At home, unfortunately, the outlook is far less satisfactory. The rise in the price of wheat has brought gladness to the heart of the depressed farmers; but the strange fallacy of the Protectionists that dear wheat does not mean dear bread is already being ruthlessly exposed by the markets. Dear bread means privation for thousands of poor people this winter; and in Ireland, sad to say, the prospect is far more gloomy than in this country. The potato crop, it is said, isan utter failure and other crops ar- in almost as bad a plight. It is declared in -gome quarters in Ireland that the country is on the eve of a famine such as has not been seen since that disastrous year which brought about the repeal of the corn laws more than fifty years ago; and the Government are warned that unless ample measures are taken for the relief of distress, there will be a renewal of agrarian troubles and outrages one scale such as has not been experienced within living memory." There is probably considerable exagzeration in these prophecies; but that Ireland ohce more threatened with famine it is, unfortunately, impossible to deny.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.