The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-10 00:00:00


The Times remarks that numerous ana atrocious wilt°
ecent outrages have been, it has yet to be convinced that
ife and property in Ireland are by any means as insecure
,a in 1844-8. At the same time, it should freely be
,cknowledged that a deplorable reaction has set in within
he last two or three years, and that Lord Russell's in-
'erences from statistics which end with 1866 must be taken
with considerable modification. Nor should it be disguised
that, with or without adequate justification in fact, an
extraordinary alarm has possessed Irish landowners and
tenants of the better class. This, in itself, lea very grave
evil. It is possible that Ireland, like patients under treat-
ment for diseases of long standing, must be worse before she
a better ; it is possible that, before the land question is
ettled, revolutionary solutions may be propounded with
hreats and violence. All this proves nothing, except
hat beneficent legislation must be tempered with inflex-
'ile firmness in administration. We have always regretted
he release of the Fenian prisoners, not only because they
re capable of much practical mischief, but because such
la act done at such a time inevitably brought upon the
lovernment a suspicion of weakness. A few months ago
i'enianism appeared to be at least dormant, but it already
.xhibits renewed activity, and may need to be crushed
gain. What is now wanted, especially as the Habeas
Iorpus Act is no longer suspended, is a resolute
ssertion of the supremacy of law. We cannot
ut down Ribandism as Russia would put down
uch an association in Poland, or, perhaps, as we
at down the Thugs in India, but we can make its
inissaries feel that no lapse of time will ever screen them
rom detection, and that no mercy will ever be extended
them. It was long ago pointed out by Sir Robert Peel
hat, for detective purposes, the Irish police force is ill-
rganised. Let this be remedied without delay, and let
,o shortsighted forbearance be exhibited towards any one
iho may abuse his influence, as a priest or otherwise, to
helter assassins from punishment. We have undertaken
Ireland the arduous, though not hopeless, task of over-
oming evil with good, but order is the first condition of
ational well-being, and it is the paramount duty of every
government to enforce it, cost what it may.
The Herald cannot think that the Radicals have very
trong reasons to be proud of their handiwork. We shall
;et the Irish Church Bill, if ever we get it at all, at the
ost of two wasted sessions, and what value will it repre-
ent either to Ireland or the empire? Are we one inch
'wirer the pacification of Ireland now that " the act of
*ustice " has passed its crucial stage ? Would it not be
ricer to say that we are farther off than ever, and that as
' he bill has progressed disaffection has increased? Of
uurse we do not charge it upon the bill that Fenianism
,:as become more violent, and agrarian crime more
requent and atrocious, but we have a right to remind
Ihose who have pressed forward and supported this
neasure as the panacea for all the ills which afflict Ireland
hat the present state of things is infinitely worse than
when they began their attempt at a cure. They are fully
ware that they have succeeded in alienating the affec.
ions of the Irish Protestants, but can they affirm that
;hey are a single step nearer winning the goodwill and
confidence of the people ? Is not Ireland less peaceable
And less contented now than it was before they began
their work of pacification? Is not the progress of the
Irish Church Bill associated, even from the mere chrono.
, ogical point of view, with the growth of discontent and
disorder? This is hardly the kind of result which should
justify the exuberant felicitations of last Friday.

The Standard thinks that the Irish Church Bill has
been very little altered in its passage through committee.
No material amendment has been accepted by the Govern-
ment or adopted by the House, and such differences as
'nay be found between the original and the present edition
•if the measure are, for the most part, verbal and trivial
'nes. The bill as amended in committee is the same
measure of sweeping spoliation and cruel injustice which
Mr. Gladstone introduced on the 1st of March with such
vehement protestations of his desire to accept any modifi-
•:ations consistent with the principle of disestablishment
which might be suggested on behalf of the Church.
There can be, therefore, no division of opinion, and no
hesitation as to the course which Conservatives
and Churchmen must take with regard to this
bill. Had-the fair and equitable proposals of Mr.
Disraeli for facilitating the transition of the Irish Church
from an establishment to a voluntary body, and for sup-
plying it with the means of providing for the teaching of
the Protestant faith in those parts of the country in which
the Protestant inhabitants are unable to provide teachers
for themselves, been accepted, the House of Lords might
possibly have been induced, regarding the adoption of
these amendments as evidence of the sincerity of the pro-
fessions made by the Government of its desire to settle
the question justly and generously, to assent to the prin-
ciple of the bill ; but the bill, as it will reach their lordships,
is one of unqualified spoliation and unmitigated injustice.
The moment is critical no doubt, and the question is grave,
but we have yet to learn that the Peers have no higher
functions than to register the decisions of a House of
Commons in which Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues
obtained a majority by the solemn pledges to treat the
Irish Church with justice and generosity, which, under
some " deleterious influence," they have flagrantly
violated.

