The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-21 00:00:00

FHB -SUN, LONDON, AVEDNESDAN, DECEMBER 21, 1.870

THE RELEASE 01? THE FENIANS

THE MEMBERS FOR SALFORD AND THEIR
CONSTITUENTS.
Mr. C. E. Cawley and Mr. W. T. Charley, the mem-
bers for S.alfdr-d, addreased a meeting of their constituents
on Monday evening, in the Saliord Tows Hall. The
Mayoc of Salford (T. Davies, Esq.) presided.
Mr. Charley said the honour of a constituency was
bound up with that of its representatives, and he con-
gratulated the constituency of Salford on the futility of
the persistent efforts which had been made to cast ridi-
cule upon him (Mr. Charley) for certain expressions that
he used at a meeting which should be nameless. Mr.
Gladstone was, no doubt, still Prime Minister of Eng-
land ; but during the last session of Parliament, whilst
retaining office, he had to submit to defeat after defeat,
and practically to, acknowledge that his so-called bene-
ficent legislation for Ireland had failed to realise any
of the rosy-coloured results which he so artistically
painted. Take, for instance, the division upon
conventual and monastic institutions. He should
never forget the burst of cheering which rang
from the Conservative benches when Mr. Newdegate
walked up the floor of the House of Commons to an-
nounce the first defeat of Mr. Gladstone's Government.
But the disasters of the Government did not end there..
Majorities against them went on increasing—first two,
then 34, then 45,—until Mr. Gladstone, no longer able to
resist the pressure brought to bear upon him by his own
most cherished supporters, was obliged to throw over-
board his own Solicitor-General and to outbid Mr. New-
degate by instituting an inquiry of his own into conven-
tual and monastic institutions. The Committee which
was appointed was not Mr. Newdegate's, but Mr. Glad-
stone's--the friend of Archbishop Manning and Cardinal
Cullen. Poor Mr. Gladstone ! The greatest questions of
the day were undoubtedly social once. The prevalent
social immorality would not be amended by such quack
medicines as the ballot. There was now no vice so preva-
lent as that of gambling. The present Government had
laudably done all that it could to suppress it in every case
save one—religious gambling. With regard t) foreign
affairs, he hoped the Government would avoid
meddling in European politics. One Crimean war was
enough for a generation. It was no business of
ours to prop up Turkey. We should rather seek to raise
Greece from the position of a dependency of Russia to an
independent and presperous empire. It was to the work-
ing classes they must look mainly for raising the moral
tone of the country, and for reviving those chivalries and
that patriotic feeling by which our ancestors made Eng-
land the arbiter of the destinies of the world.
Mr. Cawley expressed satisfaction at seeing the Mayor
of Salford in the chair. With regard to the Irish policy
of the Government, he did not quarrel with them for
having released the Fenian prisoners; but it grated on
one's feelings to find Mr. Gladstone boasting of quiet .
reigning throughout Ireland when that country groaned
under the Coercion Act. He should rather have approved
of a condition by which the released prisoners should
have been bound to obey the laws of the land to which
they belonged. He hoped the clemency of the Queen
would be justified by the future conduct of her Irish sub-
jects. One of the most important measures of last session
was, of coarse, the Education Act. He regarded oompul-
Rory attendance at school as one of the most important
elements in a scheme of national education. In the case
of the criminal and debased clasees it was necessary.
Re hoped working men would do all that lay in their I
power, by taking advantage of the educational means
now at their disposal, to render compulsion unnecessary,
If it was resorted to, it must not be applied to any one
class, but must be general. Ho regarded the Burials Bill
which was introduced last session, but rejected, as the
thin end of the wedge which was to break down the Estab-
lished Church. The opening of burial grounds to
Dissenters he did not object to in places where there
was no public cemetery ; but he could but regard
the proposed liberty to use any dissenting service
at a funeral as a preliminary to the, use of such services
in the Church itself. To this he emphatically . ob-
jected. Amongst prospective measures was the
Dliuee Regulation Bill. A feeling existed that sub-
inapeetoss slaerald be appointed to visit the mines almost
daily. He, however, condoned the country against
sanctioning anything which should relieve col-
liery owners or their Wattagema, .either from legal
responsibility or from a sense el responsibility.
Any measure which did that would be more inju-
rious than the present system. Having in view the
letter which Mr. Gladstone had lately written to Mr.
Deese on the subject of the Pope's spiritual functions, the
people of England should keep their eyes open to his
movements. As Protestants, they did not object to the
utmost civil freedom being extended to Roman Catholics.
What they objected to was the pretension of that Church
to civil and religious supremacy. He should be sorry to
see that which might become inevitable in certain circum-
stances, namely, a struggle between Protestants and
Roman Catholics in England.

