The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIO JOURNALS.

TIMES.—It is with feelings of regret, but hardly
of surprise, that the public will hear of the Fenian
outbreak in Ireland. The conspirators have hitherto
inflicted the greatest amount of trouble on the Govern-
ment and of disquietude on all loyal people with the

least possible exertions and exposure ou their own
part. By meetings, drillings, importations of arms,
threats, boasts, and, finally, by the petty rising in
Kerry, they have contrived to keep in activity the
considerable force which is at present stationed in
Ireland, and to fill with alarm the isolated house-

holds of the gentry. These rebels have shown them-
selves excellent at everything but rebellion. Still,
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menaces and feints could not last for. ever. If false

alarms were too often given, they would in time be
disregarded, and then the chief power of the Fenian
leaders would be gone. They who paid their money

in America have been anxijus for action, and have
not failed to denounce the supposed irresolution and

cowardice of their leaders. We may well supplse
that the Fenian following in Ireland, which could
not understand the delays of Stephens and his ac-
complices, have urged that something must be done.
For some time past it has been evident that mis-

chief was at hand. The mysterious visit to Ches-
ter, which no one now can doubt was connected
with the Fenian conspiracy, the premature outbreak
at Cahirciveen, and, more than all, the plottings of
the last fortnight, which have been duly disclosed to
the authorities, have been sufficient to keep the mili-

tary force on the alert. Lord Strathnairn returned to
Ireland as soon as the first news of the Kerry affair
arrived, and has been ever since fully prepared for
action. His force is sufficient, and disposed in such
a manner as to be capable of being moved promptly
and effectively at the shortest notice. It has been
for so many years nec.3s.sary to study the prospect
of insurrection in Ireland that there need be no

doubt of the ability of the Commander-in-Chief
to take military possession of the country, and deal
successfully with rebellion wherever it shows itself,
11 bile, however, there is no ground for alarn
so far as the vindication of the Queen's au• ho•

rity is concerned, it would be wrong to disregard
the sinister features of the present outbreak It has
evidently been concerted. It broke out at the same
time at many distant points. The despatch read by
Lord Naas in the House of Commons states that the

rising around Dublin was general, and that at
Drogheda the police barrack was attacked, thoug,h
without success. 'We have since learnt that at two

other stations the police were overpowered and made
prisoners; at Dermore the police barrack was burnt,
and a Coastguard station near Kilrush was plundered
of arms. At Kilinallock, however, a small body of
police sustained for three hours the attack of a very
superior force of Fenians, whom they defeated with
the loss of three killed and 14 prisoners ; and at
Drogheda also the police defeated a body of Fenians
estimated at 1,000, who had taken possession of the
market-house, made 40 prisoners, and captured a
large quantity of ammunition. " The military,"
by which we understand the force under Lord
Strathilairn, had brought into Dublin 208 prisoners,
and large quantities of arms and ammunition had
been seized. Of what materials the Fenian force is

composed some idea may be formed from the signi-
ficant fact that 105 young men are said to be miss-
ing from the Dublin drapery establishments. In
and near Dublin, however, there is not likely to be
even a temporary success of the insurgents. The
city is well supplied with troops, and these are dis-
posed so as to act promptly wherever riot may ap-
pear. In the South-west the movement appears to be
wore dangerous. The telegraph wires have been every-
where cut; the railway has been blocked and some of
the rails torn up in the neighbourhood of Thurles.
It must be borne in mind, too, that Munster is, and
always has been, the most disaffected part of Ire-
land, that there the Feiian conspiracy was hatched
and has grown up, and that, both in Ireland and in
America, the rebels have put their chief trust in
the men of Cork, Tipperary, Limerick, and the
neighbouring counties. The " Generals" and
leaders from America have also been especially busy
in the South-west. We are not surprised, there-
fore, to hear that in several parts of the South-west
there have been isolated, but evidently concerted
outrages, in pursuance of the plans of the disaffected.
As in other parts of the island, however, the mili-
tary power is quite able to deal with any disturbers
of the public peace. A large force is stationed iu
the South of Ireland, and can be moved to the un-
settled districts at once. Hitherto it would seem
that the police alone had in most cases
been able to resist and disperse the rebels.
Though there is, consequently, no political danger,
it is impossible to exaggerate the social calamities
which this nefarious conspiracy is bringing on the
whole of Ireland. The constant fear of disturb-
ance and outrage, the discouragement to industry
and to the introduction of capital, and the stimulus
to absenteeism must deeply affect the prosperity of
the country. The lieutenants of counties and other
leading people of the island are returning to their
posts in the hour of danger, but no one can doubt
that the effect of the alarms of the last two years
must be to drive a still larger number of the owners
of the soil to seek security and comfort in England
For this reason, if for no other, it is to be hoped
that the suppression of the present disturbances will
not only be speedy and complete, but that such con-
dign punishment may be inflicted on the leaders as
to convince even the most ignorant that rebellion is
not the safe and pleasant vocation it has long been
considered in Ireland.

THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE ON THE " FOREIGN
POLICY OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON."—My last
paper concluded with an account of the unprin-
cipled invasion of the Roman territory by the Pied-
montese, and with the perfidious acquiescence of
the French Emperor in that act. I ask now, how
can his advocates dare to defend the last-named
potentate by alleging his inability to control his
revolutionary allies ? Those who enter into part-
nership are responsible for the public acts of their
partners. Those who have helped to aggrandise a
weak ally have surely the right and the means of
setting bounds to his rapacity and forcing him to
observe the conditions of his contract? What a
mockery is it to talk of the inability of Napoleon
111. in these transactions ! If now the revolu-
tionary spoiler, flushed with his recent success,
and enriched by the acquisition of Venetia, the
powerful French Emperor is able to check at the
gates of Rome, is it not worse than folly to pre-
tend that the successive spoliations of the Romagna,
and of Umbria, and the Marches, by an ally yet
weak, yet unpractised in the arts of depredation,
the same Emperor was unable to prevent ! What
shall I say, too, of the policy since pursued by the
French Government towards the holy Pontiff,
despoiled of all but a small remnant of those
possessions which the gratitude and reverential
piety of princes and emperors had once bestowed
on the Vicar of Christ ? At one time the Em-
peror presses on him the adoption of that odious
Code Napoleon, which I have already characterised
—an advice which betrayed an utter absence of
all decorum, as well as of religious zeal. At an-
other time he suggests to the Sovereign Pontiff
various political reforms, which the latter would
have been under other circumstances too willing
to carry out, but which the dismemberment of his
territory and the intrigues and plots of revolu-
tionists within and without his dominions ren-
dered utterly impracticable. Now he nominates
Ministers and sends Ambassadors to Rome favour-
able to the interests of the Pope. Now, again, he
suddenly changes his tactics, and calls to his coun-
cils men most adverse to the temporal power of the
Pope, and who engage in a series of intrigues
with the revolutionary Government of Italy. A
policy so vacillating is needs most harassing to
the Sovereign Pontiff—most inimical to the well-
being of th Roman people—most conducive to
political agitation and disorder in Italy, and most
opposed to the peace of the Universal Church.
This uncertain policy well betokens that trouble of
mind which the Pope lately adverted to the
struggles, perhaps, of a better conscience with that
demon of Revolution whom this unfortunate per-
sonage formed a compact with in youth. This
confusion,--this distraction in his councils, manifest
not only in Italy but in Mexico and in Germany,
strikes like a judgment of God, and is one of the
phenomena that usually precede a monarch's
downfall. But, perhaps, if the Emperor of the
French, by a something worse than acquiescence,
has caused the dismemberment of the Papal
States, he has, at all events, by his Italian ex-
pedition, allayed dissensions in the Peninsula—
been the means of forming its various kingdoms
into one harmonious whole, and of consolidating
the reign of religion, justice, order, and freedom,
and of promoting the material prosperity of its
inhabitants. Alas ! what sort of moral and politi-
cal blessings six years of Piedmontese rule have
established in the kingdom of Italy, friends and
foes alike attest. Let us hear the Sovereign Pon-
tiff in his allocution of the 29th of last October,
describe the grievous persecution of the ChUrch
in the new' revolutionary state. " For, sad to say,"
he remarks, " prelates of the Church, most virtu-
ous members of the two orders of clergy, and other
most upright Catholic citizens, have, by this Pied-
montese Government, without any regard to reli-
gion, justice, or even humanity itself, been driven
into exile, or thrown into prison, or condemned
to forced domicile, been harassed in every the most
shameful manner; dioceses, to the great loss of
souls, have been bereaved of their pastors, vir-
gins consecrated to God expelled from their con-
vents and reduced to mendicancy, the temples of
God violated, the diocesan seminaries closed, un-
happy youth deprived of Christian education and
I entrusted to the teachers of error and iniquity, and
i the patrimony of the Church usurped and diai-
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