of all of you, and about which there can be no possible mistake. You will recollect that the Liberal and Free-trading journals, almost without exception, as well as most of the defenders of the Peel policy in the House of Commons, attributed much of that general depression and stagnation of trade which followed the repeal of the Corn Laws to the losses sustained by the failure of the potato-crop in 1845-6. Was there a general want of confidence visible—were the shopkeepers scant of custom—was there a less demand than usual within the country for home manufactures—was there a decline in the price of iron—all was laid at the door of the unfortunate potato. Since Cobbett uttered his anathema against the root, it never was in such bad odour. To every complaint, remonstrance, or lamentation, the reply was ready—"How can we remedy a calamity of this kind? The potato has done it all!" At that time it was very convenient, nay, absolutely necessary, for the Free-Traders to discover some tangible cause for the gross failure of their predictions. They looked about them in every direction, and they could discover nothing except the potato which could endure the blame. Now, although we believe that this esculent has been unduly reviled, and made to bear a greater burden than was its due for political misfortune, we nevertheless accept the illustration at the hands of our opponents, and we beg you to mark its significance. The loss of the potato-crop in Great Britain and Ireland, during the year in question, has been variously estimated, but if we assume it to have been £20,000,000 we are making a very large calculation indeed. So then, according to the Free-Traders, the loss of twenty millions of agricultural produce was sufficient to bring down profits, embarrass trade, and cause a stagnation in home manufactures! And yet, when Mr Villiers came forward in the beginning of 1850, and told you, in his capacity of proposer of the Address to the Crown, that £91,000,000 were annually taken from the value of the agricultural produce of the country, you were expected, and directed, to clap your hands with joy, and to congratulate one another on this symptom of the national prosperity!

The sum of twenty millions lost by the failure of the potato-crop—a single event, not one of annual occurrence—was taken from the country's power of produce; and therefore, said the Free-Traders, there was stagnation. But they, of course, could not help it. Of course they could not; but what about the ninety-one millions of annual loss, which is equally deducted from the internal expenditure of the country? About that we do not hear a word. And yet ask yourselves, and that most seriously—for it is time that we should get rid of all such pitiful paltering—whether there is any difference whatever between the two cases, except that the one was an isolated casualty, and that the other is an annual infliction to which we are subjected by statute? Weigh the matter as you will, you cannot, we are satisfied, be able to detect any difference. If the grower of grain at present prices has no remuneration for his toil, or return for his capital, he cannot buy from you, any more than could the farmer whose crop perished by the potato disease. What caused the stagnation? The failure of the power to purchase, because there was no return for produce. What causes the stagnation? Precisely the same thing perpetrated by Act of Parliament.

Do not, we beseech you, allow yourselves to be fooled any longer by the jesuitry of these political economists, but apply your own reason to discover the cause of the present depression. Do not believe them when they talk about exceptional causes, affecting temporarily the industry of the nation, but certain immediately to disappear. If you were to live as long as Methusaleh, no one year would elapse without furnishing those gentlemen with a special and exceptional cause. One year it is the potato disease; another the French Revolution; another the Great Exhibition. Heaven only knows what will be their excuse next year—perhaps the new Reform Bill, or some other similar godsend. You are the particular class upon whom the deception is to be played, and for whose especial benefit the fraud is concocted. The producers know very well how they stand, and what they have to expect. They can be no longer cajoled by assurances of higher prices, by vague promises of profit after the disappearance of "the transition state," or by impudent averments that, by an entire change of system and the expenditure of more capital, they will be able to maintain themselves in affluence. To do the Free-Traders justice, they have for some time desisted from such attempts. They now address their victims, through their organs, in a fine tone of desperado indifference, telling them that, if they do not like the present arrangement, the sooner they go elsewhere the better. And the people are taking them at their word and going. Hundreds of thousands of tax-payers are leaving the country as fast as possible, carrying with them the fragments of their property, and bequeathing to those who remain behind their share of the national burdens. But in your case, the Free-Traders cannot yet afford to pull off the mask. They are apprehensive that you should see them in their real character; and therefore, so long as you are likely to be amused with "specialties" and "exceptional causes," these will be furnished to you gratis, and in great variety. There seems, however, to be an apprehension among their camp that you are beginning to evince suspicion. Recent elections have not been quite as they should be; and in the seaport and large commercial towns there are evident symptoms of mutiny. So, by way of diverting your attention, you are likely to have a measure of Reform next year, possibly as satisfactory in its result as the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, upon which Ministers cleverly managed to concentrate the whole public attention throughout last session, and then, having carried it, allowed its provisions to become a dead letter, almost before the ink, which made the measure complete, was dry! We say this, not as opponents of an extension of the suffrage—for on that point we reserve our opinion until the details are fully before us—but as enemies and loathers of a miserable system of chicane and deception which has now crept into the public counsels, and which threatens very speedily to destroy the independence of public opinion, by opposing state obstacles to its free and legitimate expression. We ask any of you, fearlessly, to look back at the records of last session, and then say whether the country was not degraded and stultified by the act of the Prime Minister? Right or wrong, at his invitation and call, the Protestants of Great Britain demanded a security against what they considered an intolerable instance of Romish insolence and aggression. They received it from Parliament; and the moment it passed into the hands of the executive power, it became as worthless as the paper upon which it was written! And why was this? Simply because the object was gained—you had been amused for a whole session. If nothing was intended to be done in the way of repelling aggression, and if Ministers durst have told you so a year ago, there were many points affecting your more immediate interests which would have been forced upon their attention. But they were very glad to escape from such discussions under cover of a Protestantism which they did not feel, and an affected indignation of Papal claims, which they had done everything in their power, by diplomatic agency, to encourage; and, having escaped the perils of one session upon that ground, they will strain every effort to turn your attention from your own position, during the next, by bringing forward some measure which they hope may enlist your sympathies, or provoke controversy, so far as to render you indifferent to the real nature of your position.