The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-25 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—A period of difficulty is often a special op-
portunity. Fenianism bas been for some time occu-
pying public attention. We may easily make too
much of it or make too little. If we understand it
aright we shall disarm it of its dangers, and may
convert evil to good.
As an attempt at revolt, it is contemptible. Its
adherents are not, as yet, numerous ; the Catholic
clergy have from the first denounced it, as they
denounced the attempted rising in 1848, and as they
always denounce secret societies; and the farming
class, with good reason, hate and fear it. The sect
consists, in the main, of very poor and ignorant
persons, though with a considerable mixture of young
men who hang loose on the skirts of society and
whose education has been an irreligious one. It
Lincludee, doubtless, honest enthusiasts, who, if the
movement gained a temporary .success, would fall
early in their attempts to check its excesses. As
for foreign assistance, Ireland has long since learnt
what that means. It always came too late and ended
in desertion.

But Fenianism has another side to it. It proves
that long-continued discontent, taken in conjunc-
tion with the circumstances of our day, can, to a
considerable extent, alter even a national character.
There are dangers worse than those of a revolt, be-
cause more insidious and less remediable. " Fast "
politicians exclaim, " Ireland was always disloyal."
This is a random reading of history. Fenianism is a
new and Jacobinical movement. It is out of har-
mony with the Irish character and annals. There is
no other country in which, for so many centuries
and under such repeated rebuffs, the instinct of
loyalty survived so long. Professor Goldwin Smith
well remarks in his excellent work, " Irish History
and Irish Character :"

"So far as willingness to submit to governors is con-
cerned, they are only too easily governed. Loyalty is the
groat feature of their political character ; its great defect
is want of independence, and of that strong sense of right
by which law and personal liberty are upheld."

The great and successful struggle of this century,
that for Catholic emancipation, was a constitutional
one. Mr. O'Connell never endangered his popularity
when he asserted his loyalty to the Crown, and de-
nounced the shedding of " one drop of blood." The
few Sovereigns who have visited this country have
been well received, and many an Irish noble, of the
latter race, has found himself almost a clan chief in
his own despite.
There was one exception—the rebellion of 1798.
That rebellion was produced by protracted wrong,
and it bequeathed to a country then on its way to
better things 31 years more of oppression and igno-
miny. But its root was in Ulster; its leaders were
not Catholics ; and it was quickened by that French
Revolution which had at that time scattered widely
over England, as well as over Ireland, the contagion
of Jacobinism.

The danger now comes to us not from France, but
from America, and comes by no fault of hers, but
by necessity. Slavery abolished, she stands with
her face to the light. But how is the Irish peasant
in America to discriminate between a prosperity
coincident with Republican institutions and one de-
rived-from such ? How is he to learn that the only
institutions which could exist in America might work
ruin in an old country like Ireland? He is not an
impartial critic. Since the beginning of the famine
years about one-third of Ireland's sons have been
driven from Ireland by stress of poverty. what if
such a state of things existed in England or France ?
Emigration is better than the workhouse ; it often
leads to wealth ; but the poor as well as the rich
love their homes—woe to the land if they do not !
and when emigration becomes colossal, the emigrant
sometimes thinks, whether rightly or wrongly, that
the laws are at fault, either by enactment or omis-
sion. On landing in a new world he hears exag-
gerated statements, mixes natural feelings with
erroneous impressions, and becomes at once a valu-
able American citizen, and an Irish Jacobin. Such
is Fenianism. It comes from without, though with
a ready response from within ; and therefore, how-
ever checked at any particular time, the disease
is renewed with every westerly wind. England
has now two Irelands to deal with, and one of
them out of her reach. In time she may have a
third in Australia. Here is the true danger. In
the noble old times obedience might, indeed,
sometimes be challenged by the wrong claimant ;
but in itself it was deemed a thing to be proud of,
not a thing to be conceded with a sense of degra-
dation—that is, assuming, of course, that the
authority obeyed was itself a loyal authority, the
true exponent and virtual representative of the sub-
ject--his interests, his feelings, and his honour. A
inoral'basis was thus supplied for political stability.
It is otherwise now. Ireland is surrounded by what
is calculated to perplex, if not to seduce. She still
has her anomalies. She often hears a revolution
spoken of as if it had been the first foundation of
the constitution ; and with Continental revolutions

