and Adam Smith, and the
Queen--is a battle in which to a certainty they will be beat. They
may protract the contest long enough to get so thoroughly wearied as
to be no longer fit for the other great battle which awaits them;
but they may depend on it as one of the surest things in all the
future, that they will have to record a disastrous issue. They
_must_ be defeated. We would fain ask them--for it is sad to see
men spending their strength to no end--to look fairly at the aspect
things are beginning to wear, and the ever-extending front which is
arraying against them. We would ask them first to peruse those
chapters in Adam Smith which in reality form the standing-ground of
their opponents,--chapters whose solid basis of economic philosophy
has made anti-corn-law agitation and anti-corn-law tracts and
speeches such formidable things. We would ask them next to look at
the progress of the League, at its half-million fund, its indomitable
energy and ever-growing influence. We would then ask them to look
at the recent conversions of Whig and Tory to free-trade principles,
at the resignation of Sir Robert Peel, and the proof the country
received in consequence, that in the present extremity there is no
other pilot prepared to take the helm; at the strangely marked Adam
Smith cast of the Queen's Speech; and at the telling facts of Sir
Robert's explanatory statement. We request them to take a cool
survey of all these things, and to cogitate for themselves the issue
which they so clearly foretell. It seems as certain that free-trade
principles are at last to be established in Britain, as that there
is a sun in the sky. Nor does there seem much wisdom in fighting a
battle that is inevitably to be lost. The battle which it is their
true interest to be preparing to fight, is one in which they must
occupy the ground, not of agriculturists, but simply of tenants: it is
a battle with the landlords, not with the free-traders.

We believe Dr. Chalmers is right in holding that, ultimately at least,
the repeal of the corn-laws will not greatly affect the condition of
our agriculturists. There is, however, a transition period from which
they have a good deal to dread. The removal of the protective duties
on meat and wool has not had the effect of lowering the prices of
either; but the fear of such an effect did for a time what the repeal
of the duties themselves failed to do, and bore with disastrous
consequences on the sheep and cat