The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMEg.—A *story has reached us from the other
side of the Atlantic which would have been invalu-
able to Mr. Roebuck in pointing his question about
Federal Recruiting in Ireland. This time it is the
Irish citizens on the other side of the water who

protest against the artifices used to inveigle their
countrymen into enlistment. The Boston journals
for this present month contain a full account of the
circumstances which have not unreasonably pro-
voked their resentment. It appears that Mr. Finney,
of whom we have heard something before, and who
announced himself as "Emigration Agent for the
principal railroads in New England," succeeded,
after a failure in Galway, in picking up 102 likely
young men in Dublin. He offered them a free
passage, steady work, £2 a month, with board, and
• two suits of clothes a year. They were not told
where the work was to be, but it was to be on rail-
ways, and they were to be met at Purtland by " a
real gentleman and a good friend, who would take
care of them." Accordingly they sailed from Liver-
pool on the 27th of February, and landed at Port-
land on the 9th of March. There 14 of the party

seem to have strayed away, and, strange to say,
eight of them were snapped up by the recruiting
agents. The rest proceeded by train to Boston, in
charge of Mr. Finney, and were lodged in an old
building belonging to a Mr. Kidder. Neither beds,
not even straw, nor tables were provided, nor any-
thing to eat, except some bread and cheese. The
same night, but not until after liquor had been
served round by the orders of some unknown person,
Mr. Kidder presented himself and told them " that
the work they were brought over to do was not
ready, but that need make no difference; they
need not be idle for a single day; they could en-
list at once ;" and he ended by recommending a
particular Irish regiment to them. After listening
to this oration, it struck the men very forcibly
that they had been enticed from their homes on
false pretences, and were destined from the first
to be food for powder. This suspicion was confirmed
by the fact that "recruiting agents hovered
around them, and in the course of the next
day gobbled up several," and that others, having
gotinto the pohee-station, were told that they had
better enlist to get themselves out. The greater
number, however, 'declined to join the army, and,
having lived on the charity of their countrymen for
a day or two and been turned out of their temporary
lodging by Mr. Kidder, lost all faith in that gen-
tleman, and did not respond to his subsequent offer
of employment on the Charlestown Waterworks,
In the meantime, the Irish inhabitants of Boston
and the neighbourhood took the matter up, and held
an indignation meeting, where a committee was
appointed to investigate the case, and another to
relieve the sufferers. It will be remembered that
the practices here discl"sed are exactly those which
were described by Lord Palmerston in his answer to
Mr. Roebuck. "There is, we know, so great a
difference between the wages of labour in the United
States and the wages of labour in Ireland that in
order to ind nee men to go it is sufficient to tell them,
' Come as labourers. There is this railway and that
railway, this work and that work, and instead of
Is. and ls. 6d., you will get 10s. a day.' They are
much too wise to talk of enlistment iv Ireland.
They induce the people to go to find a better mar-
ket for their labour, and when these men land at
New York there are people there to induce them to
enlist in some Ohio regiment or another, and become
soldiers, with the chance of plunder and God knows
what besides.' The wonder is that the prospects
held out to Dublin mechanics, as these young fel-
lows were, were not more extravagantly glowing.
One was an. employe on the Midland and Great
Western Railway, and was actually earning 2s. 10d.
a day when he was duped by the promise of £2 a
month, with clothes and board, into engaging him-
self as a common labourer in America. Why, in an
advertisement of a Wisconsin company, quoted
by Mr. Caird, 10s. a week was guaranteed, be-
sides 12s. for board. Perhaps it may have been
thought wise to offer the minimum that would
attract Irishmen across the Atlantic, so that the
Bounty and pay of a recruit might prove the
&ore irresistible. Considering that Mr. Kidder
might have obtained 62,500 dollars for these men as
substitutes, it is impossible not to suspect that this
was his motive, and that the discomforts of their
reception were intended to drive them into the
army. At all events, nothing can be more flimsy
than the pretexts alleged to account for his share
in the transaction. Being questioned, he fully
acknowledged Finney as his agent, and declared
that the emigrants were originally wanted for the
waterworks, though, finding that there was no
longer a demand for them, he had retracted the
order when it was too late. To this it was replied.
on the pert of the men, that they never heard a
word about waterworks, but were engaged to work
on railways. It further appeared that the season
at which Mr. Finney was most active was just that
when labour at waterworks is at a standstill, and
