The Sun.
London, England, 1867-05-08 00:00:00

ing about the Irish coast, and, we may be permitted '
to ask sensible Englishmen, for what good pur-
pose is all this force employed ? Perhaps we shall
be answered that this immense force is required 1
in order to keep down Fenianism. We agree that
it is the duty of every provident Government to
suppress disorder, and not hesitate to employ the
amount of force necessary for this purpose ; but we
also contend that, by suppressing public disorder,
Government only discharges a part, and the least
part, of its responsible duty. It will not be denied
that " prevention is better than cure," and it
follows, therefore, that, if a Government is to be
thanked for suppressing disturbance and restoring
public order, it would be entitled to far greater
thanks if it had, by a wise policy adopted in good
time, prevented public disturbance by removing
the causes that led to it. The cause of Irish
discontent is said to be complicated, yet it is simple ;
for, although there be many little streams wafting
poison through every avenue of Irish society, yet
they all flow from one main spring, namely,
Protestant ascendancy. Owing to this, an army
has to be maintained in Ireland at the present
day equal to that which won the battle of Water-
loo •, and while ever this crying injustice continues
in that unhappy land—while ever the Protestant
minority continues to be unduly elevated, and the
Catholic majority insultingly degraded by the law,
so long will England be obliged to keep up an im-
mense army of occupation, as it were, to garrison
Ireland within, and employ a large portion of her
fleet to guard it from without. We would now
appeal to the common sense of our fellow-country-
men, and ask them is this paltry game of Protestant
ascendancy, played at by some ruthless Northern
Orangemen, a few scores of money-grubbing par-
sons, and some half dozen plethoric bishops, really
worth the price paid for it by the heavily-taxed
people of England ? The army estimates will be
considerably increased by the expense of transport-
ing troops to Ireland, many of whom have been
called from distant stations, where their presence
might be again required before long—but the
money-cost is the least serious part of the entire.
England is a great nation—but we risk our na-
tional greatness by perpetuating a system of unjust
and persecuting laws in Catholic Ireland, which
produce religious factions in every part of the
three Kingdoms, and thereby tend to the weak-
ness of the whole British Empire. Let our coun-
trymen but reason on the subject of Ireland and
apply to it their strong common sense, as they do
to every other subject, and they will soon see that
the misrule of that country is injurious to our
own best interests. The Catholics of Ireland are
said to be emancipated, but in reality they are not ;
.for they cannot, with truth, be said to be eman-
cipated until they are placed on a footing of
perfect equality with her Majesty's subjects of
every other religious denomination. This denial
of religious equality extends to the Catholics
of all classes in these kingdoms, but it is more
unpardonable in Ireland than in any other part,
because there the overwhelming majority of the
population is Catholic. Protestant Englishmen
talk loudly of their love of liberty. Would that
they were to insist on having the same degree of
liberty extended to their Catholic fellow-subjects
as they enjoy themselves ! We mentioned last
week that the law, as it now stands, is insulting
to every class of her Majesty's Catholic subjects,
and we now proceed to prove the fact. For ex-
ample, all Catholics in the army are insulted, be-
cause no one of them can rise to the head of his
profession, as the law does not allow any Catholic
to be Commander-in-Chief of the forces. The
members of the Catholic nobility are insulted, be-
cause the law forbids that any one of them should
be, appointed to the office of Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland. The members of the Catholic bar are
insulted, because no one of them can rise to the
head of his profession, as the law forbids that a
Catholic shall become a Lord Chancellor. The
Catholic merchants are insulted, because if any
one of them becomes Lord Mayor, or Chief
Magistrate of his city, he is not allowed by
law to wear his robes of office in his own Church.
