Such is the state of the agricultural interest throughout the three Kingdoms at this moment, and such are the prospects before us. The evidence, albeit not taken before a committee of either House of Parliament, is too unanimous to admit of a doubt; county after county, district after district, parish after parish throughout England, have testified to their melancholy condition. The _Times_ may talk of mendicity, and the _Economist_ may trump up figures to show that the farmers ought to be making a profit even at present prices; but neither irony nor fiction can avail to discredit or pervert facts so well authenticated as these. Of these facts parliament is fully cognisant--not only from the individual knowledge of members as to what is passing abroad--not only from the sentiments expressed at many hundred meetings, independent of the great demonstrations lately made at London and Liverpool--but from the petitions which have been presented to both Houses, praying for a reversal of that policy which has proved so detrimental to the interests of a large section of her Majesty's subjects. Yet still Parliament is silent, and the first Minister of the Crown refuses to sanction that appeal to the country, which the exigency of the case would seem to require, and which has been resorted to on occasions far less peremptory and pressing than this. Let us not be misunderstood. Our wish simply is to record the fact of such silence and refusal,--not to be rash in censure. We cannot, and do not forget the peculiar circumstances connected with the last general election--the political tergiversation which preceded it, the hopes and expectations which were then entertained by many, as to the working of the new system,--or the disorganisation of parties. Even the most strenuous opponents of the Free-Trade measures, since these had passed into a law, however iniquitously carried, were desirous that the experiment should have a fair trial, and that it should not be impeded in its progress, so long as, by the most liberal construction, it could be held to justify the anticipations of its authors. Many names of great weight, influence, and authority were found among the roll of those who consented to the new measures; and it was most natural that, throughout the country, a number of persons should be found willing to surrender their own judgment upon a matter yet untried, which had received so creditable a sanction. Therefore it was that the majority of members returned to the present House of Commons were Free-traders, bound to the system by the double ties of previous conviction and of pledge; and though recent elections, as well as the alarming posture of affairs, have contributed materially to alter the position of the two great parties in the House, it would be unreasonable as yet to look for a change, in a body so constituted, at least to that extent which a reversal of the adopted policy must imply.