Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1857-03-11

The WORKING CLASSES IN ENGLANp.-A seeming
crisis in England is urging the working classes there
to extreme measures. One-fourth of their number,
appears from competen: authority, absolutely
destitute of bread. Muttudcs, day after day, apply
for work at the London Docks, and various other
empOriums of labor, without success. Twenty thou.
sand men and boys connected with the building
trade alone, have been cast the streets without
occupation, or any immediate prospect of obtaining
it. But a few weeks since, meeting was convened
in Smithticd for the purpose Of conce ting
to relieve the widespread distress felt SO severely
throughout the laborng population 1t will not ap.
pear surprising that one of the speakers proposed
general emigration alleging that love of country"
became an absurdity in the midst OF such cxtremc
misery existed in all the manufacturing cities and
agricultural districts where the average earnings of
laborer were about eight or nine shIngs a week.
In Liverpool, it was stated, that fifty thousand of
the inhabitants lived in squalid cellars; and in Lon
don some half ambition rose every morning without
knowing where they could get breakfast. In the
heart of the great British empire, surrounded by the
accumulated riches of the world, in this boasted
golden age of commercial prosperity, where art,
science and literature in flour i,hing q condi-
tion-where political wisdom and economical science
assume, and have Conceded to them abiIity to mas
ter, all material dhculties-th0se classes OF the po-
puation which supply the vital fluid to the body
porate are lite ally in furnishing state, and forced
to take into their own hands the question of their
imperative needs! There seems no resource for the
unfortunate masses Of the laborers and tradesmen
but the poor house. They may look in vain for help
to the Court and the Arstocracy The policy Of the
leaders on both sides in the nation is to support the
interests Of the wealthy merchants and employers;
to their power and votes they must look they
and tremble before the imposing phalanx of CAPT.
tasts. In their worship Of Mammon they immediate
every human sympathy, and The people, as of old,
are sacrificed to the goliel cali.
Is it any wonder, such a state of things that
crime should be on the increase? 1t is only mar
vellous that the desperate population do not all turn
thieves and murderers. One remedy suggested Mt
the meeting was that there should be an extensive
ly organized National Association of Unemployed
Workmen. The mass ofartisans and laborers form
great power in the land although unrecognised by
their superors and if organized into societies and
corporations, they will both learn and teach others
their weight inthe community, and will perceive the
real nature of the National Constitution. They
must understand, sooner or later, and it might he
from such desperate crisis as the present,-that
they have little to hope for from society, or the i'm.
mediate action Of governments. The diatribe turled
agaisnt abuse in Church and State by Thackeray,
and his against the royalty whose support
absorbs SO much of the public revenue-points to
the fact indicated by these meetings of the poor,
driven by necessity to inquire what they are to do,
and as sternly demands reform. The community
lis eliminated when one in its midst perishes Of
want. The workman in England IL as much the
slave OF his master as Southern negro. Many Of
the -Aristocracy have wept over the woes OF Uncle
Tom; let them now look around them, and see how
the nseries entailed on the nation by expensive
Government are. thrust before them It will do them
good think over tho matter: and it will do good
to the Injurious and indoleat Of our own country,
to reflect that such condition Of things is viola-
ton of the laws under which onr race took posses.
! sion of the earth. Every man who lives ION this
planet entitled TO his food and lodging willing to
work for it. Where be cannot obtain itsin axehahae
for labor, there is wrong and punishnent