delay, looked for it as the ignorant do for the coming of a predicted eclipse, and were informed by the great astrologer of the day that it was put off for an indefinite period! Now, when another and a more beautiful harvest is just beginning, we find that in reality the prophecy was a mere delusion; that there were no grounds whatever to justify any such anticipation, and that the pseudo-famine was a mere stalking-horse, erected for the purpose of concealing the stealthy advance of free-trade. If this measure of free-trade was in itself right and proper, it required no such paltry accessories and stage tricks to make it palatable to the nation at large. Nay, we go further, and say, that under no circumstances ought the distress of a single year to be assigned as a sufficient reason for a great fiscal change which must derange the whole internal economy and foreign relations of the country, and which must be permanent in its effects. There is, and can be, no such thing as a permanent provision for exigencies. Were it so, the art of government might be reduced to principles as unerring in their operation as the tables of an assurance company--every evil would be provided for before it occurred, and fluctuations become as unknown among us as the recurrence of an earthquake. A famine, had it really occurred, would have been no apology for a total repeal of the corn-laws, though it might have been a good reason for their suspension. As, however, no famine took place, we take the prophecy at its proper value, and dismiss it at once to the limbo of popular delusions; at the same time, we trust that future historians, when they write this chapter of our chronicles, will not altogether overlook the nature of the foundation upon which this change has been placed.