dispose of his stocking--a necessity incumbent upon the loss of his farm--is to make a sacrifice of his property. At present, live stock is from 15 to 20 per cent under what he has been in the habit of receiving for the last few years. Hence, upon such a vexed question as the effects of the corn laws, modified and free, have become, it is only natural that, in his doubt, and darkness, and perplexity, he should stretch a point to keep possession of his occupation; trusting that, if matters continue to be adverse, his landlord will have the like commiseration for him which it is his duty to testify for his neighbour, who, under other circumstances, is also writhing beneath the pressure. In such a case, rent becomes altogether a question of chance, left to be modified and controlled by after circumstances. In this view it is not difficult to understand why farms falling out of lease have been taken at rates absurdly disproportioned to the present prices of agricultural produce. Ask any intelligent farmer, who has placed himself in this position, and he will frankly confess that he does not expect to be able to pay his rent, unless some very material change in the value of produce shall take place. How should he think otherwise? In the better districts of Scotland, farming has been carried so high that there is hardly any margin left for improvement. Up to a certain point, the soil may be artificially stimulated; but, that point once reached, any further appliances become positively hurtful, and defeat the intentions of the grower. The flower of our tenantry--the men whose exertions have made the land what it is--can go but a little way further. Nor can the severest moralist tax them with a breach of probity if they should enter into bargains which, under the operation of the present laws, they cannot possibly fulfil. The legislature took no account of them when it abolished protection. Parliament dealt with them more tyrannically than any irresponsible monarch would have dared to deal with a people far less intelligent and far less cognisant of their rights. The laws have ceased to be, in the estimation of the multitude, final. We now consider them, and most justly, as mere make-shifts which cannot stand against the pressure of a well-organised agitation; and men speculate on the probability of their changes, just as gamblers make adventures on the probable fluctuations of the funds. No man can deny that such is the case. Free trade is in the ascendant to-day: to-morrow, protection may be uppermost. A sad state of things truly; but such as must necessarily occur, when statesmen, whose heads have grown hoary in office, desert principle to adopt expediency, and repudiate the professions of a whole lifetime, for the sake of outwitting their political opponents. Our steadfast conviction is, that unsettled legislation has tended more than anything else to prevent an immediate depreciation in the rents. Foster gambling, and you create gamblers.