The Times does not place much reliance on the sensc o
gratitude which the releakte of the :Fenian prisoners ought
to call forth from, the men themiathres.. There is a parlu-
liar self-deception incidental to political eon.4piraw,
'which did net desert these Fenians on their trial, and
may, perhaps, harden many of them against the feelings
naturally inspired by forgiveness. They can hardly fail,
however, to have profited in some degree by the disastrous
futility of their enterprise, and what they will hear on
coming out must convince them that it is now
less promising than ever. They will learn that
an Act has been passed which removes the chief
grievance of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, that
another Act has been passed which gives the Irish farmer
a new stake in the country, that a third Act has armed
the Executive with extraordinarry powers, and that agita-
tion has been directed into a fresh channel, which, how-
. ever unconstitutional, is widely divergent from that of
IFenianism. The Fenian prisoners, being prohibited from
returning to Ireland, at least for the present, they cannot
ofNVrrenthaeyndwineiadnypro; bhuahtleyvefinnidf
ftohlleoywdtihde
return to Ireland
themselves the objects of much less admiration than in
their cells at Portland and Chatham. Fenian leaders
only appear heroes when they can be represented as mar-
tyrs, and the manufacture of disaffection will be carried
on under greater difficulties without the aid of menda-
cious stories of ill-treatment in English prisons. At all
events the Art is one that, being accepted by the English
nation, will speak for itself. It is a conclusive proof tolreland
that the Government does not feel it necessary to retain
these prisoners as hostages for her good behaviour, and
Great Britain respects the kindly interest in their release
manifested by many Irishmen never suspected of a bias
towards Fenianism. Let us hope that the concession—
for it is a concession—will be accepted in a like spirit, and
that we may never have to repent having departed from a
sound principle, in deference to Irish sentiment.
The release 'of the political prisoners, as the incarce-
rated Fenians are termed, is a step of which it is to be
hoped the full consequences have been duly weighed.
These men but a short time ago were active instruments
in a scheme for upsetting the British rule in Ireland, and

in furtherance of their plan did not hesitate to blow up
public , buildings in England, to plot arson, robbery,
and murder, and would have burned down London
had we allowed them the opportunity. If offences of this
nature are to be designated as political, some of the con-
victs in Alillbank would be valuable additions to the
House of Commons, and the "deliberative assembly" of
a gang of burglars in Whitechapel has an equal claim to
our respect. It must also be remembered that the release
of these "political prisoners" is a direct snub to the
vigilance of the police by whose exertions they
were captured, and a rebuke to the judges who
sentenced them to imprisonment. It is, moreover, a
lesson to lawless ruffians who, under the cloak of political
discontent, pursue their nefarious schemes or ambition
and bloodshed, that the administration of justice in this
country is a mockery and a sham, and that if their friends
can only manage to frighten or bamboozle the so-called
Government of this oountry, they will assuredly be released
directly the panic caused by their lawless actions has
subsided. It is in truth difficult in the present day to
say what is the Government of this oountry. Its voice is
Ito be heard more on the stump orator's platform or shriek-