that, as a matter of fact, the contractor at the water-
works knew nothing of the affair. Lastly, it was
shown that Mr. Finney was a notorious substitute
broker, and had falsely represented himself as agent
for several New England railways, when he was
really nothing but agent of Mr Kidder. As to the
iniquity of these proceedings there can be, we think,
but one opinion, but of their illegality, from the
international point of view, we cannot but feel
doubts. If people will be simple enough to believe
such puffs as that of Mr. Finney's scheme, which
appeared in the columns of one of our Dublin con-
temporaries, what Government can protect them ?
In this notable paragraph young Irishmen are in-
foroed that nothing but " obstacles thrown in the
way by the mailboat agents, who feared it would
be a bream,. of International law," prevented this
redeemer of Ire' land from carrying out with him
00. However, he is soon to re-
-1,000, instead of 11
spices, to bring out a large
turn, "under better a:
number of the youth of te:is impoverished country,
to become citizens of a more' favoured land, where
the labourer is worthy of his hire, where want
is unknown," &e. To entre': British sub-
jects in this easy way, and then to starve them into
serving with the American army, is cajolery and
deceit of the worst kind, but it is not enlistment,
for enlistment surely implies consent on the pert of
the recruit. It is an evasion of the law, but it is
not an evasion in the same sense as the illegal equip-
ment of a ship, for there the warlike character,
whether actual or constructive, is imparted within
the neutral territory. The victims of Mr. Finney
were not bee ldiers in fact or even in intention when
they quitted it'elanill
and showed very little dispo-
sition to become pnwhen they reached America.
ch a traffic is a great dis-
grace;enoeen to benefit by it,
Still, the existence of
to the nation that is sti •
and a great injury to that which is thus made to
furnish its quota to a foreign army, It is not so
much a case for diplomatic remonstrance as for
public exposure. Not long ago some very sensible
letters from Messrs. Smith O'Brien and Mitchell,
warning their deluded countrymen against the folly
of sacrificing their lives in America by way of
avenging the wrongs of Ireland, were circulated all
over Dublin. It is more than probable that these
letters were elicited by a knowledge of the infamous
trade carried on by emigration agents. If so, we
have not had long to wait for a proof that the coun -
set was opportune. There is no ether country i n
the world where respectable mechanics, receiving
good wages, could be kidnapped in this manner. In
the present state of the American labour-market a
prudent man might well be tempted to go over
spontaneously in the hope of bettering himself, but
to be carried over in gangs by a person whose pro-
fession and objects were perfectly well known, and
who would have everything to gain by making sol-
diers of them, without any fear of being betrayed,
could happen to none but Irishmen. Having hap-
pened once, or rather having once been detected
and exhibited in its true light., it can hardly hap-
pen again even in Ireland, and we shall be sur-
prised if Mr. Finney, who is said to be a native of
Galway, ventures to show his face in Dubliti a
second time.
HERALD.--a the vigorous and able speech which
Sir Stafford Northoote delivered at Exeter on Tues-
day he referred to the losses which the Whigs had
lately sustained, not in their numerical strength
alone, but in that class of members who, from their
character, ability, and eervice, constitute the bone
and sinew of a party. Some of those losses, as the
hon. baronet feelingly observed, extended beyond
the party, and afflicted the nation itself. Men like
the late Sydney Herbert and Sir George Lewis,
though they acted with a party, belonged to the
nation at large, and all England mourned their loss.
But there are others who, without being entitled to
that high honour, do yet, from their commanding
position, their long services, or their known integ-
rity and moderation, form the grace and strength of
a party, and in the loss of men of this class the
Whigs have of late been singularly unfortunate,
theirill luck running dead against them in this as
in so many other instances, as if all the elements of
evil were conspiring for their discomfiture. And
now they are about to sustain another loss of this
nature, which in their present position they can ill
spare. Our columns a day or two contained the
announcement by Sir Francis Baring that he in-
tends at the close of tho present Parliament to re-
tire from the representation of Portsmouth, the
borough for which ho has sat continuously for 40
years. A bond so long maintained is equally credi-
table to both parties, and we are Conservative
enough to admire both the constituency and the
member which could remain true to each other in
the face of so many changes going on all around
them, and in spite of all those disintegrating influ-
ences which it is the special character of modern
Liberal notions to develop. But the character of Sir
F. Baring does not rest solely on the testimonial of
Jaw oonetituents and their cone troy to him in the

