The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-19 00:00:00

OM% CO I'EMPORARIES---This "Morning

RELEASE OF THE FENIAN PRISONERS.
The Times, in commenting on the letter of Mr. Glad-
stone announcing the release of the Fenian prisoners,

says :—The Government have taken, advantage. of the
approach of Christmas to send a new message of peace

and goodwill to Ireland. "The Government," says Mr.
Gladstone, "have recommended to the Crown the exer-

cise of the Royal clemency so far as is compatible with
the assured maintenance of tranquillity and order
in the country." The English public will be heartily glad

that the Government have felt themselves in a p4sition to
make this concession to Irish feeling. Our letter from
Dublin this morning illustrates the capacity of the Irish

for misapprehending facts ; but there never was a more
complete misapprehension than that which has been
put forward by the extreme Irish party on this sub-
ject. The English Government, if not the Eng-

lish people, have been represented as entertaining an
almost vindictive animosity ao,inst the prisoners con-

victed of political felony. The stories of their maltreat-

ment, which have received so wide a circulation, afford a
strange illustration of this belief. All the while, it may
safely be said, there has not been a man in the rest of

Great Britain who has not been lamenting the necessity

of punishing our fellow-subjects
offences. The country has,

for political
indeed, fully

recognised the necessity, and has firmly supported the

Government in the unwelcome course it has been its duty

to pursue. But from the moment when Irish juries vindi-
cated the authority, of the law by convicting the prisoners,
up to the present hour, we Fhould all have rejoiced if it

could have been deemed consistent with the interests of

Ireland itself to remit the penalty which had been justly

Incrred. The time has come, in the opinion of the
Glffernment, when this general desire may be indulged;

and the pleasure felt at this decision by all classes of the

Queen's subjeats will be only second to that which will
doubtless be entertained by the immediate associates of
the prisoners.
The Daily 1V etos remarks : We congratulate that great

body of the people of Ireland who, themselves loyal and

peaceable, have so long waited in hope of the day when
this amnesty might become possible ; and we alio
congratulate the Government that they have found
themselves at last justified in taking this course,

which they had promised that they would take
when the:state of the country made it fitting so to do.

It was time to show that there was no weakness in the

generous temper of the Government. The firm though
conciliatory refusal of Mr. Gladstone in October, 1869, to
the numerous petitions for the immediate release of the
Fenian convicts, declared explicitly that while he and

his colleagues were proceeding, and would still proceed,
in the course of really liberal Irish legislation and

administration, they would not merely not yield to
clamour or turbulence, but not even to demands
in themselves not wholly unreasonable, as long as they were
_ _

supported by clamour. But Mr. Gladstone in England,

Mr. Fortescue in Ireland, continued cool and resolute to
maintain the law, but not to alh for special and excep-

tional powers till they had shown what the existing
law could and could not do, and till they were

prepared to prove, as they did prove by that
masterly piece of constructive legislation, the Irish
Land Bill, that they were not faltering, and
would not for one moment falter, in their undertaking to

win Ireland Ireland back to England by justice and sym-

pathy. Observant and thoughtful men who visit Ireland
—not only those who like Sir William Mansfield,
return after many years' absence ; but those, too,
who compare its present condition with that
of only two or three years since—bear witness to tho

striking improvement not only in the land but in tho
people. Their very demeanour, more cheerful, more
respectful to those whom in their peasant-lae simplicity
they do not grudge to call their betters, is sheaving that

the Church Act and the Land Act are helping to make
them feel that a real change is passing upon them. In all
things the time is propitious, and we repeat that we con-
gratulate the Government and the Irish people that the
amnesty is granted.