The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-21 00:00:00

SPRIT OF THE PUBLIO`JOUBNALS.

The Times thinks that a few plain etas will be easily
learnt, and common sense will teach the rest. Every man
Understands how to protect his own property, and special
Oonstables are only men acting in concert for the pro-
tection of property and peace on behalf of the public.
The service contemplated is sketched very distinctly in
the instructions we published yesterday. At first there is
nothingsundertaken by a special constable, or required of
him, beyond a readiness to act on occasion of alarm. The
justification or warrant for the whole organisation lies in
the belief that alarms may occur, or, in other words, that
the public peace is plated in extraordinary jeopardy.
But until the alarm occurs, and until the special constable
is summoned, no duty devolves upon him. By going before
the magistrate he has expressed his willingness to act as a
policeman extraordinary ; by leaving his address at the
police-station designated for the purpose he informs
the proper authorities where he is to be found. Then,
in case of alarm, he is available h aid of the rtssular police
force under the forms and with the advantages of an
organisation already prepared. We may confidently ex-
pect signal benefit from the demonstration thus made by
the community, but, apart from this moral effect, there
is no doubt that the special constables can render most valu-
able assistance to the regular police at a time like the pre-
sent.
The defect of the regular force is in numbers only. It is
undermanned at all times, and although the Home Secre-
tary has just sanctioned an addition of one thousand men,
when the demand arising from an atrocious conspiracy is
Added to the ordinary exigencies of metropolitan life,
the force cannot be expected to suffice for the
work. The extent of London is so immense,
and the accumulation of property within its limits
is so prodigious, that the ordinary guardians of the
public peace have encugh to do at all times.
The police force is, as •we have said, to be augmented,
but at present, besides the immediate urgency of the de-
mand, there is a call for a greater number of men than
could be added without extravagance to the regular
force. If the ordinary constables were twice as numerous
as they are, special constables would still be required.
We are not, indeed, of opinion that the enemy with whom
we have to deal is numerous ; but a handful of unscrupu-
lous ruffians may create not only alarm, but a feeling of
insecurity out of all proportion to their numbers. Against
them the safest precautions will be found in the presence
and vigilance of an extraordinary force of police. The
chief duty, in short, of special constables will be to have
their eyes about them, and the more eyes there are about
the better. We have to deal with a foe at war with
society itself, and hesitating, as we have seen, at no
wickedness, however monstrous. It is a state of things
which we might well imagine we had outlived, but as it is
forced upon us we must meet it boldly, and we need have
very little fear about the result.

The Post, referring to Mr. Gladstone's recent speechei
in South Lancashire, says it was not to be expected that
the right hon. gentleman would lose the opportunity
afforded to him by his visit to his constituents of referring,
in however incidental a manner, to that marvellous speech
in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer recently main-
tained that the present policy of his party is consistent
with that which it
.has always pursued. The popular
notion was that Conservatism was the opposite of Libe-
ralism, and that Tories hated change. This delusion Mr.
Disraeli was most anxious to dispel, and he proved to his
own satisfaction, doubtless, if not to that of the public,
that in reducing the suffrage to its present standard, he
Lad crowned that edifice which the Conservative party
have been so long engaged in constructing. This edifice
was composed of thirty-two measures, so well known to
every one that he did not deem it necessary to specify
them ; but Mr. Gladstone now rather pertinently asks
what they were. If it be true, as Mr. Disraeli says, that
lie and his party have been carefully preparing ttie country
for the mighty change which has now been effected, it
may not be unreasonable to inquire how this result was
effected, and how it came to pass that the people at large
were entirely ignorant of the educational process to which
they were subjected.

The Daily News, taking up the observations of the
Opposition leader on:the Irish question, feels that every
motive concurs to urge it to the course which Mr. Glad-
stone recommends, of proceeding at once to remove those
grievances in Ireland which are confirmed and palpable,
and of inquiring with anxious care into those which are
more obscure or complicated. It is a duty which should
not for a moment be interrupted, but rather he hastened,
by the present necessity for inflicting exemplary punish
ment upon those who do not make open war upon men,
but who slaughter women and children by stealth. We
have to enforce justice, but we have also to do justice.
We have not only to repress crime, but to remove the
cames which provoke crime. The feeling which iv,uld
defer this inquiry because of the horrible events of the
moment is one which, however it may be worked by thc
organs of an interested party, the nation will disclaim.
We are too strong to be either cruel or unjujt. Let ns
hope that we shall show ourselves too noble to be driven
from what is right by the excesses of those who are the
unworthy avengers of wrong. Let us prove how much
worthier freedom is than despotism by letting the world
see that we can confess and amend our own errors even
while we bleed from the savage assaults of those whose
perverted imaginations have been wrought t,o frenzy by
the consequences of our misgovernment.

