The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-07 00:00:00

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

(THIS DAY.)

THE FENIAN INSURRECTION.

The Fenian outbreak ill Ireland is treated of by
each of our contemporaries to-day. By none of them is
any doubt expressed of the complete ability of the com-
mander-in-chief to suppress it wherever it shows itself. It
would be wrong, however, remarks the Fiona, to disregard
its sinister features. The movement has evidently been con-
certed, and in the south-west, where the Fenian conspiracy
has grown up, there is a considerable amount of disaffec-
tion. The social calamities which will be entailed upon
Ireland are the most serious consideration. It can hardly
be otherwise than that the constant fear of disturbance
and outrage, the discouragement to industry and to the
introduction of capital, and the stimulus to absenteeism
must deeply affect the prosperity of the country. For
this reason, if for no other, it is to be hoped that the sup-
presaion of the present disturbances will not only be
speedy and complete, but that such condign punishment
may be inflicted on the leaders as to convince even the
most ignorant that rebellion Is not the safe and pleasant
vocation it has long been conaidred in Ireland.

Though the most important that has yet occurred, the
movement, the Daily News says, in a military point of view
is altogether contemptible. The simultaneousness shows
• considerable powerof organisation, but the rest of the evi-
dence indicates how slender are the resources which the Fe-
nian' wield. Their aimless proceedings show that Fenian.
ism is a curse to Ireland, by the general sense of insecurity
which it diffuses. It is now the duty of the executive to
restore to Ireland by the sharpest, must rapid, and meet
effectual means, that tranquillity without which the
operations of industry and the intercourse of society are
alike impossible. Rebels engaged in resistance to actual
authority or taken with arms in their hands must be dealt
with as the military exigencies of the moment may dictate.
For others the slower but not necessarily tenderer mer-
cies of the l►w will remain. When the ditty of the execu-
tive is done, the evil social arrangements which afford
knaves their opportunity must be redressed, unless the
imperial parliament is content to be unconsciously the ac-
complier of the Fenian senate.

The Herald also protests against any more " sentimen-
talism or indecision" in the treatment of the prisoners. The
time for forbearance, it says, is last, and "humanitarians"
and Jamaica committees will do well to stand out of the
way. "The kid-glove and rosewater interest must rest in
abeyance for a while."

The Trkgropk thinks that in mercy to the rebels in heart
who have rot yet committed themselves, and who are too
numerous to be hanged, even if blood-thirstiness were our
beat policy, the goyim nment cannot be too sudden or too
energetic in its blows at every overt act of rebellion.
While deeply deploring the event, the Star feels at the
same time a certain consolation in the thought that so pal-
pable and undisguised a peril as that which now agitates
Ireland will do something to convince our conservative go-
verning classes of the necessity that some attempt shall be
made to content the Irish masses and estrange them from
rebellious temptation.