The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TIMES.—Mr. F. Chesson, we must remind the
public, is Secretary to the Aborigines' Protection
Society, and Mr. William Fox was formerly Secre-
tary to the Government of New Zealand. To these
two secretaries we have recently opened our columns,
with results which have appeared during the last
fortnight, andwill be visible once more this morning.
Unfortunately, the grain bears but a moderate pro-
portion to the chaff in this correspondence, and the
public question is in danger of being swamped in
personal charges and recriminations. We must
take the liberty, therefore, of premising that there
is but one subject before us, and that is the conduct
of the Aborigines' Protection Society in despatching
to the Maories of New Zealand, then in arms against
her Majesty, a certain missive, or address. This
address has been denounced as seditious, wicked,
and nonsensical ; and Mr. Fox advanced this further
charge against it, that it had been introduced into
the colony surreptitiously, and secretly circulated
I among the rebellious natives, without the knowledge
of the Colonial Government. Mr. Chesson's last
words on these imputations will be found in another
column. There is but too little necessity for re-
marking that we are, and have for some time been,
at.war with the natives of New Zealand. At the
close of last year we were maintaining an army of
at least 10,000 Imperial troops in the colony, and
the costs of these wars, which have been incessantly
renewed and uniformly protracted, are felt by all
the taxpayers in the kingdom. Most people, too,
understand that the cause of these wars, however

trymen producers, manufacturers and merchants,
those who call us a nation of shopkeepers have not
proved our character to its core nor rightly appreciated
the source of our great prosperity. Every English-
man is at heart an agriculturist. The desk and the
counting-house never usurp for very long that place
in his affections which naturally belongs to the soil
which gave him birth. When the merchant has made
money he turns to farming, aspires to be an owner
of land, and to found a county family which may
some day forget that its ancestors soiled their hands
with trade. Whether of gentle descent, or belonging
to the commoner class of newly-risen men,.the great

An America:

Feniana.

(From the New York Times, Sept. 15.)
By the news from Europe this morning, it will be
seen the British Government are becoming so

_ .... _.. ...,._ .
alarmed at the progress of Fenianiim in Ireland
that they have determined to increase the military
force stationed in that portion of the United

Kingdom.
It can hardly be any business of ours to reflect
upon the disposition that may be made of the British
army on the home stations. But it is noteworthy
that a so-called political organisation, the strength
and character of which is so well knovin here as to ex-
cite only good-humoured jest, is magnified on the
other side of the Atlantic into a formidable league,

demanding immediate suppression by military force.
In the city of New York alone we could probably
turn out more " Fenians" than could be mustered in
the whole of Ireland. And yet, were the purposes
of the order as hostile to our Government as they
are ostensibly to that of Great Britain, we should m
hardly think of any measure of repression that
might not, with the utmost safety, be left in the

hands of the metropolitan police.
The trouble with the Queen's Government, we
suspect, is that they are not altogether satisfied
that they are in the right. Let them declare
absolute religious freedom in the sister island—

Let them abolish the scandal of a pampered State

Church, which is not the chnrch of one-twefth part
of the population of Ireland—let them trust the
yeomanry of Ireland as they trust those of England
and Scotland when volunteers have to be raised—

and let them give the Irish people a fairer and fuller

representation in Parliament. Having done this the
_ __ .

British Government could afford to reduce the con-

tingents in the Irish garrisons at pleasure, and
whistle at the universal Fenian brotherhood in both
hemispheres.