Again, as to the importation of foreign grain, the second scape-goat let go to bear the sins of the nation--who let that scape-goat loose? Who introduced the free trade system, and destroyed the former protection on native agriculture, and disregarded or ridiculed all the warnings so strenuously given by the Protection party, that it would induce such a drain on the metallic resources of the country as must induce a speedy monetary crisis, and would subject the nation permanently to that ruinous wasting away which proved fatal to the Roman empire, when the harvests of Egypt and Libya came to supplant those of Italy in supplying the cities of the heart of the empire with food? Who declared that the great thing is to increase our importations, and that provided this is done the exportations will take care of themselves? Who laughed at the warning, "Two things may go out, manufactures _or specie_"? It was Sir Robert Peel and his free trade followers who did all these things; and yet he and his party, in or out of administration, (for they are all his party,) coolly now turn round and tell us that the misery is all owing to the foreign corn and the railways, which they themselves introduced! The Irish potato rot of 1846, it is said, occasioned the great importation of grain, which for the next winter and spring deluged the country; and but for them we should have been landed in the horrors of actual famine over a great part of the country. We entirely agree with this statement. The Protectionists always were the first not only to admit, but _urgently to insist_ that absolute freedom of importation should be allowed _in periods of real scarcity_. The sliding-scale formerly in use expressly provided for this; for the duty began to fall when wheat reached sixty-three shillings, and declined till at seventy-three shillings it was only one shilling a-quarter. It was on the propriety of admitting grain duty-free in periods of _average or fine harvests_, such as we have just been blessed with, that they were at issue with their opponents. Under the old system, nearly all the grain which was imported in the winter of 1846 and spring of 1847, would have come in, for the duties became nominal when wheat rose to seventy-three shillings a-quarter, and it rose during that period to one hundred and five and one hundred and ten shillings. What the Protectionists said, and said earnestly, when this vast importation, _necessary at the time_, was going on, that it _anticipated_ the effects of a free importation of grain, and by its effect on the currency, while it lasted, might teach the nation what they had to expect when _a similar drain_, by the effects of free trade, _became perpetual_. Eight months ago, on March 1, 1847, we made the following observations in this Magazine:-