The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-27 00:00:00

you also maintain what you consider to be the just
rights of industry in your separate trades. Some-
times, indeed, you do things which many people do
not approve, at.d probably when you come to think
more coolly of them you even doubt the wisdom of

hem yourselves. That is only saying that you are

not immaculate ; that your wisdom, like that of
other classes. is not absolutely perfect. But they

have in the Southern States a specific for all these

differences between capital and labour, by making
labour itself capital ; and thus labour, being made

c4pital, becomes property, tnd the whole system
moves with that perftct etrEe and harmony which
the world admires so much in the Southern States
of America. I believe there never was a qaestion

submitted to public opinion which it was more be-

coming working men to consider than the one of

which lam now speaking. But some persons may
ask, ' What is to become of our trade P What is
to become of the capital and the labour of Lanca-

shire P" Well, I wish I could give you a safe and
useful answer to that question. lam not sure that

much of the capital of Lancashire will not be ruined.

[ am not sure that a very large number of its popu-
Ation will not have to remove and seek other em-

ployment either in this or in some other country.
I am not one of those who underrate this great
calamity ; on the contrary, I have scarcely met
with any, certainly not more than half a dozen,
who have been willing to measure the mag-
nitude of this calamity according to the
scale which I have viewed it. But let us examine
this matter so far as it bears upon the question

as to what you ought to do with regard to the

United States. The distress in Lancashire comes
from a failure in the supply of cotton ; that comes
from the war in the United States ; and that war

has originated from the efforts of the slaveholders in
that country to break up what they themselves ad-
mit to be the freest and best government that ever
existed, for the sole purpose of perpetuating the in-
stitution of negro slavery. Then, if the South (I
wish we had some better terms than South and

the war, and created
North)—but if the South began
all this mischief, does it look reasonable that we
should pat them on the back and be their friends ?
(Cheers.) If they have destroyed the cotton or with-
held it, shall we therefore take them to our bosom ? I
have a letter written by an agent in the city of

Nashville, accustomed to buy cotton before the war.
Immediately after that city came into the possession
of the Northern forces he began his trade there.

Cotton came in, the Secession planters having began
to bring it in, and he had a fair chance of re-esta-
blishing his business ; but the moment this was dis-
covered by the commander of the Southern forces
they issued a paramount order that every boat
load, waggon load, or oar load that was leaving a
plantation for the purpose of sale should be imme-
diately destroyed. The result was that the cotton
trade at Nashville was at once put an end to, and I
believe, except to a small extent, is so to this very
hour. Take again the city of New Orleans. That
has been for many months in the possession of the
Northern forces. The Northern commander has
issued an announcement that any cotton sent
down to New Orleans for exportation, even
though it should come from the most resolved
friend to secession, should still be allowed to be
purchased there and shipped to Europe. But
you have not found cotton come to New Orleans,
although its coming down there would have
been no advantage to the North. No, the cot-

ton has been withheld by the Southern States,
with this single object, that they might create in
the manufacturing districts of France and England
a state of sufflring that might at last become un-
bearable, and compel the Governments of those
countries, in spite of all that international law might

teach them, end in spite ot all that political mo-
rality enjoined upon them, to take sides with the
South and go to war with the North for the sake of
liberating what cotton there is now in the Secession
States. (Cheers.) Such of you as read the city
articles of the daily papers will see that a loan has
been contracted for in the city, to the amount of three
millions sterling, on behalf of the Southern Confe-
deracy. It is not brought into the market by any
firm bearing an English name—(cheers)—but I am
prepared to say there are circumstances which give
rise to the belief that many Englishmen have taken
portions of that loan. Now, one of the great objects
of the loan is this—to pay in this country for vessels
which are being built here—for other Alabamas,
from which it is hoped so much irritation will
arise in the minds of the people of the Northern
States that even yet England may be plunged into
war, and be made to appear to take sides with the
South and with slavery. The South was neurally
always hostile to England, because England was
always hostile to slavery; and the great hope of
the insurrection has been from the beginning that
Englishmen would not have the fortitude to bear
the calamities which the war in America has brought
upon them, but would at last, by some trick or
accident, be involved in a contest with the North,
and thus aid and strengthen the South. This ques-
tion is so plain that you Englishmen cannot fail to
understand it—(cheers)—at least the 6,000,000
people in the United Kingdom who are not enfran-
chised, they, least of all, can never any longer feel
a doubt upon the question. Their instincts are
always, in the main, right ; and, if they get the
facts and information, I can rely on their influence
being put in the right scale. I wish I could say
what would be as satisfactory to myself—the same
of others. There may be men, it is said there are
men, sitting among your legislators who will
build and equip Corsair ships to prey upon the
commerce of friendly powers—who will disregard
the laws and honour of their country, and who will
trample on the proclamation of their Sovereign for
the sake of gratifying a greed for that profit which
sometimes waits on crime, and who for the sake of
which are content to cover themselves with an ever-
lasting infamy. (Cheers.) There may be men, too,
rich men in this city of London who for the chance
of more gain than honest dealings will afford them,
would not hesitate to assist a cause whose funda-
mental institution and very corner stone of their
constitutional edifice is declared to be a felony and
to be infamous by the statutes of their country. I
speak not to these men. Ileave them to their con-
sciences, in that hour which comes to all of us,—
when conscience speaks and the soul is no longer
deaf to her voice. (Cheers.) I speak to you, the
working :nen of London—the representatives as you
are here to-night ot the feelings and interests of the
millions who cannot hear my voice. I wish you to
be true to yourselves. (Cheers.) Dynasties may
fall, aristooracies may perish, but you and your chil-
dren and your children's children will remain, and
from you the English people will be continued to
succeeding generations. (Cheers.) You wish for
freedom, and you strive for it in many ways, but do
not think of giving the hand of friendship or fel-
lowship to the worst foes of freedom that the world
has ever seen. (Cheers.) Do not, I beseech you,
bring down a curse upon your own cause which no
after penitence can lift from it. (Cheers.) I have
faith in you. Impartial history will tell that when
your statesmen were hostile or coldly neutral—
when your rich men were corrupt, when your press
which ought to have instructed and defended you,
has been mainly written to betray your faith in that
vast continent whose populations are of your own
kindred—you clung to freedom with unfaltering
trust; and be assured that God in His mercy will
vet make it the heritage of all his children. (Loud
cheers.)

Mr. HOWELL (a working bricklayer) then moved
and Mr. ROGERS (a shoemaker) seconded, the fol-
lowing resolution
That the attempt of the American slaveowners to break
up the Union, in which their liberties and constitutional
rights had never been interfered with, is destructive of the
first principles of political society, and that this meeting re-
gards with indignation the conduct of those public men,
capitalists and journalists in this country, who have abetted
the cause of the Confederates ; and, further, that the Go-
vernment of this country, in permitting the pirate ship