The Tekgraph says that instead of waiting until he
should be abolished by Act of Parliament, the Mayor of
Cork has abolished himself. He has, we hear, placed his
resignation in the hands of Mr. Maguire and The
O'Donoghue, and when the Bill of Pains and Penalties
shall come before the House of Commons on Tuesday, those
gentlemen will doubtless suggest that the act of official

suicide has removed all need for the second reading of the
measure. But for the moment, at least, that inference
would be premature.. No one would wish to
proceed with a Bill of Pains and Penalties if the
measure could be safely set aside. If, with all the
facts before it, the Government saw that Mr.
O'Sullivan had really and definitively ceased to be Mayor
of Cork, with no view to relection, the idea of legislation
might stand over for a time. But, even if the bill should
be withdrawn, the matter cannot be allowed to end there.
The Mayor of Cork has broken the law ; he has been
guilty of sedition ; and for that offence he should still be
called to account before the courts of justice. Should
the resignation turn out to be real, it will remain for the
Crown to consider how best Mr. O'Sullivan can be called
to account for his words. We do not want to make
a martyr of him ; but his fate ought to teach
a lesson to loose-tongued men. If he has resigned,
he has ceased to be a public scandal; but the
mere loss of his mayoralty may seem in Ireland a
penalty so light as to encourage other wild geese to babble
as freely and as offensively. We have therefore to con-
sider, not how any feeling of wrath may be directed against
a poor creature unworthy of Imperial notice in himself,
but how far misplaced lenity may mislead other Irishmen
into similar offences. Should Mr. O'Sullivan have made
the unqualified resignation which we have been led to
expect, the act might afford time for reconsidering the
whole subject with more deliberation. But at the outset,
before the Government can think of lenity, the House of
Commons must have directly before it Mr. O'Sullivan's
unconditional submission.

The Daily News declares that the question involved
in the O'Sullivan Disability Bill is essentially a parlia-
mentary one. The Government does not propose to act
of itself and by its own authority ; it calls upon the Par-
liament to use its legislative power. It will, therefore, be
for the House of Commons on Tuesday, putting aside eon.
eiderations of party character, forgetting that there is in
it any such thing as a Liberal majority or a Conservative
minority, and keeping in mind only its historic character,
and its relation to the other institutions which make up
the complex machinery of British government, to deter-
mine on the course which it shall pursue. Every
individual in the United Kingdom who holds, or
may hold, the office of Mayor in any Corporation
in the United Kingdom, and every such Corporation,
is as much, though not as directly, interested in the
O'Sullivan Disability Bill as the Mayor and Corporation
of Cork. The omnipotence of Parliament, and the claims
of a paramount and overwhelmingnecessity, may be urged
against the objectors to the bill. But the allegation of
necessity, and the assertion of power, are both tyrant's
pleas. The Government itself must be anxious that they
should not be lightly admitted ; and the House of Com-
mons is bound to consider carefully the attitude in which
the measure it is asked to pass will place it towards the
people and the local institutions of the kingdom. In a
free country, where local self-government exists, the most
embarrassing questions which can arise often spring from
the relations of central to municipal authority. On this
head we have warning from Switzerlaud and the United
States.

The Post says that it had occasion a short time since to
allude to the evident bent of American policy of late
years towards identifying the union with the entire of the
continent of North America.. No one can doubt that the
people of the -United States are desirous of giving prac
tical effect to the Monroe doctrine, of America for the
Americans—that is to say, for the citizens of the Union; and
the only question is, whether, either now or at some nut
distant period.; those who wield the Executive power in
the United States will attempt to realise the echeme.
Grant is a soldier, and, it is said, is ambitions of raining
additio-nal laurels. We can, however, only judge'hiat at
we find him, aud it. must be admitted that he hes not yet
clone anything to lead us to conclude that he intL:. :h taking
so bold a step. As we cannot believe that the .‘mericar
President contemplates—more especially in the present
condition of affairs in America— such a war as an ulti
matem of that kind would involve, we are sanguine in the
hope that, however unusual may be the language used it
the American Senate, or however equivocal the conduct
of the Executive in connection with the rescission of the
Alabama Convention, no intention exists of provoking
England to war. It must be observed that the more
respectable section of the New York press spoke in con 1
clemnation of Senators Sumner and Chandler, and did ut
the justice of believing that we would he incapable ch
resigning;, without a bitter struggle, any portion Qf 9110
tiosaelssiona at the dictation of a foreign Power. )