the most eminent writers have commonly been in

almost indiscriminate sympathy. All these things
work dangerously under the peculiar circumstances
of Ireland. Loyalty goes ; and the respect for law
has not come. Nations are disaffected till their
affections have been gained.
With the American part of the difficulty we can-
not deal. What remains in this--to leave no fuel
at home for a foreign flame to play with. It is one
of those periods which require large action, and
create an opportunity for it. How begin? Ire-
land is full of hard problems, made harder by her
transitional condition ; but there is one on the solu-
tion of which the right working of all other reme-
dial measures mainly depends—the ecclesiastical
settlement of the country. Of that settlement the
Church establishment is the positive side ; but it
has a negative side likewise.
In all nations physical distress and religious bit-
terness have proved the chief causes of disturbance.
What if the two exist in union ? Material prosperity
can only advance by degrees. The more reason,
then, for dealing with the question that admits of
being settled. In this question all the jealousies of
Ireland meet, as the nerves of the body are said to
meet in the hand. Elections and the suffrage, the
Poor-law system, Maynooth, the convents, schools,
colleges, from the appointment of a Minister to the
appointment of a turnkey, under all alike the same
sinister subauditur lurks. Above all, this question
alienates those true loyalists who cannot support in-
justice, which they know to be, however, prescrip-
tive, not order and civilisation, but chronic anarchy.
Catholics without loyalty to their faith may be ser-
vile to the State, but are never loyal to it. At war
with the religion of a people, authority saws off the
branch on which it is sitting. The bad musician
quarrels with his instrument, but there are harmo-
nies in Ireland still for a skilful hand to draw out.
We have to convert into a principle the instinct of
loyalty. We have also to produce that respect for
law which cannot exist until the primary laws are
all of them respectable.
But the Fenians, we are told, do not quarrel with
the Ecclesiastical Settlement. Of course not. Bit-
terly would they quarrel with any one who set
" This frame of things the right side up." It is
while statesmen show their wit by keeping the
social pyramid standing on its apex, not its base,
that the Fenians see their chance of overturning it.
What is the Ecclesiastical Settlement? It is owe
by which the whole of the ancient religious endow-
ments of Ireland were, and are, taken from a nation
and given to a small minority—taken from the poor
and given to the rich. To the latter no blame. They
have inherited their position, and suffer from it, as
some of them know, scarcely less than the rest of
the community. This is no landlord question, From
the land a sacred reserve was set apart. Its pur-
pose was to provide religious ministrations for
the people on the land. It is alienated, and the
people have to provide their religious ministrations
at their own cost, imperfectly, and with the note of
inferiority. This is a question not of theology, but
of morals. Let it be conceded that the new teachers
came with the message of peace and truth. But
they took possession of the Church property. Their
voice was the voice of Jacob ; but their hand was
the hand of Esau. The nation at large refused to
change. Its Church—let us speak plainly—stands
disinherited by ancient laws, and, legally at least,
proscribed by recent. This is the Ecclesiastical
Settlement of Ireland. Whenever the Irish people
are contented with it, expect soon to find that the
spirit of Jacobinismhadeaten through its very heart.
Do they muse over the past ? The piesent " Eccle-
siastical Settlement is the past embodiedand monu-
mental ; and the popularrecollections of ancient sor-
rows are but the weeds which grow in its shade."*
" What, then," it will be asked, " does Ireland
require ?" I answer, " Religious equality." I use
this term advisedly, and in contradistinction to a
more formidable one. The abolition of the ascend-
ant Establishment would be but one means out of
many of effecting equality. If no better be per-
mitted, to this it must come at last. But there is
such a thing as levelling up as well as levelling
down. The principle of equality once heartily ac-
cepted, men of sense will not be long in finding both
just and gentle means of applying it. If the wound
of the nation can be healed without inflicting a
wound upon any section of the nation, surely this
must be the wisest and best course ? No Catholic

need seek for more. Religious communities do not
flourish, as is too often assumed, at each other's
expense. More often each one benefits indirectly
by that which benefits an honourable competitor.
But the objection comes from another quarter.
" The State," we are reminded, " has a conscience,
and must therefore make a confession of the truth."
The truth it has to confess is, that the nation has
ceased to possess unity of faith, but that it preserves
a love of justice and a respect for social order and
political security.
In times not wholly unlike our own there lived
a man who was at once the master foe of Jacobinism,
against which he ever bent a Pythian bow, and the
foremost friend of the Irish Cathol;cs—Mr. Burke.
In 1780, addressing 11;s constituents at Bristol, who
were discontented with his conduct on Irish affairs,
he said fearlessly :
"It is proper to inform you that our measures must be
healing. Such a degree of strength must be communicated
to all the members of the State as may enable them to de-

fend themselves and co-operate for the defence of the whole.
Their temper, too, must be managed, and their good affec-

tions cultivated, . . England and Ireland may flourish
together. The world is largo enough for both. Let it be

our care not to make ourselves too little for it."

As the revolutionary principle asserted itself
more and more, the more plainly did Burke indicate
where safety was to be found. In 1795 he insisted

upon 1t
sof
hi
c,
in
" That in Ireland particularly the Roman Catholic reli-
giondul veneration,ean f 1
li aa
u d be,
the people who profess it."
shouldinbietsupplhaecled,
pinrohviigdh respecteawithand
the
,g Let them (the Irish) grow lax, sceptical, careless, and
indifferent with regard to religion, and so sure as we have
sgoAi tgl
a a
ibnl
,e shs ien g
said—
to
an existence, it is not a zealous Anglican or Scottish Church
principle, but direct Jacobinism which will enter into that
breach. Two hundred years dreadfully spent in experi-
ments to force that people to change the form of their reli-
gion have proved fruitless. You have now your choice for
full four-fifths of your people of the Catholic religion or
Jacobinism."

He lifted a warning and reproving voice. " The
worst of the matter is this : you are partly leading,
partly driving, into Jacobinism that description of
your people whose religious principles, church polity,
and habitual discipline might make an invincible
dike against that inundation." What in that day
was called Jacobinism is now called "Fenianism."
How would it have fared in Ireland to-day if the
exhortations of Mr. Burke, from his earliest tract
to his latest political letter (dictated in 1797 from
his death-bed), had been attended to ?
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
AUBREY DE VERE.
Ireland, January 10.

* " The Church Establishment in Ireland, illustrated ex-
clusively by Protestant Authorities." (Warren, Thomas-
street, Dublin.) In this pamphlet the opinions of the chief
leaders of Liberal public opinion in England between 1830
and 1845 will be found carefully digested, with an expla-
natory preface.