Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-01-07
From the N. Y. Evening Post.


Effects of the Proclamation.
The following letter is from one of the most
distinguished liberal members of parliament,
dated the 18th of December, and addressed to
a gentleman of this city,
"My Dear &r:-I am obliged by our kind
ness in sending me the report of your pro-
ceedlngs at the chamber of commerce. 1t
was great and good idea, that of sending
bread to our distressed people in Lancashire.
Besides meeting the higher demands of
christian duty, it is most polite step. 1t is
quite true that these suffering operatives have,
as body, with hardly an exception, resisted
the attempts to enlist them on the side of in
tervention. They have in all their sufferings
refused to take part with the south.
g You are, of course, aware that from the
first our influential ruling classes have sym
pathized with disunion. They have been ma
turally delighted to see your great republic
ending i'll what they are pleased to call a
bloody disruption and failure They have not
sympathized so much with the South (though
the dominant classes of the two countries have
naturally sympathy for each other) as with
the party that should weaken and divide you
as people. large part of the upper mid
die class follow the fashionable lead of the
aristocracy in this country. Hence, you have
to the North.
''But the mass of the population have had
no sympathy with the south in any part of
the kingdom. Whilst the Times has been
writing up the confederates with a talent and
zeal worthy of better cause, it has never
been possible to hold an open unpacked public
meeting i'll London or elsewhere to express
sympathy for the south. The working class
Of England have had vague notion that the
cause OF the north is their cause. Thay have
not had very clear comprehension of the
character Of the quarrel, but they know on
the one side there is slavery, and on the other
free labor, and that has decided them in their
support of the north. Still it must be admit
ted that the working class in this country have
not great political influence, apart from the
middle class, inasmuch as they have 10 votes /;
and l have, confess, been always afraid that
our government, urged on by its sympathes,
and by its fears of the effects on the revenue
of the country, and the employment of
the mass OF the people, to be produced by
the blockade, would join in some act of inter
vention, with a view to obtain the much-need-
ed cotton. Latterly, my apprehension on this
point has been much allayed by new ele-
ment which has developed itself in the public
opinion of the country.
w
by the presidents proclamation. 1t has been
still further aroused by his message to con-
gress, just received. The religious bodies
are beginning to move, and you know that
when the religious sentiments of the middle
classes and the sympathies of the millions are
in harmony in this country, all opposition to
these predominant feelings goes down before
them like grass before the whirlwind. The
more your contest assumes the character Of
freedom versus slavery, the more certain you
are to enlist the sympathies, not only of the
religious class in this country, but of every
politician who looks for the support of the lib
eral party.
''On every ground, therefore, of freedom,
justice, peace and humanity, hail the direc-
ton in which public opinion seems evidently
moving in the free states. Once let it be evi
dent that the great majority of the north are
resolved that they will never reconstruct the
Union on a basis of compromise with slave
ry, and you have secured the sympathy of
England mean of that part of its people
which can control the rest and prevent any
measures being taken in spirit of hostility
to the federal government"