The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-17 00:00:00

man. It illumined and commented on a descrip-
tion which deserved to remain. On the upper
ledge, at the spring of the arch, was written the
Gospel of St. Peter's day :—" Respoudens Simon
Petrus, dixit. Tu es Christus Filius Dei vivis.
Respondens autem Jesus, dixit ei. Beatus es
Simon.."

Farewell, dear friends. Let us take comfort
of all things. Jesus and Peter are living. They
watch, and they will not permit the destruction
of the eternal Bethlehem—•the house of that bread
which nourishes the world.— Univers.

CLASSES IN POLITICS.

-

It is because society reproduces itself that his-
tory reproduces itself. Immediately after the plagu3
n the year 1348 when half the inhabitants of Eng-
.and had been swept away, a revolution occurred in

the relations of employers and employed. The
people were then mainly engaged in agriculture,
and, as there was a great breadth of land, and few
hands to cultivate it, the soil fell into the possession
of the working men. What happened in England
then was in a small degree what happened to the
section of English society, which the Canterbury
Association undertook to remove from Great Bri-
tain to New Zealand, and maintain there in their
relative positions as a settlement. No matter how
enlightened and highly civilised the community may
be, the simple laws of nature prevail, for no theo-
ries of political economy, no efforts of force can
prevent all from finding their true level in the new
order of things. But though the change of circum-
stances, undoes at once the long process of building
up that society into its artificial position, yet from the
moment it is located on the new soil, the process re-
commences. In due course the grand or great grand-
children of the emigrants will begin to find them-
selves forced into the same classes and struc-
ture of society as that their forefathers carried
to the colony, and which there fell to pieces.
In the most Eastern States of America it is be-
coming forcibly apparent that society is assum-
ing the structure of the most civilised of the
oldest European nations. Wealth, and a popula-
tion daily growing denser, are working out the
problem which many true Republicans see with
dismay and disgust. The genuine Americans of
these Eastern States, whom poverty prevents from
assuming a station above the of polloi, scorning to
occupy a position of inferiority and dependence,
abandon their own old homes to seek a new and
more congenial field in the West. The vacancies
aro supplied by immigrants, who readily take the
place the Yankees scorned, and thus the new order
of things moves more rapidly to its completion,
and the change that is coming over the society in
these States is all the more speedily accomplished.
It would be absurd to suppose that the owners of
wealth are likely to forego one of the greatest
pleasures that wealth confers. However Republi-
can the individual may be in sentiment, the class
will assert all the superiority conceded, will exercise
all the power the command of money gives, and as-
sume as high a social position as the community will
allow. If the poorer of the native Americans, im-
bued with the spirit of equality they have inherited,
abandon the field, the main check will be removed
which keeps their more fortunate countrymen in
their proper places as citizens of a Republic. But
the pressure of the incoming flow from Europe
being felt beneath, its sure effect will be to push
the wealthy up. The measure of equality conceded
to the new corners is something considerably in ex-
cess of what they have been accustomed to in their
native countries, and they, feeling the gain, are
little inclined to dispute the assertion of their
wealthy neighbours. The consequence is that so-
ciety is daily getting more and more marked in its
different grades, and old Massachusetts families are
assuming almost the pride and arrogance of English
territorial magnates. A few years hence we will
have every shade of society represented under
the " Stars and Stripes." From Massachusetts
to Oregon the traveller will before long pass from a
community differing scarcely at all from the most
densely peopled districts of England to the wildest
settlements, where a man's tn.lin reliance is in a
quick eye and a good rifle. rl Each stage from East to
West will be a stage if not from a higher to a lower
civilisation, at any rate from an older to a newer
one. It will be a descent from wealth and refinement
to rough and primitive habits—from art and learn-
ing to scalps and bowie knives—from the vices in-
separable from dense masses to the more pure atmo-
sphere of the forest and prairie. There cannot be
a community of feeling among men placed in such
widely dissimilar circumstances, and already there
are symptoms of the body politic splitting into
classes. This is noticed in the Nation in an article
of its issue June 27th, in which it speaks of three
such classes—workmen, versus capital ; the Irish,
an imperiuni in imperia Land that just forming, the
negroes. Each of these has an object distinct from
and wholly independent of any national ques-
tions. The first has made itself felt in the
eight-hour agitation. This was owing to the
action of a powerful body, who supported the
party promising must, in regulating by law the
relations between employer and employed. These
voters, were in no degree whatever influenced by the
great national issues, such as Reconstruction, the
Suffrage, the Tariff and Currency, or the Foreign po-
licy of the country. That they have been defrauded
by the measure carried out under their pressure
proves nothing except their gullibility, which in
itself shows the danger of such tools in the hands
of scheming and unprincipled politicians. The
panacea for this is education and that only, which
will prevent such a delusion being again entertained,
that working men could profit as much by 8 as by
10 hours' labour, or that the law can by any means
regulate market value.
Of the second party the Nation takes the same
view as that already expressed by us. The forma-
tion of such a party as the Fenians is termed the
worst and the most dangerous of all. Their object
is defined as to " keep alive among Irish settlers the
feeling that they belong to a separate nationality,
and have, and ought to have, hopes, aims, and in-
terests apart from the rest of the community, the
main value of American citizenship being that
it affords aid or impunity for the organisation
on American soil, of hostile expeditions against
a foreign Power. To mark the character of the
organisation, too, still more distinctly, the form of
a political party has been thrown aside, and that of a
separate political society assumed, with an executive
head, a legislature, administrative bureau, an army,
a treasury, and machinery for raising revenue."
The Nation goes on to state that such an organisa-
tion would soon perish of its own folly and absurdity,
if met with calm good sense, which it has not been,
and is not likely to be. The Nation sees the danger
of such an organisation not to the country against
whom it is directed, but to that by which it is har-
boured and sustained. "They already, in all parts
of the country in which they are to be found in
large numbers, are able to secure practical impunity
for almost any crime."
The scheme adopted by a considerable body of
Radicals of forming a distinct negro party in the
South is heartily condemned by this leading organ
of the party whose views are always national in
their breadth, and never hampered by any partisan
sentiments when national measures are discussed.
The advocates of confiscating the white man's lands
for the benefit of the negro, have a determined
opponent iu this able journal. The results of such
measures are exposed, and they are too plainly told
in history, not to be readily open to the strongest
condemnation for folly and inexpediency. If the
teaching should not be defeated by the good sense
of the negroes " the black party would be formed,
and all three bent on the promotion of their own inte-
rests at whatever cost, putting their votes up to sale
at every great election, and leading ambitious poli-
ticians into follies of which the worst exploits of the
great political deceivers of the present day afford
but a very imperfect idea." But we may fairly hope
that the good sense of the American people will not
permit the nation to be made the mere tool of such
organisations. When the necessity is generally
recognised, the Americans have a habit of accom-
plishing their ends by very determined measures.
When they say a thing has to be put through, they
mean to do it, and it is then almost as good as done ;
and although national decisions may be weakened
by the growing separation of classes, there is, and