which had been anticipated;) and succeeded in bringing it into operation on the 9th of the ensuing July.  The deficiency of revenue which ensued was so very serious that it would have alarmed the whole country, but for their confidence in the firmness and sagacity of Ministers, particularly as evidenced by their announced measures.  We have not at the present moment before us the earliest quarterly revenue returns of the period referred to; but it will suffice to state, that such had been the extent of the reductions effected, that the deficiency on the year ending on the 5th October 1843, amounted to no less a sum than L.1,136,000; the decrease on the quarter ending on that day being L.414,000.  Still, however, each succeeding quarter—­or at least the latter quarters—­gave more satisfactory indications of a rallying revenue; and we are enabled to announce the highly gratifying fact that, up to the 8th of the present month (December,) the customs duties returns are of the most decisively improving character.  The receipts of duties for the port of London alone, during that period, exceeds the receipt on the corresponding period of last year by L.206,000; while the returns from all the outports, especially from Liverpool, are of the same cheering character, and warrant us in predicting that the returns to be presented on the 5th of the ensuing month will afford a most triumphant proof of the accuracy of the Minister’s calculations and the success of his policy; for be it borne in mind, moreover, that his income-tax realized, in the year ending on the 5th October last, the immense sum of L.5,052,000.  As far, therefore, as concerns the direct financial effects of the new tariff and its counterbalancing income-tax, the results of Sir Robert Peel’s policy are such as may stagger and confound the boldest of his opponents.

Now, however, for the two great objects of the new tariff, which were declared by Sir Robert Peel[23] to be “the revival of commerce, and such an improvement in the manufacturing interest, as would react on every other interest in the country; and diminishing the prices of the articles of consumption and the cost of living.”

    [23] Hansard, Vol. lxi.  Col. 439.

With respect to the first of these objects, we had prepared a copious explanation of the highly satisfactory working of one great portion of the machine of the new tariff, viz. the relaxation of the taxes on the raw materials of manufacture; but it has occurred to us, that the necessity of our doing so has been entirely superseded by the following very remarkable admission, contained in a number of the Morning Chronicle newspaper, published towards the close of September last; an invaluable admission, tending to prove, out of the mouth of the bitterest opponent of the present Ministry, the general success of their domestic policy:—­“Notwithstanding insurrection in Wales and agitation in Ireland, there