The average of prices for the last twelve weeks has been 39s. 9d. the quarter; but the importation goes on without the least diminution, and accordingly the _Mark Lane Express_ of December 28, 1850, observes,-- "In the commencement of the year now about to terminate, an opinion was very prevalent that prices of grain (more especially those of wheat) had been somewhat unduly depressed; and it was then thought that, even with Free Trade, the value of the article would not for any lengthened period be kept down below the cost of production in this country. The experience of the last twelve months has, however, proved that this idea was erroneous; for, with a crop very much inferior to that of 1849, quotations have, on the whole, ruled lower, the average price for the kingdom for the year 1850 being only about 40s., whilst that for the preceding twelve months was 44s. 4d. per quarter. This fact is, we think, sufficient _to convince all parties that, so long as the laws of import remain as they now stand, a higher range of prices than that we have had since our ports have been thrown open cannot be safely reckoned on_. The experiment has now had two years' trial; the first was one in which a considerable failure of the potato crop took place in England and Ireland; and this season we have had a deficient harvest of almost all descriptions of grain over the whole of Great Britain. If, under these circumstances, foreign growers have found no difficulty in furnishing supplies so extensive as to keep down prices here at a point at which farmers have been unable to obtain a fair return for their industry and interest for the capital employed, we can hardly calculate on more remunerating rates during fair average seasons. Under certain combinations of circumstances prices may, perhaps, at times be somewhat higher; but viewing the matter on the broad principle, we feel satisfied that, with Free Trade, the producers of wheat will rarely receive equal to 5s. per bushel for their crop." Accordingly, so notorious has this fact become, and so familiar have the public become with it, that it has become a common-place remark, which is making the round of all the newspapers without exciting any attention, that the food of 7,000,000 of our people has come to depend on supplies from foreign countries. In fact a much larger proportion than this, of the wheaten food of the country, comes from abroad; for the total wheat consumed in Great Britain and Ireland is under 15,000,000 quarters, and the importation of wheat is from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 quarters, which is about a third. And of the corresponding _decrease_ in our own production of grain, a decisive proof has been afforded by the decline since 1846 in wheat grown in Ireland, the only part of the empire where such returns are made, which has stood thus:--