attempt it, how are they to make good the almost certain deficiency of the revenue? Probably that point may be postponed for future consideration. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, and the sugar-duties are more immediately pressing. Whether the West Indian proprietors are to receive the _coup-de-grace_ during the present year, or whether they are to be allowed a further respite, seems at the present a matter of absolute uncertainty. It is, however, merely a question of time. Free-trade cares not for the colonies; and, indeed, whilst the work of protective abolition is going on so rapidly both at home and abroad, no isolated interest has reason to expect that it will be exempted from the common rule. Ireland, it seems, is to have an extension of the franchise; and with respect to her social grievances, Lord John Russell is hopeful that his ministry will be enabled "to afford, not a complete and immediate remedy, _but some remedy--some kind of improvement; so that some kind of hope may be entertained that_, SOME TEN OR TWELVE YEARS HENCE, the country will, by the measures we undertake, be in a far better state with respect to the frightful destitution and misery which now prevail in that country." Here is a precious enunciation of principles and grammar!--A complete remedy for the Irish social grievances is avowedly out of the power of the most intrepid of Whig politicians--a confession of which we presume Mr O'Connell will not be slow to avail himself. But then he expects--or, to use his own phraseology thinks--"it is _most likely_ to be in our power to afford" _some_ remedy, _some_ kind of improvement, the nature of which is still in embryo, but which shall be so matured that _some_ kind of hope may be entertained, that in _some_ ten or twelve years hence the country may be in a far better state with regard to the destitution which now prevails in the country! Was there ever, we ask, in the whole history of oracles, any thing more utterly devoid of meaning, more thoroughly and helplessly vague, than the above declaration? Why, the whole hopes of the noble scion of the house of Russell are filtered away to nothing before he has achieved the limits of his sentence. There are four or five different stages of trust through which we decline to follow him, being perfectly convinced that the hope of his being likely to introduce any such measure, is quite as improbable as the implied hope conveyed a little further on, to the effect that he and his party may be allowed to remain for some ten or twelve years in office, until these exceedingly musty ideas all have resolved themselves into a tangible form.