My grandfather was converted to Free Trade somewhere about 1817 or 1818, but I do not know exactly when or how. He writes on 3 June 1843:--“I have been a Free Trader for more than five-and-twenty years.” And on 28 January 1844:--“I almost stood alone in Moreton as a Free Trader about five-and-twenty years ago.” As for the other party, he writes on 25 November 1849:--“Protection is substituted for Church & State and King & Constitution, and what they will have next I am at a loss to say.” He was a Liberal then; but the party went beyond his principles, and my brother writes from here, 4 July 1868:--“Grandpapa now calls himself a Conservative, and makes dire prophecies of the political future of England.” Lord John Russell was the only politician whom he altogether trusted. There was some slight acquaintance; and Lord John gave my father a very nice desk upon his coming of age. My father used it always, and I have it still, not much the worse for wear, but somewhat damaged by burglars on one of their visits to our house in town. * * * * * Writing to my father on 25 January 1846, my grandfather says:--“Agricultural labourers are very scarce: most of the young and able bodied are gone on the railways.” Men got better pay as navvies than they had ever got in agriculture. Better pay meant better food; and the navvies developed into finer men than anyone had seen before--at least, old people always told me so. I fancy this displacement of labour had more effect on wages and employment than the change from Protection to Free Trade. Writing on 8 March 1846, he says:--“I do not think many of the agriculturalists are prepared for the very great changes that the railways will make.” But those great changes never came, as the agriculturalists never grasped the situation. So long as transport was difficult, each district had to grow nearly everything that it required. When transport was made easy, each district should have grown what it grew best. Here in the South Hams there was quite the best cream in England, and about the best cider, and also excellent mutton. Had people kept to things like these, and laid down all their arable land to grass, they would have saved far more on agricultural buildings, implements and horses, than they would have spent in getting arable products from a distance. And they would hardly have felt the depression that began in 1878, as that scarcely touched these things. Being short-sighted, they neglected their orchards, and grew careless of their cider-making, till Devonshire cider was outclassed by Hereford. And now they are ruining the cream by using separators. Of course, it is cream made in Devonshire, but it is not what was known as Devonshire cream. The stuff is not worth eating; but I suppose people will go on eating it as Devonshire cream, just as they go on drinking the wines of well-known growers, whose vineyards were exhausted years ago.