Year: 1862

Liberal contributions have been made
in the East to relieve the suffering poor
of the manufacturing districts of Eng
land, but the enormous extent of the des-
titution makes any ordinary exertion of
ing the sufferers with promise impossi-
BILE of performance. One hundred thou
sand dollars have already been sub
scribed, partly in money and partly in
provisions, but this would hardly give a
mouthful apiece to the vast collection of
paupers that swarm in the cotton-mill
districts. Something more should be
done, if our assistance is to be anything
better than q mere demonstration of
good will The West can afford to give
something, not in money, but in what is
still better; for the depreciation in our
currency would make money do only
half as much good in England as it
ought to, and to give it is to give away q
hundred dollars for fifty dollars worth of
benefit Provisions are plenty here, and
there is no depreciation or exchange to
make them worth less where they are
needed than where they are given. We
can contribute provisions, and the East
onght to furnish transportation What
we could give without feeling it would, in
the aggregate, amount to enough TO save
from starvation many thousands of poor.
At the first view it strikes an American
as rather more generous than just to as
sist people to whom we justly owe no
good will, from whose perfidy we have
suffered more than from all other nations
together, and whose persistent ISLANDERS
have blackened our cause wherever they
have reached; but closer view recon
Giles it not only to our ideas of duty, but
to our national pride. First, Those who
are to benefit by this assistance are our
friends. The working people of England
have firmly, and almost universally,
taken our part, and opposed all meas
ures looking to Intervention or unfriendiy
action. Their meetings have repeatedly
resolved that our Government was right,


and the rebels wrong, and that the ter
mination of the war ought to be the sub
mission of the rebels We can now
remember but one instance of contrary
action, and even that was carried by
very small majority. Hardly any intel
ligent man in America has failed to


notice the frequent expressions of SYM


pathy from the working classes of Eng
land. The aristocracy are our enemies,
and have always been. The people are


our friends, and by cordial and effect


i've expression of our sympathy with them


nov, in their deep distress, we shall make


them such friends that their peridious


government and higher classes will be
forced into honorable conduct towards


us. When those who fill up the army


and navy are our friends, those who
command the army and navy will be
slow to force them into a conflict with U.s.


The effect of such assistance in modi-
flying the hatred of the aristocracy we
need not consider, 1t may soften their
bitterness, and it may not and we don't
care whether it does or not. Shall we,
because the class which has always
weighed heavily on the poor by their
privileges and power, and to which the
poor have always felt the instructive op-
position of the oppressed to the oppres-


sor, has arrayed itself in every form of


malice and meanneSs against US, refuse


help to the poor who are fellow-sufferers
with US from the mistreatment of this


privileged class? Shall we refuse to re-


cognize our friends because those who


are their enemies as well as ours live un-


der the same government with them?
4 second reason for our assistance re-


comedies it to our national prejudiceS,
which we are bitter enough to believe


just and well founded. The English pa


pers, with few exceptions, and their


statesmen, with still fewer, have made


merry with our poverty, weakness and


errors Our bankruptcy has been pre-


dicted and ridieuled constantly. Cur f.


nancial expedients have been laughed at.


Our resources have been disparsged, and


denied. We have been houted as a ma


ton of miserable blockheads, who had


not sense enough to, manage our own af-


fairs, but impudence enough to interfere


with everybody elses- Nothing has been
allowed for our strange position, and IN


practiced abilities Our government


stocks have been decried as worthless
and the nuhlic cautioned apainsr Them