In the Speech delivered from the Throne at the opening of the present Session of Parliament, the following passage will be found: "Notwithstanding the large reductions of taxation which have been effected in late years, the receipts of the Revenue have been satisfactory. The state of the Commerce and Manufactures of the United Kingdom has been such as to afford general employment to the labouring classes. I have to lament, however, the difficulties which are still felt by that important body among my people who are owners and occupiers of land; but it is my confident hope that the prosperous condition of other classes of my subjects will have a favourable effect in diminishing those difficulties, and promoting the interests of agriculture." Without attaching too much importance to the phraseology of this Address, it will, we think, be admitted by every one who recollects the dissensions of last year, that her Majesty's Ministers, by inserting in the royal Address this acknowledgment of the difficulties under which the owners and occupiers of land are labouring, have virtually abandoned their ground; and are not now, as formerly, prepared to maintain that agricultural depression, arising from low prices, is to be considered simply as an accident, and not as the result of legislation. Last year we were told, on high Ministerial authority, that the low prices then current were merely exceptional, and could not continue; and that a signal check had been given to the importation of foreign grain. "Therefore," said Sir Charles Wood, "the farmer need not apprehend that ruin from the operation of Free Trade, which he at present anticipates from prices under 40s. a quarter." But time, more infallible than Sir Charles Wood, or any other Chancellor of the Exchequer, has proved that all these notions are fallacies. The importation continues, and prices droop. During the twelve months which have elapsed, there has been no symptom of rallying; and it is now almost universally admitted, that the depreciation of the value of agricultural produce is permanent, and must so continue in the absence of a protective duty. We are always glad to see a fallacy cleared out of our path. The idea that high-farming can ever be made an adequate substitute for protection, was exploded last year; and now the efforts of the Whigs to demonstrate that importations cannot continue, have been abandoned. The state of the case is precisely that which we laid before the public in January 1850; and no one thinks of denying it. Even those journals, which, from time to time, have hazarded vaticinations as to rises in the value of produce, are compelled to acknowledge their fallibility, or drop their pretensions to the mantle of the gifted seer.