The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-01 00:00:00

NOTICE.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1862.

By the time our impression of to-day has gone to
press, the Great Industrial Exhibition of 1862 will
have been formally inaugurated. The Park guns will
be still warm and smirched within by their recent
discharges—the aisles of the Great Palace of Art
and Industry, down at South Kensington, will still
vibrate with the echoes of the choral chant and of
the instrumental music, the sound of the drums
and trumpets, accentuating, as it were, the rhythmic
march of the procession. So far as the inaugurative
ceremonies of the Ist of May, 1862, are concerned,
they will be as entirely things of the Past when
these words of ours fall under the observation
of our readers, as the inaugurative cere-
mony of the Ist of May, 1851. The re-
trospect opened up to view at the mere momentary
juxtaposition of these two memorable dates—
divided from each other by an interval of eleven
eventful years—is in its way as remarkable, surely,
humanly speaking, as any retrospect of equal
brevity of which the world has record. It
is one that contradicts point blank the most
confident apocalyptic foreshadowings, if we could
dare to call them so, of that popular Scotch divine
who has been so long predicting (with perpetual
postponements) the advent of the millennium.
Alas ! the eleven years between these two May
days—that of 1851 and that of 1862—have served
effectually to dissipate the daydream, indulged in,
of yore, under the glittering arch of the Crystal
Palace in Hyde Park at the commencement of those
same eleven years ! Years crowded with sanguinary
conflicts in various parts of the world—on the Baltic
and on the Euxine, in the Crimea and in Morocco,
in China and New Zealand, in Japan and North
America ! Eleven warlike and momentous years,
closing with armies reorganised and navies rebuilt,
and with England so far armed to the teeth against
any possible invasion, that she has now a permanent
National Guard of some 200,000 Rifle Velun-
teers ! Eleven years, in fine, that find us
at their close so formidably prepared, or
fast preparing, for any chances of battle, whether by
sea or land, that our beau ideal of a war-ship is
an impregnable floating fortress, walled with shot-
proof iron; and our ne plus ultra (as yet), in the shape
of rifled cannon, hurl projectiles with a velocity,
and to a distance that jut simply out-Warners poor
dead and gone Captain WARNER ! Yet, in spite of
all this, there are still cherished, deep in our heart's
core, hopes and prayers for the ultimate realisation
of peace throughout the world—more reasonable
hopes and prayers of this kind than those which
were but too eagerly cherished eleven swift years
ago. The wiser day-dream of to-day being aptly
illustrated by the charming fancy just given to the
world by one of the artists in our London Churivari
—The celestial form of the White-Winged Angel
of Peace seated upon a Giant Armstrong Gun, and
tenderly covering the deadly vent with the edge of
her sacred robe.

We have already contrasted the conduct of our
Lancashire operatives under their present sufferings
with what would have been that of American
workmen in a parallel case—we have just now a
fresh illustration of it. A large meeting of the un-
employed operatives has just been held in Steven-
son-square, Manchester, to make a public represen-
tation of their condition, and to appoint a deputa-
tion to the authorities praying them to adopt
means to alleviate the present distress. The
masters had their meeting, a few days ago, to con-
cert measures, but there seemed to be much dif-
ference of opinion in regard to the distress said to
exist, it being, happily, but little visible, in the
streets. The operatives' meeting seems to have
been chiefly designed to make public the fact that
the distress is extensive, and real, and to complain
of some hindrances in the way of obtaining reason-
able assistance.

Had such a meeting been called in America, be-

cause England by some quarrel with which America
had nothing in the world to do, was practically de-
priving her operatives of bread, we should assuedly
have had no end of bitter denunciation of the
mother country with threats of sending Merrimacs
and Monitors to break the blockade, Our work-
men, most creditably to their good sense, spoke on

the subject as if they had been reading Vattel or
Phillimore. If Captain WILKES had had half their
sense he would have saved us a deal of trouble, and
Mr. GLADSTONE a heavy pull upon his small sur-
plus. Not a commander in the American Navy,
however, but JOHN FINNIGAN, a " beamer and
twister," in proposing the first resolution, said
that " the great distress which had existed had
not been brought about by any fault of the
Government of this country, but it was owing
in a great measure to the unfortunate inter-
necine war which was now desolating America."
With equal considerations he spoke of their
local social superiors. " There was," he said, " a
great amount of sympathy existing at the present
time for the condition of the working classes ; and
it would ill become them to use one expression that
would have a tendency to retard the flow of those
sympathetic feelings. They had reason to be thank-
ful to the chief magistrate of the city for the good
feeling he had manifested in calling a meeting of
the independent gentlemen in the city, with a view
of devising means of ameliorating the condition of
the suffering. At the meeting to which he referred
which was held on Friday, a great diversity of
opinion prevailed. This might have been expected,
as no man could be aware of the extent of the suffer-
ings of the people, unless on a thorough investiga-
tion from street to street." This i 3 not the lan-
guage of wilful, quarrelsome men, but language
which must conciliate respect wherever it is read.
In proportion to its numbers, the population of
Manchester does not appear to suffer so much as
some of the smaller Lancashire towns in the same
trade. It was stated at the meeting, that 8,000
men were working on short time; but their mas-
ters, we are told, sympathising with their hard-
ships, actually " gave them all their dinners every
day in the mill." When difficulties are met with
this spirit by masters, we cannot wonder men are
found so moderate and reasonable. But great
numbers are altogether unemployed-4,000 at least
are known to be in this position ; but now arises
the question—why then had only seventy eight
applied for relief to the Union ? Was one of the
speakers entitled to argue from this, at the mas-
ters' meeting, that there was not much distress P
The reply of the same speaker wasl that