn and meat from abroad, whenever our own supply is deficient; but up to that point protecting our home producers, whose direct interest it will henceforth be to supply us at fair and moderate prices. It is the cunning policy of the heterogeneous opponents of the existing corn-laws, to speak of them as "doomed" by a sort of universal tacit consent; to familiarise the public with the notion that the recent remodeling of the system is to be regarded as constituting it into nothing more than a sort of transition-measure--a stepping-stone towards a great fundamental change, by the adoption of "a fixed duty," some say--"a total repeal," say the Anti-corn-law League. But those who think thus, must be shallow and short-sighted indeed, and have paid very little real attention to the subject, if they have failed to perceive in the existing system itself all the marks of completeness, solidity, and permanence; and, in the successful pains that have been taken to bring it to a higher degree of perfection than before, a determination to uphold it--a conviction that it will long continue the law of the land, and approved of as such by the vast majority of those who represent the wealth and intellect of the kingdom, and have the deepest stake in its well-being.