Matters, however, are not yet irremediable. Appearances are threatening, the danger is imminent, but the means of salvation are still within our grasp. All that is requisite is, to return with caution and moderation to the Protective policy which raised the British empire to such an unparalleled pitch of grandeur, and to abandon, cautiously and slowly, the selfish and suicidal policy which is now, by the confession of all, breaking it up. The great party--the NATIONAL PARTY--which placed in Sir Robert Peel's hands the means of arresting this downward course, of restoring this glorious progress, still exists in undiminished numbers and increased spirit. It has gained one inestimable advantage--it has learned to know who are to be relied on as faithful to their principles, and who are to be for ever distrusted, as actuated only by the motives of ambition or selfishness. It has gained an equally important advantage in having had sophistry laid bare by _experience_. We have now learned, by actual results, at what to estimate the flattering predictions of the Free-Traders. The frightful spectacle of 300,000 emigrants annually driven for years together, since Free Trade began, into exile from the British islands; the proved decline of the taxable income of the industrious classes (Schedule D) by £8,000,000 since 1842, and £6,000,000 since 1846; the rise of our importation of foreign grain, in four years, from less than 2,000,000 of quarters annually to above 10,000,000; the increase of our imports in the last eight years by sixty-eight per cent, while our exports have only increased by fifty-one per cent during the same period; the increase of crime in a year of boasted prosperity to 74,000 commitments, a greater amount than it had ever reached in one of the severest adversity; the diminution of Irish agricultural produce by £8,000,000 in four years, and of British by at least £60,000,000 in value during the same period; the total ruin of the West Indies, the approaching severance of the other colonies from our empire, or their voluntary abandonment by our Government; the admitted increase of the national debt by £20,000,000 during twenty years of general peace;--these, and a hundred other facts of a similar description, have opened the eyes of so large a proportion of the nation to the real tendency of the new system, that it has already become evident, even to their own adherents, that, at latest, at the next election, if not before, the Protectionists will be in power.