The Catholic students are not only insulted, but
injured, because they are not allowed the benefit
of obtaining degrees in the Catholic university,
of Ireland, whilst the Protestant students can ob-
tain degrees in the Protestant university. The
Catholic archbishop; bishops, and deans are in-
sulted, because they are forbidden bylaw, under
heavy penalties, to use the titles of their respec-
tive offices, although it is only by virtue of these
titles that they can duly exercise their ecclesiastical
jurisdiction.. And while such is the law affecting
the secular clergy of the Catholic Church, what
will all impartial men think of the law enacted
against the regular clergy, which dare not be en-
forced against them because of its severity, but
which is, nevertheless, unfit to remain on the statute
book, and ought to be at once repealed, if it were
only for the credit of our. nation? This law enacts
that the regular clergy shall be subject to trans-
portation for the crime of being alive, and, if they
return from transportation, shall then be liable
to be hanged ! This, and other Acts of Parliament
here referred to, appear so monstrous, that we ap-
prehend some of our readers may be disposed to
question the facts, and we intend, therefore, to
quote the words of the several Acts of Parlia-
ment in a future article. Again, the marriage
law, as it affects the Catholic women of Ire-
land, is in a most unsatisfactory state. In
substance it enacts that if any Protestant man
shall marry any Catholic woman he may after-
wards cast her aside without any reason other
than that she is a Catholic, and may marry
another woman, and he cannot be punished for
bigamy, and the Catholic wife thus cast off shall
have no remedy whatever against him, if he
simply pleads as a defence that he is a Pro-
testant ! There is no exception to this law.
Any- Catholic woman in Ireland might be vic-
timized by it to-morrow. The man may deceive her
by declaring that he is a Catholic—he may also de-
ceive the priest who marries them by declaring the
same—and yet it has been lately decided by the
twelve judges in Ireland that, notwithstanding this
fraud and falsehood on his part he is to be ac-
quitted, simply because his unsuspecting
is a Catholic. The authorityw
eciuote7in victim
proof
of the cruel nature of this infamous statute, so
insulting to every virtuous woman in the land,
is one that cannot be disputed, it is that of
Air. Justice Christian, an Irish Protestant, one
of the twelve judges constituting the Court of
Appeal last year in the case of the " Queen v.
Fannin." Delivering his judgment in that case,
in which Fannin had represented himself as a
Catholic to his wife, and also to the priest who
married them, Judge Christian said that, notwith-
standing such representation, as it had been proved
on the trial that he was a Protestant, the law pro-
teeted him, and "the law may be used by the pro-
fligate and base (Protestants) with impunity as a
means of fraudulent seduction." Such are the words
of this eminent Protestant judge, and such is the
law at this day in force in Ireland respecting
Catholic women, allowing them to be made the
victims of " the base and profligate !" There is an-
other crying injustice which British rule
perpetuates
in Ireland, and that is the monstrous anomaly of
compelling a Catholic population to pay tithes to
a Protestant clergy. This of itself is so huge an
injustice, spreading over every foot of that king-
dom, robbing the pockets of many, and outraging
the consciences of all the Catholics in it, that
every enlightened and impartial man, Protestant
as well as Catholic, who consideis the question,
feels only one surprise, and that is, how the people
of Ireland, proverbial for their love of justice, can
possibly remain satisfied whilst this impost of tithes
continues to insult and oppress them. We have
now enumerated the principal grievances that
afflict the Irish Catholics at the present day, and
with these difficulties obstructing their paths in
every direction it is, surely, hard to expect that
they can forget the sufferings of their fathers in
days gone by. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, in
the course of his recent charge to the Grand Jury
on the trial of Colonel Nelson and Lieutenant
Brand, after proving that the Sovereign of Eng-
land had not the power of proclaiming martial
law, speaking of British misrule in Ireland at the
close of the last century, says :—" Alas, it is too
true that martial law had been resorted to in a
neighbouring country. They all knew what took
place in Ireland at the close of the last century. As
early as 1795, insurrections of a serious nature oc-
curred in various parts of the country, and it would
seem"—reader, mark well these words of the Lord
Chief Justice—" it would seem that the magis-
trates and people in authority took upon themselves
to execute a species of martial law without any
authority whatever." What must have been the
state of the Catholic population in Ireland at that
time, when every Protestant village magistrate
could " take upon himself to execute martial law"
—a power denied by the British Constitution, even
to the Sovereign upon the throne ! No tongue can
ever tell—no pen describe the sufferings of Irish
Catholics at that period, and yet it is only about
seventy years ago, that is, within the memory of
many now living. The magistrates of that day
were Protestants, and they were allowed to violate
the law with impunity, and usurp an unconstitu-
tional power for the wicked purpose of wreaking
vengeance upon the Catholic population whom they
had first goaded into insurrection by means of the
inhuman penal laws then in force. It is true
that the penal laws in force at present against
Catholics are not what they then were ; but though
less in degree, yet they are the same in spirit, and
our enumeration of them shows that they are still
humiliating enough. Were the ascendancy party
in Ireland once more permitted to administer mar-
tial law—were they now Allowed to use the pitch-