NEWS OF THE WEEK.
The same journal sets down the price of wheat at 45s., and sharply advises a truce to agitation among the agriculturists, as inopportune, and as unseemly for "gentlemen." This advice ap- pears to be -intended as a countecention to incentives in other quarters, based on the state of the crops in America. A cerra- ..spondent of the Standard, who has obtained some trust, calculates the amount of the crops of the United States' for 1850 as compared with 1847, to have increased, in wheat from 15 to 22 millions of quarters, in maice from 58 to 80 millions. This increase, it is in- ferred, cannot be due to improvement of the seasons, but is the speculative result of English free trade, and is a "deathblow to
nur domestic agriculture." -
Of course, free trade must have its practical effects, and they -must include some increase to our foreign trade especially in the natural productions of foreign countries : the Free-trader will he warranted in his calculations and promises if our manufactures keep pace with -foreign imports. . But taking the Whole round -of facts, we are inclined to reckon that the present state of the erops and of the wheat-market is Just such as will most tend to the movement of the agricilltural classes over the transition state from protection to free trade. Had there been a plethora of wheat at home, prices must. have been beaten down, the farmers' -affairs would have been thrown into disorder, and. the landlords would have felt the embarrassments of their tenants. The .compa- rative tightness er th home market•Will maintain Wheat up to the highest practicable level. The assured supply, from abroad is a guarantee of a practical abundance for the people at large, so that no distress will exercise a baneful reflex infleence'on agriculture;
while. maaypigas oS ,Tte. trig, Nrornisn a large increase to
eonstimptitaf.– tha thelz,-----4.0.ering in the estimate to present appearances,: -end: excluding contingencice that Cannot be .foreseendapt,Auah.,Kiaften,rettuAtie the folly of trusting to human oalculation,—we may hope that the ensuing' agricultural year will be one of mitigated difficulty for the land interests favour- -abletpl-mdlioro_fert jlatemougtirrat- large, one of sufficiency and ease. .....ii xp3 ,!:-Dtirrrrtf
