The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-13 00:00:00

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE FENIANS.

The English press admits that the United States
Government has acted promptly in its endeavours to stop
the Fenian raid. This is all very well, but we think the
feeling is becoming very.strong throughout the country
that some means ought to be devised of putting an end to
the present Fenian mode of liberating Ireland—not so
much on account of the Fenians although the rank and
file of them, being both poor and ignorant, are entitled to
as much protection at our hands as we can reasonably give
them ; nor yet on account of the Canadians, though as
civilised neighbours they are entited to expect security and
peace, as far as we are concerned--but on our own
account, the United States cannot, with common
decency or self - respect, permit a third per-
formance of this farce. We go as far as any
reasonable men can expect, in allowing the
Fenian Republic to be set up within our borders, and
letting it raise money, enlist men and collect arms and
munitions, and loudly proclaim its intention of declaring
war against foreign Powers. We do not say the Govern-
ment is entitled to any great credit for permitting all this,
for we do not know that there is any way of preventing
it ; but then neither the Fenians nor anybody else can
expect it to permit more than this. We cannot allow the
new Republic actually to erect forts, or to keep troops
under arms within our territory, but every thing short of
this which it can muster funds to do, we allow it to do.
But then, the impunity which attends these attempts to
invade Canada involves us in a more serious responsi-
bility. It, in the first place, encourages the adven-
turers who prepare them in adhering, to this mode
of gaining a livelihood ; and it enables them to
persuade the poor people who supply the money, that the
assemblage of large armed mobs, for the purpose of
fighting, plundering, and spreading terror through large
and populous districts, is no great harm, if some one gives
it the name of " war," and represents that the liberation
of Ireland is the object aimed at. A more shocking out-
rage than the raid three years ago was never seen in a
peaceable community, but nobody was legally punished
for it. Nothing whatever happened to those who took
part in it, except failure—but as failure happened to
Pompey, Lord Cornwallis, and Napoleon Bonaparte, it
naturally has no effect whatever in convincing the common
run of Fenians that there is anything criminal in these
enterprises. Moreover, we owe something in this matter
to civilisation. No sane man believes that the Fenians
are capable of conquering Canada, or even effecting a for-
midable lodgment on the soil. Even if they were able to
conquer Canada, nobody believes it would produce the
liberation of Ireland from British rule. It would be just
as sensible to expect Russia to liberate Poland if she heard
that our Polish fellow-citizens had overpowered the gar-
rison of Alaska. The great body of the Canadian people
hate the Fenians : a considerable body of the Irish people
hate them ; so that really an invasion of Canada has no
more title to excuse as a demonstration againgt England
than the murder of a bar-keeper as a testimony against
intemperance. Means must have some relation
to the end, in order to entitle them to the benefit
of anything that may be considered praiseworthy in the
end. The assassination of the British Minister might be
considered by some Fenians a good way of bringing pres-
sure to bear on the British Government ; but should we,
on that account, pass it over as simply a foolish outburst
of. patriotism? It is all very well, in judging other
people's actions, to try and put ourselves in their place;
but, then, in doing so, we are bound not to take leave of
our own judgment and moral sense. In so far as we wink
at these invasions, or allow them to pass with impunity,
we not only help the Fenian chiefs in their work
of imposture, but we do serious injury to
our own political system. We ought, therefore,
to help to put an end to the disgraceful swindle, and save
at least our own side of the border from being overrun once
every two or three years by an armed rabble, and our own
citizens' property from destruction, either by bringing the
leaders of these expeditions to justice, or stationing such a
force on the borders as will prevent their being attempted.
It is clearly not enough to issue a proclamation and put
troops in motion after the Fenian armies have appeared
in the field. By that time, whole counties have been filled
with alarm ; women and children driven from their homes,
telegraphs cut, trains stopped, tracks torn up, and the
business of large towns actually suspended, and thousands
of men called away from their legitimate occupations.
New York Times.

TENDENCIES OF EUROPEAN POLITICS. —TO a
superficial observer the contemporary movements of
European history appear _to be absolutely contradicting.
On one side we have a tendency to unification, and on the
other to diversion ; here a passion for rational agglom-
eration, and there for separate and independent existence.
More closely regarded, the two forces are seen to come
together, and to be carrying the Empires of the old world
to the point of feederal organization, where both are
reconciled. The Hungarians have revived the ancient
independence of the crown of St. Stephen's, and now the
Czech leaders are reported by cable to be desirous of
placing that of St. Wencesilau's in the same position.
The autonomy of Bohemia would only bring the Austrian
Empire more completely into the position of a federation
of kingdoms, which the North German Confederation
pretty accurately, ,represents.—New York Times.