midst of the general fickleness and volatility show'.
by their neighbouring Liberal boroughs. He had
earned for himself no mean reputation in the House
of Commons. OF late years especially he was one of
a claw, always rarer than they ought to be, but
on whose presence there much of the influence of
the house depends in the country—men who, though,
they may remain attached to a party, are known to
have passed beyond the ordinary objects of party
ambition, who are no longer tempted by visions of
place or power, and who have risen superior to the
din and turmoil of party strife to those serene regions
where they act rather as mediators than as parti-
sans. It is a grand sight on the eve of a great party
division, when the House of Commons grows weary
of debate and clamours loudly for a division, to see
how all the tumult and uproar are hushed at once
into respectful silence as one of this class—a man
weighty in his charanter and piety, as Virgil has it
—rises in his place, and with his first slow measured
tones stills the roaring of the multitude, and recalls
them to their position as English gentlemen and,
representatives of the English people. It would be
invidious to enumerate the men who possess this
privilege, but now that he is about to leave the as-
sembly where his portly figure has been so long
familiar there can be no indelicacy in saying that iu
is possessed in an eminent degree by Sir Francis
Baring. Nor must it be forgotten that the privilege
has its drawbacks. A man who aspires to this kind
of influence must first make it clear that he has re-
nounced the desire of power. There was a time
when Sir Francis was as eager as other men in the
pursuit of place, and in the course of his long career
he has had his full share of it. There have been feW
Whig Governments formed since he has been in Par-
liament in which he has not held a place of more or
less importance. He was a Lord of the Treasury
under Earl Grey ; a Secretary of the Treasury,
blossoming into a Chancellor of the Exchequer, under
Lord Melbourne; and First Lord of the Admiralty
under Lord J. Russell. His experience in official life
is therefore extensive, and we are bound to admit
that, with the exception of his unlucky Chan•
cellorship of the Exchequer, it was well performed.
But on „his elevation to the Exchequer he might
well have complained that he had fallen on evil
times. The adoption of the penny postage system,
from which we now gather such marvellous fruits,
had just taken place, and Sir Francis Baring suc-
ceeded to an empty Exchequer and an enormous
deficiency. And, unfortunately for him, he had not
the inventive genius to fill the gap. Had our
finances been in their ordinary condition no better
man could have been found for keeping them safe,
and for seeing that not a shilling was unnecessarily
or extravagantly spent ; but his was not,the genius
that could discover new springs or invent new
modes of making taxation pleasant. Sir Robert
Peel's humorous picture of him sitting on the Trea-
sury Bench and fishing for a budget was too happy
to be soon forgotten ; and the additional per-cen-
taaes to the customs and excise duties, which were
the 6 sole result of his angling, seem to have been pre-
served by all future finance ministers as a monu-
ment of their helplessness and incapacity of one of
their predecessors. There was no need of such s
memorial. We should have remembered him by
quite other marks. Had a more capable Minister
than he been at that time in charge of our finances
his successor would not have had the excuse Sir
Francis furnished him with for imposing the income
tax. But though not happy as a financier, Sir
Francis Baring always commanded the respectful
attention of his party, and that respect, as we have
intimated, eventually extended itself over the whole
house. His rising was always the signal for silence;
whatever was the temper of that mobile assembly
he could always secure attention. And as his argu'
ments, though moderate in tone, and delivered with
judicial gravity, were invariably urged in favour of
Whig principles and Whig conduct, there can be
no doubt that the party had in him an adherent of
more value than many of those who would bring
more energy, more zeal, or more eloquence into
their service. The moderation of his opinions was a
constant check upon the wilder and more advanced
members of the party. and his own steadiness of ad-
herence kept many a waverer firm to the Whig
standard. We can well believe that there were
many country gentlemen, the descendants of the
old Whig party, who had begun to doubt whether
the principles of Burke and Rockingham were
not better represented in our days by Lord Derby
and Mr. Disraeli than by Lord Palmerston and Mr.
Gladstone, but who stilled their rising scepticism
by the reflection that so long as Sir Francis Baring
and such as he remained by the Whigs the party
could not wholly have abandoned their traditionary
principles. But now these ties are loosening day
by day. The men who were the ligatures of the
Ministerialist crew drop off or disappear, and the
motley crew which still calls itself the Whig party
is fast falling into a state of decomposition. We
look forward with confidence to an approaching
general election to quicken the process and to re-
move it from the position it now occupies, where,
by the confession of its own friends, it has become
useless for any national purpose, incapable of carry-
ing any measure, and as, in fact, only cumbering
the ground.

,n

COUNTRY MARKETS.

_-

NONMOUTH—TuEsDAY.

The local markets have been thinly attended during the
week, owing to the farmers being busily engaged in sowing,
and prices are firmer. The average quotations are as fol-
lows .--
Wheat, white 5s 3d to 5s 9d 8ar1ey...... 3s 4d to 2s Sd
Ditto red, .0s Od to Os Od I Oats .. 2s 2d to 2s 9d