The Herald speaks of the necessity for mal.cing
haste with the chastisement of Theodore. Every motive
must urge the British commander to march to the rescue
as swiftly as is compatible with the safety of his army.
Our contemporary cannot believe the improbable story
that his preparations have been suspended in consequence
of Theodore having given guarantees that he would com-
ply with all our demands. What guarantee can possibly
be given by the beleaguered king, whose fate will proba-
bly be decided by the hands of his infuriated subject=
before we can penetrate far enough into his country to
punish him ? Who can take the simple word of a man
who cannot be trusted on his oath ? Nothing surely would
satisfy us short of the actual delivery of the prisoners into
our hands ; and how can Theodore accomplish that when
he cannot march for two miles in his pretended dominions
without fighting for his life, and is cut off from all possible
means of communicating with the coast ? It is very pro-
bable that by this time we arc not dealing with Theodore
at all, but with some other prince as intractable and fero-
cious as he.

At the expense of several lives, and of terrible suffer-
ing to many innocent persons, the Saturday Review thinks
that the Clerkenwell explosion will produce a wholesome
effect. It is to be hoped that society has at length heard
the last of the moral sophisms by which anarchists and
their patrons or dupes have sought to procure immunity
for crime. 111-trained intellects and dull imaginations
require to be startled into the perception of even obvious
truths, and the impudent pertinacity of Irish sedition had
apparently raised a doubt in the minds of some peaceable
and well-meaning persons whether the murder of a Man-
chester policeman was an act of questionable moral
character. The criminality of a conspiracy against
society has now been written in still more legible cha-
racters ; and it may be doubted whether even an Ameri-
can politician or an Irish Roman Catholic archbishop will

venture to elevate the Clerkenwell murderers into the
rank of heroes and martyrs. The perpetrators of the
atrocity must have intended to sacrifice innocent life to
their immediate object, and although they were disap-
pointed in their attempt to rescue the prisoners,the explosion
produced the effect which was undoubtedly contemplated.
If the Government henceforth acts with vigour and con-
sistency against the avowed enemies of the country, the
community at large will unanimously support the vindi-
cation of the law. English demagogues at least will be
afraid to. express their sympathy for promoters of sedition
who arc bolder and more practical than themselves. The
long-continued prevalence of order in England, combined
with unbounded political and personal liberty, has natu-
rally produced a laxity of opinion which leads to culpable
toleration of treasonable practices. Mere grumblers who
have no deliberate purpose of disturbing existing institu-
tions ally themselves too readily with revolutionary con-
spirators for the idle purpose of annoying the Government
cr the ruling classes. The Fenians have the merit of
going directly to their object, and of revealing to careless
politicians the alternative which must be substituted for
the supremacy of law. If Mr. Beaks ventured to object to
promiscuous attempts at arson, even his colleagues would
be afraid to censure the timidity or lukewarmness of their
loader. The assassin exercises discrimination in the selec-
tion of victims who, if they are not personally unpopular,
are perhaps official guardians of the public peace; but fire
1.1,n,1 gunpowder pay no respect to persons, or to the
nature of the property which may be destroyed. When
all classes of society thoroughly understand the issue
raised at Manchester and Clerkenwell, there is no dori:,t
that the enliporters of order will be too strong for their
antagonists. Even in Ireland a large portion of the com-
munity disspproves of the crimes and of the insolence of
the rebellions faction ; and English understandings will
not be embarrassed by any excess of sympathy fur Ame-
ricanised Irish intruders. The opinions which will be
expressed when the Clerkenwell atrocity is reported in the
United States will be awaited with some degree of curio-
sity. Hitherto the Republican and Democratic leaders
have competed with one another in expressions of good-
will to the cause of the Fenians, but perhaps here and
there an American politician may venture to disapprove
of the latest expression of anarchical malignity. Poli-
tical animosity to this country may possibly, in some
instances, stop short of the conclusion that the real or
imaginary wrbngs of Ireland furnish an excuse for whole-
sale murder perpetrated in the heart of England.
The Spectator, taking up the same subject, points to the
with which all classes have reioreba,ted the out-

