Our excellent contemporary, _The Standard_, has already disposed of it in a single sentence:--_Wipe off the rents, and you wipe away the class which heretofore has paid the rents._ Mr Bright would fain attempt to persuade the farmers that they are altogether independent of the landlords, and that no suffering can reach them. Have then the landlords, in most instances, expended nothing on the soil? Their outlay does not appear in balance sheets, however large may be its amount; but, were that outlay added to the farmer's expenditure of capital, there can be no doubt that, even without rent, at present prices, farming would be otherwise than profitable. But did it never strike Mr Bright that, failing rents, the landlords must necessarily take their farms into their own hands, as indeed has occurred already in several districts of the country? We presume he does not contemplate a quiet confiscation of estates--if he does, confiscation will not stop there. We suppose the owner must still have the option of keeping his property; and if so, as he will derive no profit from it in the shape of rent, he must either farm it himself, or act as labourer on wages under a farmer. We apprehend there can be little doubt as to the course he will take, when driven to such an extremity. As a body, tenant-farmers will cease to exist. They may go to Poland if they please, and employ their practical skill, and such remnant of capital as they can save from the wreck of their fortunes, in the patriotic task of growing wheat cheaper than before, for the British manufacturing market; but in this country there will be no longer any room for them. We shall be thankful to know if any course more feasible can be suggested; but indeed ingenuity seems to be at fault, and the Free-traders hardly affect to conceal their conviction that such must be the result. The following extract from a leading article in the _Times_ of 6th December, will show the views entertained by that very influential journal.