are of unexampled cheapness, and the means of obtaining them are—­thank Almighty God!—­gradually increasing among the poorer classes.  Trade and commerce are now, and have for the last six months been steadily improving; and we perceive that a new era of prosperity is beginning to dawn upon us.  We have a strong and united Government, evidently as firmly fixed in the confidence of the Queen as in that of the country, and supported by a powerful majority in the House of Commons—­an annihilating one in the House of Lords.  The reign of order and tranquillity has been restored in Wales, and let us also add, in Ireland, after an unexampled display of mingled determination and forbearance on the part of the Government.  Chartism is defunct, notwithstanding the efforts made by its dishonoured and discomfited leaders to revive it.  When, in short, has Great Britain enjoyed a state of more complete internal calm and repose than that which at present exists, notwithstanding the systematic attempts made to diffuse alarm and agitation?  Do the public funds exhibit the slightest symptoms of uneasiness or excitement?  On the contrary, ever since the accession of the present Government, there has been scarce any variation in them, even when the disturbances in the manufacturing districts in the north of England, and in Wales, and in Ireland, were respectively at their height.  Her Majesty moves calmly to and fro—­even quitting England—­her Ministers enjoy their usual intervals of relaxation and absence from town—­all the movements of Government go on like clockwork—­no symptoms visible any where of feverish uneasiness.  But what say you, enquires a timid friend, or a bitter opponent, to the Repeal agitation in Ireland, and the Anti-corn-law agitation in England?  Why, we say this—­that we sincerely regret the mischief which the one has done, and is doing, in Ireland, and the other in England, among their ignorant and unthinking dupes; but with no degree of alarm for the stability of the Government, or the maintenance of public tranquillity and order.  Ministers are perfectly competent to deal with both the one and the other of these two conspiracies, as the chief actors in the one have found already, and those in the other will find, perhaps, by and by; if, indeed, they should ever become important or successful enough to challenge the notice and interference of the Government.  A word, however, about each, in its turn.

The Anti-corn-law League has in view a two-fold object—­the overthrow of the present Ministry whom they abhor for their steadfast and powerful support of the agricultural interest;—­and the depression of the wages of labour, to enable our manufacturers (of whom the league almost exclusively consists) to compete with the manufacturers on the Continent.  Their engine for effecting their purposes, is the Repeal of the corn-laws; and they are working it with such a desperate energy, as satisfies any disinterested observer, that they themselves perceive the task to be all but utterly