rage, and of the determination of the people to support the
Government in any measures which might be proposes
for stamping out the Fenian conspiracy. The duty of the
Government in such a crisis is clear, and, fortunately, the
responsibility falls mainly upon men who, like the Stan-
leys, are bound by personal reasons never to forget that
Irishmen are citizens of the empire. That duty is to
maintain a steady, severe, but just system of repression
upon Fenianism : to show its partisans that they are
waging war upon a force indefinitely superior to them-
' selves ; to convince its enemies that there is no justifica-
tion whatever for taking the law into their own hands ; in
short, to make the nation supreme, if possible through-the
magistracy, but if needful, through the visible and deter-
mined use of the bayonet. That the time for leniency to
Fenianism is past is clear, and the time for fury against
Irishmen ought never to be permitted t,. arrive. There
can be no more processions, or meetings, or any other
combined action in favour of a party which can, even
against the will of its own chiefs, tolerate outrages like
that in Clerkenwell. The Fenian Committee may be, as

they assert, utterly guiltless of that horror, and we are
willing to acquit them of some of its worst features ; but
they must in their own interest, as well as that of the
empire, bear the obloquy of the insane acts of their own
friends. The Government must now spew itself master
of the situation, or the English and Scotch will terminate
it, with the result of making all improvement in the rela-
tions between the two countries impossible for another
century. If it does not, a feather-weight would now
turn the scale in favour of lynch law. As to the me s,
they are those by which every other Government is
compelled to meet from time to time similar outbursts
of fanaticism, by which the French Government has
repeatedly met the more violent secret societies—
steady, cold, scientific watchfulness and repression. The
regular law is amply sufficient for the purpose, or if not,
the regular law must be made stronger. Almost all the
" exceptional legislation" suggested is either unfair or un-
wise. It would be both, for example, to demand pass-
ports from Irishmen, for the Fenians in this last affair
have injured the Irish far more than ourselves. It would
_ _

be both to dismiss Irish labourers from the dockyards

simply because amongst them might be men sympathising
with Fenian ideas. It would be both to expel, as one
paper advises, the American Irish under the ancient Alien
Act ; unwise as increasing the bitterness between ourselves
and the Americans, unfair because we still refuse to
acknowledge that the emigrants have forfeited their
allegiance. The true policy is to increase the police, to use
the soldiers, to call out the people, to watch unsleepingly,
to punish crime relentlessly, but always in obedience to
the law, and through its responsible agents. One failure of
justice, one execution of an innocent man, one instance of
hesitation in restraining any spirit of race hostility, would
do more to injure the cause of order than a lost battle.
There is nothing like calm, steady, but inevitable justice
to put down opposition ; and with twenty-three millions
of people on its side, the Government has full opportunity
and leisure to carry out that policy—the only one which
is just, the only one which, when men are cooler, leaves
behind it none of that vengeful animosity the victims of
injustice are sure to feel. If the police are insufficient,
add more, or call out the people, or supplement both with
soldiers—make it, if absolutely necessary, an offence to be
a Fenian ; but in no case allow the first beginning of a
riot, in no case allow lynch law, in no case let any man be
punished without a full and a just hearing. And, above
all, in no case suffer a Fenian and an Irishman to be con-
founded.

The John Bull, in discuss'-,g Fenianism in its various
aspects, gives this as its worst. Finding all prospects of
an Irish rebellion hopeless, they next resorted to the mise-
rable expedient of creating disaffection in England, aided
by murder and burning, and this with no conceivable hope
of obtaining their proposed object—the political indepen-
dence of Ireland—but, as it would seem, as a mere instru-
ment of malevolence and revenge. Bad as the Manchester '
outrage was, yet the system of shooting down single
policemen is morally far worse. It is remarkable how,
in all these outrages, the leading character of Irish law-
lessness and Ribandism, combined with American row-
dyism, shews itself. Brt all this wou'.l be comparatively
harmless were it not for the consciousness of comparative
security from punishment on which these wretches seem so
confidently to rely. As far *as it went, the Manchester
execution will tend to dispel their illusion, but much more
display of firmness is yet required. We do not mean in
merely executing the de facto murderer. But the impres-
sion exists very largely, both in America and among the
Irish Americans here, that we dare not execute an Ameri-
can subject—either really so or calling himself one.
No time should be lost in dispelling the illusion.
There will be no security for life or property
here if we are to allow Irish Americans to
kill and plunder, or to commit treason before
our eyes, and are then to be debarred from seeking jus-
tice by threats of intimidation from the friends of the cul-
prits on the other side of the Atlantic, grounded on the
atrocious s.ntiment of their sympathisers here, that it is
better to see our peaceful fellow-subjects murdered before
onr eyes than to embroil ourselves with America. We do
not believe that we should embroil ourselves with tho
American Government. We believe that they would then
begin to respect us. But be that as it may, our duty
clearly is to chew by our acts that the lives of our fellow-
subjects are dear to us ; and that, whatever may be the
opinion and practice in Ireland and America, the English
nation possesses laws for the protection of life and pro-
perty, and that she will enforce them.