The Express.
London, England, 1866-08-08 00:00:00

THZ !TATS 07 IRIJAND.

Referring to the debate in the House of Lords
on the motion for the continuance of the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland, and especially to the state-
ments made by Lord Kimberley, the Times remarks that
though there may be few active Fenian in Ireland, there
is a large class of society there who are ready to take
advantage of any reverse that may befal British rule.
Arguing from the supposition that the Irish population
would gladly see the political connexion between the two
countries at an end, the Times proceeds to consider
what is to be done with • people who are so
unfriendly to us. There are only two modes of
maintaining the political connexion—coercion or concilia-
tion. It is a thoughtless and unscrupulous assertion to say
that British policy has exclusively resorted to the former
means. The removal of all the grievances which were
urged by the orators of the last generation is a sufficient
answer to such an assertion. The wish of men of all
parties in England—the Tana intentionally excepts Irish
tories—is to do justice to every class and creed in
Ireland, and to remove every real cause of dis-
content. The difficulty is to find the cause of the
admitted disorder. Putting aside trilling questions,
there is a large agreement of opinion to the effect that
the reform of the Irish church, and some legislation on the
tenure of land which shall protect the more defenceless

tenants, would conciliate the Irish people. On the merits
of the Irish establishment the Times presumes there
cannot be two opinions among impartial men. The church
of 700,000 people, established amid a population of
5,500,000, is an anomaly which no one on this side of St.
Oeorge's Channel attempts to defend. The land question
Is more difficult, and the Times doubts whether any legis-
lation will effect • solution which will be just both for
landlord and tenant, but it is one which deserves all the
consideration parliament can give it. We are bound as a
nation to do all that may be justly and reasonably done to
content the Irish people ; if they then still continue hostile,
we shall know that their antipathy is beyond any legisla-
tive remedy.
The Telegraph thinks too much attention has been given
hitherto to the ludicrous side of Fenianism. We have
now the warrant of Lord Kimberley that the conspiracy
was widely spread throughout the land, and that even
Fenissnism did not exhaust all the existing elements o
disaffection. The organisation still survives, the feeling
of the peasantry is hostile to the goveiament, and the con-
spiracy will probably be further developed by what is
taking place in the United States. England, no doubt,
would be able to crush any attempt at insurrection,
but she must not be satisfied with measures of
repression alone. She must remove the causes of discontent.
This a tory ministry will not be able to do. They are
pledged, one and all, to the great landlords and the pro-
testant parsons ; and so long as a tory government admi-
nisters the imperial affairs we shall hold our own in Ire-
land merely on the barbarous tenure of superior force,
wielded by orangemen and tempered only by occasional
corruption. Bribery and bayonets—in those two words
you have the Irish policy of the Derby administration.
In the opinion of the Mar, Lord Kimberley's speech In
the House of Lords was more full of importance, more

full of warning, more full of lessons which it would be
positively criminal to neglect, than any speech de-
livered this session in the same assembly. He
tells England that the Fenian insurrection was by far
the most wide-spread, deep-seated, and formidable which
had threatened English rule since 1798; that, had any
organised rebellion actually broken out in Ireland, the
whole mass of the tenant farmers of the south and west of
Ireland would have joined it, and that the artisan
and small tradesmen class in towns, and of
course the peasant class, were with the movement.
It is something that the counsel which he gave—the set-
tlement of the land tenure question and the removal of
the anomaly of the established church—was listened to
without demur by Lord Derby and the House of Lords,
and if England, the Sear remarks, neglects the warning so
emphatically given by Lord Kimberley and so eloquently
illustrated by passing events, she will have her own apathy
or blindness to blame for any misfortunes which her con-
nexion with Ireland may yet produce.

CONTINZSTAL POLITICS.

The Daily News finds fault with the attitude (lammed
by some of the French liberal party as represented by M.
Forcade, in regard to the extension of the power of Prussia
and the unification of Germany. The doctrine of this
school of French liberals is that no Continental state or
nation (they are kind enough to tolerate Great Britain) has
the right to possess itself is independence and unity,
except only Frans. They are amazed at the audacity of
Prussia in waging a victorious war and concluding a
triumphant peace in Germany without consulting
French Wends sad rewarding French disinterestedness,

as Italy rewarded it, by the cession of a province or two.
The Daily News regrets this spiteful temper of a certain
French liberalism, because it justifies the government
under which it anguishes and chafes, and should be
amongst the first to deplore the recent suppression of •
liberal journal to which many most estimable and able
writers contributed their wisdom and their wit, if it could
forget that the Courrier du Disienche was as illiberal
abroad as it was Moral at home.
The Herold describes Prussia as standing beside France,
sentryble, with cocked rifle in hand, watching for the
next development of French ambition, the very idea of
which is enough to make Frenchmen chafe with vexation.
X. de Forcade in the Revise des Deus Mond's describes
France as stupefied by the suddenness of the change which
has taken place. "We wake," mays M. de Forcade,
"as from a dream to find Prussia mistress of Ger-
many, and a state of things which would have increased a
hundredfold our misfortunes and our despair if anirtlibsg
like it had happened in 1815." The writer evidently
thinks the Emperor is to blame for this great disaster,
though he does not say so in express team. The Herald
Inds in this article a very plain spokes anumiation
of that extraordinary pretence, not uncut en with French-
men, of no musky in Europe has ing a right to • gain in
which Frame does not participate in some manner or other.