ing from the cells of Millbank than at the council-
table in Downing-street. We appear to be guided
by no principle but that of noise. We almost tremble at the
sound of our own whisper ; yet, strange to say, the echo of
the guns that are blazing at our doors excites no feeling
of apprehension in our breasts. We start at the falling
of a pin, but are deaf to the roar of cannon. Threatened
abroad, bullied at home, it is perhaps as well for its own
comfort that our Government does not allow its pro-
tracted slumbers to be disturbed by opposing a fatiguing
resistance to those who kick its prostrate body ; but
whether this is comforting to its employers, the public, is
another question.—Pall Mall Gazette.
The Dublin Freeman's Journal says : The official docu-
ment which we publish, seems to declare that all the
prieoners to "be discharged" are to be subject to the eon
&don "of not remaining in nor 'duetting to the Unitai
Kingdom.* We regret that the gracious ace determked
on by the Minister has bees cramped by this unnecssary
and in no way advantageous condition, Grace should in
such matters be free, generous, cordial. Half ,
its value is taken away—all its beauty is disfigured
when some small and valueless bargain is exacted from
the recipients. As a matter of Imperial policy this
restriction was a blunder, which in politics is worse than
a crime. O'Donovan Rossa or Mr. Clarke Luby, or any
other of the prisoners would be very small fry, indeed, if
free amongst their fellows in Ireland, restricted from all
pernicious agitation by the consciousness that they
, breathed the free and untainted air of heaven by the
generous moray and royal grace of the Sovereign, against
whom they had offended, but to whose forgiveness they
were debtors. But those men, driven into exile, banished
for ever from their native land;forbidden ever again to visit
the scenes of their youth, may be converted into martyrs
by the unwisdom of the Government, and become the
active apostles of revolutionary ideas and anti-English
sentiments at times and places where such pernicious ideas
flourish as in a hotbed. Possibly, however, the Govern-
ment have knowledge of matters that left them no option
between this perpetual banishment and the wearing out of
life, of body, soul, and intellect in the ordeal of the con-
vict's maddening routine. The Government is responsible,
and they alone can decide. To our countrymen we
would say, accept the present first step in the generous
Writ in which it is conceived. No doubt a time will
come when the decree of exile will be cancelled, as that of
penal servitude now is. We wish it were now—:but
'Ashok; now are unavailing. The Amnesty Association
have now seen the liberation of the last of the prisoners.
We are satisfied that if that bodyhad been more measured
in speech and more moderate in council they would have
seen the prison doors opened long since, and possibly
opened unconditionally. Their duty to-day is plain.
They have still large funds banked, we presume, for
the benefit of those who will now need the aid
so generously subscribed for them by the Irish race, and
handed to the Amnesty Committee, as trustees for the
political prisoners. Australia only recently sent back for
the use of the home prisoners £5OO, a handsome sum for
the men now about to be discharged. Let the association
wind up its affairs at once, and give to the public a satis-
factory account of their stewardship—beginning with the
fact that all the prisoners are now free from penal servitude
and penal restriction—though the sea seems decreed ever
to be a barrier between them and Ireland.
The Glasgow Citizen says :—" The recent letter of Gene-
ral Neill, the Irish American chief, is excellently timed to
justify that of Mr. Gladstone to Mr. M'Carthy Downing,
intimating the determination of the Government to libe-
rate the Irish political prisoners. The Fenian leader
confesses to a conviction, which must be shared by most
of bis fellows, that the time has passed for an invasion of
Canada. To say truth, the enterprise never had a chance
of success beyond that involved in its kindling a war be-
tween Great Britain and the United States, and so enlist-
ing a powerful nation on the side of the brotherhood.
But its final abandonment by the most distinguished, of
its champions comes appropriately enough, at this moment
to warrant the gracious act of the Govetnment, in
freeing the poor bondsmen whose cause woo looked on
with favour by many of the Irish people, because,
under all its wickedness and folly, lay, it was alleged,
a genuine and sincere, if wildly mistaken, love for
Ireland."

