The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-11-27 00:00:00

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

I,—TRE "REGENERATION OP THE LATTN
Ries," hich Napoleon undertook in Mexico,
preparatory perhaps to similar operations
i throughout South America, s now an
acknowledged failure. The Empire of
Mexico, after enduring a respectable term
for a transplanted and exotic institution, has
fairly withered away, and Maximilian is pro-
bably by this time on his way back to his
chateau at Miramar. Sic transit yloria
mandi, and so fall the thrones erected on
foreign bayoneta. The world will see one
more added to the inglorious company of
dethroned monarch,. but so far from con-
doling with Maximilian, it will rather con-
gratulate him upon being so well rid of a
troublesome and thankless task. Meanwhile
as there are several . rival pretenders to the
presidency, Mexico is most likely about to
pass through a period of stormy revolution
unless the United States at once intervenes
in force for the preservation of Order; but
revolution is a native institution of the

country—the people are used to it, and seem
deliberately to prefer it to Imperialism. Yet
although the "regeneration of the Latin race"
has failed in the New World, there will soon
be an opportunity of trying it in the Old, if
we may trust our Spanish intelligence.
Queen Isabella's throne appears to stand on
a political volt ano, which may at any moment
break forth and overwhelm it. Every hour
we expect to hear that an irrepressible insur-
rection has broken out at Madrid, and it is
thought that the Queen of Spain only con-
sider herself happy if she gets off as safely as
the ex-emperor of Mexico. The Spanish race
appear difficult to please, for neither a liberal
sovereign like Maximilian nor an absolutist
one like Isabella can give them satisfaction.

H.—li TITS POPE flies from Rome on the
departure of the French troops, lie will have
a choice of refuges. Spain, it is true, may be
getting rather too hot to be comfortable just
now; but it is understood that the Holy
Father has standing invitations from Austria
and France to make himself at home in their
territories whenever lie feels inclined; Great
Britain, though not officially inviting him,
would be quite willing to see him settle at
Malta, and he is just as free as one of his own
cardinals to take up his abode and exercise
his functions in London or Dublin; Prussia,
too, we are assured, has offered him an asylum
at Cologne; and last, as well as least in this
case, the Prince of Monaco proffers his
hospitality. Some of our readers may not
remember where to look for Monaco on the
map, but they will find the town of that
name not far from Nice. The principality
was originally a petty, very petty, Italian
State; but it is now of infinitesmal propor-
tions, the prince having sold the bulk of his
small dominion to France after the transfer
of Savoy and Nice. His remaining little
town, with a territory that:one might walk
out of either way in a few minutes, he has
leased for gambling purposes to a Homburg
speculator, and this is the sanctuary to which
he invites the Pope! As one of our London
contemporaries remarks, the invitation puts
one in 'mid of one of the party cries of the
Belfast oraugemen, which we would rather
not print.
lII.—Wz pizzas from some of our con-
temporaries in considering that the British
Government has exercised a wise discretion
by reprieving the condemned Fenians,
Lynch and M'Mahon. Some very influential
organs of opinion argued in favour of carry-
ing out the sentence of death, lest the
Fenialui and their sympathisers in the United
States should suppose we were influenced
merely by fear in commuting the capital
punishment. It was said that all the world
knew how we had dealt with insurrections in
India, and lately in Jamacia, and that no-
body would give us credit for being actuated
simply by merciful considerations. The
very request of the United States Govern-
ment for leniency to the prisoners, it was
urged, made it in-re difficult to show mercy,
because it would be thought that it was done
under compulsion. A great deal was said
about dictation, and the necessity for firmness
in dealing with the Washington Government
at the outset of their interference in Canadian
affairs; for, if we showed "the white feather"
now, it was asserted, we should confess that
we merely held Canada on sufferance as a
kind of trust for the United States. It was,
I therefore, concluded that if we ever meant to
fight for Canada it would be better to make
a stand at present, if necessary, instead of
having to do so after a series of humiliations
which might lose us the respect and confi-
dence of the colonists. Now, welhink that
those who argued in this strain lost sight of
a few important considerations. In the first
place, as regards the severities practised on
insurrectionists in India and in Jamacia, it
should be remembered that the excessive
punishments inflicted by Governor Eyre
and his subordinates were expressly repu-
diated by the late home Government; but
even if they had not been so, both in Jasiaic.a
and in India, it was not a mere raid of
adventurers—a paltry invasion of a loyal
colony—with which we had to deal, but in
each case a wide-spread disaffection among a
subject race, represented in one case by the
mutiny of a great army, and in the other by
a conspiracy (or alleged conspiracy) of a
majority of one race to exterminate the
minority of another. Canada, as a British
possession, was in no such danger as India
certainly was, and Jamacia was assumed to
be. The cases, therefore, are not parallel.
We should rather look to New Zealand if we
would see how the British authorities have
treated raiders in arms against one of our
colonies; and nobody can point to such
severities against the Maories as those per-
petrated upon the sepoy mutineers and the
insurgent negroes of Jamacia. Or, if we
even look at home, we shall find that the
British Government in recent years has
always shrunk from the severe punishment of
death for treasonable manifestations in Ire-
land, which, unhappily, have been too frequent
on the part of some sections of the popula-
tion. We should infer, therefore, that in a
case like that of the Fenian raid into Canada,
our Government would not resort to the full
severity of the law against prisoners captured,
especially as there were more than the usual
reasons for not doing so. It would be folly
to ignore the internal troubles of the United
States, and to expect either of the contending
political parties to make any very strenuous
exertions to suppress a movement among that
portion of the American population which
happens to be in the position to give a casting
vote between the rival parties. The fact is
that the United States cannot just now
interfere vigorously to suppress Fenianism,
even if its Government desired to do so.
Can anyone doubt that in this condition of
things the execution of a few Fenian
prisoners would give an immense impetus to
the operations of the brotherhood ? It was,
therefore, well not to give the stimulus?.of
martyrdom to the movement, but rather to
treat it as a great attempt at highway
robbery. But, beyond the fact that the
Fenian' cannot be controlled by the State
under whose protection they hatch their
plots, we mum remember that they are
mostly themselves citizens of that State;
and any leniency shown to them
must, therefore, be appreciated as a
courtesy by the American Government. The
Alabama claims have unfortunately raised too
bitter a feeling for us to wish to augment it
by standing upon our rights in a matter in
which the Americans could not feel indif-
ferent. But those who would acknowledge
the cogency of these arguments under other
circumstances, said that we were precluded
from leniency by the very fact that the
American Government had made a request
for it. We do not know that it has yet
become a principle of political action that
"those who ask shall not have or that it is
wrong to do a discreet thing simply because
we are advised to do it. To us the request
of the American Secretary of State for mercy
seemed very natural, when we remembered
how we had similarly intervened on behalf
of the Confederates early in the civil war,
and how the 'Washington Government had
assisted us in putting down the very raid in
which Lynch and Mlaahon were concerned.
From every point of view, therefore, we think
the facts more than justify the Government
in commuting the death-sentence upon these
two men.