ATION.

During the last four years government had lent its aid to those who
desired to emigrate to Canada. In the present year the general misery
which prevailed increased the claims of emigration, as a means of
relief, tenfold. In Scotland, even the landholders of a county applied
to ministers to afford encouragement to intended emigrants; and among
the artisans societies were formed for the purpose of projecting plans
of emigration, and obtaining assistance both from the crown and from
other sources. The subject was brought before parliament on the 14th
of March, when Mr. Wilmot Horton moved for the appointment of a select
committee to inquire into the expediency of encouraging emigration.
Government did not deny the importance of the question, or shut the door
against its consideration: no opposition was made to the appointment of
the committee; but nothing further occurred on this subject during the
present session.

MODIFICATION OF THE CORN-LAWS.

On the first day of this session Lord King had moved an address,
pledging the upper house to take the corn-laws into immediate
consideration; and the tables of both houses were covered, almost
nightly, with petitions, partly from the agriculturists, praying that
the law might be allowed to remain as it was; but chiefly from artisans
and manufacturers, praying for its instant repeal. Ministers did not
deem it prudent to introduce the subject during this session, although
they acknowledged its importance. The advocates of a repeal, however,
embraced many opportunities in charging government with keeping back
the settlement of this great question; and were at length determined
to bring it again before parliament. On the 18th of April Mr. Whitmore
moved, "That the house do now resolve itself into a committee, to
consider the propriety of a revision of the corn-laws." He allowed
that the time at which he submitted his motion was not unattended with
inconvenience and the possibility of loss; but not only the expediency,
but the absolute necessity of an immediate alteration appeared to him
to be imperative. It wras mischievous, he said, to delay the decision of
the question a single moment after government had applied the principles
of free trade to other branches of industry; inasmuch as these
principles could never be applied with due effect, nor have practical
justice done them so long as the present corn-laws formed part of our
commercial policy. Sir Francis Burdett