ENGLAND AND AMERICA.
- THE ASHBURY BANQUET.
The following were the chief speeches at the banquet
given in honour of Mr. Ashbury, the yachtsman, at Man-
chester.
Mr. C. H. iranscombe, the United States Consul in
Manchester, in responding to the toast of his health, said
He trusted that any victory which Mr. Ashbury and his
countryman might achieve over Americans would be as
bloodless as the victory which had just been achieved by
Mr. Ashbury ; and give occasion only to such festivities
as that which they were now holding. In the second
place, they would allow him to say how profoundly
grateful he felt at the manner in which they had received
the last toast. In their expressions he found clear and
conclusive proof that they bore in their hearts good will
towards the United States. Their expressions, he
was persuaded, were not mere polite phrases of diplomacy,
high sounding words or the acceptance of their distin-
guished consideration, but they were emphatic expressions
of hearty, sincere, and lasting friendship. Had he de-
sired a stronger proof of their sincerity, he would have
had to remember the fact that he was speaking in
Lancashire, and addressing a portion of the people of that
county, who in the dread hour of America's peril,
when she was assailed by foes within and without,
and when a conspiracy was concocted in the interests of
human slavery, and to wipe her out from the map of
; nations—against all arguments and inducements of self-
interest stood firm as a rock as the uncompromising friend
of America- He believed the people of England were
friends of the great American Republic. England and
America had oommon purposes and common aims—their
destiny and interests were alike. In referring to the
present war on the continent, the speaker said he trusted
that one of the results of the war would be that the grave
of military glory and standing armies would be dug
'so long that they would be past resurrection. He
maintained that no war should be waged unless it could
be defended upon some great principle of •eternal right, or
a question of national existence. He invoked a blessing
on the union which already existed hetween Englishmen
and Americans, and hoped that that union would never
be disturbed by the rude hand of bloody war.
Mr. Ashbury, on rising to respond to the toast of
his health, was received with prolonged cheering. He
said he had only arrived from America on the
previous day, and it was only on his arrival
in this country that he had learnt that he was to be in-
vited to a banquet in his native city. He then proceeded
to refer to the negotiations which had brought about the
race between the Cambria and the Dauntless over the
Atlantic, which commenced on the 4th of July last,
from Daunt's Head, near Cork. Singular to relate, he
remarked, the yachts, after they had started about ten
minutes entered a dense fog, and they drifted as it were
into oblivion, and they never saw each other again during
the twenty-three days and nights which the race occupied
until they landed safely in New York waters. He would
not attempt to describe the discomfort which he and his
friends suffered during their voyage. When they arrived
at Cape Race-1,000 miles from New York—they spoke it,
4 and expected to reach New York in three days, but
eturrtrary winds prevented them from reaching New
I'm* wit.' ten ddye had elapsed. The Cambria, as
they no doubt were avast, won the race by 105
I adulate% The race was for a gold cup, valued at £250,
and it was his intention, with the view to spread emula-
tion among yachtsmen, to give the cup to the Harwich
Yacht Club, to be competed for by the yachts of Eng-
land, Ireland, and France. It might seem singular that
he had debarred America from the competition, after
the great kindness which he had met from Americans,
but he could not ignore the fact that the Americans had
possession at the present time of one cup which they had
carried off from this country, and against the world, in
1851. It was his intention to return to America in
September next, and he thought there was just the pro-
bability of his bringing that celebrated cup, of 1851, back
to this country. From what experience he had had of
America he was certain that the best feelings existed
among Americans with regard to England.

HEAVY GALE OFF THE ISLE OF MAN.--A hetwy
gale from the north-west was experienced 'at Ramsay on
Sunday, and during its continuance the smack Pearl,
bound from Ramsay to Douglas, was seen in distreesin
the bay, with her sails blown away. The crew of the
Two Sisters lifeboat, belonging to the National Lifeboat
Institution, quickly manned their boat, and proceeded to
the aid of their fellow townsmen. Fortunately their
efforts were crowned with success, for they were enabled
to save the crew of three men shortly before their vessel
disappeared. The boat was out under sail for about six
hours. It is believed that the smack has become a total
wreck.

THE REWARD OF COURAGE.—A. correspondent
of the Echo tells a story which is too like many others
that we hear of now-a-days: —" The following are the
facts of the massacre of a number of unfortunate French-
men guilty of no other crimes than patriotism and pluck.
I give you the story as, it was related to me by an eye-
witness, an American gentleman of unimpeach-
able character and good social position, who has
been a sympathiser with the Germans from the
first, and still upholds them through thick and thin.
During one of the fights on, the 29th ult., in the
neighbourhood of Chateauclux, a malt beexi of
Frenchmen in unfferal consisting of a blouse
with a broad belt) and trousers with a plain yed
stripe, excited the admiration of my friend by the
tenacity with which they hold w nob very *Arnim
Resides for some little time against superios minibus of
Bavazians. They were defeated, and the survivals gave
up their arms and were taken prisoners. When this had
been effected, the Bavarians, all the time jeering at and
"chaffing" their unfortunate captives, drove them before
them with the butt ends of their rifles, ranged them
in a row, and, amidst much, laughter, murdered
them ! My friend could only look on while two were
being shot, viz.. a lad who looked scarcely more than
sixteen, who trembled from head to foot, and cried
bitterly ; and a grey-headed cld man of between sixty
and seventy ; for to use the phrase of one of the "execu-
tioners," both these " fluttered" after they fell, and were
dispatched, while on the ground, by bayonets."
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The death is announced of Colonel J. Barnes
Dunsterville, the quartermaster-general of the
Bombay Army.
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