The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-31 00:00:00

The United States and the Fen'ans.

The Times has grave reason for apprehension at
the Fenian movement in America, and believes that
the Fenian conspiracy is about to prove that it can
do more than foment internal quarrels and
squander hardly-acquired money. Regarding the
threatened invasion of Canada, the Times asks what
has become of the American Government? We
are told, and believe, that the American Govern-
ment, though willing to allow the Fenians to talk
as much as they please, is ready to take very
vigorous action the moment they evince any incli-
nation to go beyond threats ; that the President
will issue a proclamation, and enforce it, if neces-
sary, by all the military resources of which he dis-
poses.
.The time has nearly come when this excel-
lent resolution must be put to the proof. The
Fenians are doing at this moment what, so far as
we know, was never done within the precincts of
one country at peace with another. They have,
with every circumstance of formality and publicity,
set up in the most populous city of America a
Government which purports to be, not only de facto,
but de jure, the Government of a portion of the do-
minions under the rule of a Sovereign at peace with
the United States. The absurdity of the thing
does not make it less an act of hostility. This so-
- called Government is enlisting men, raising money,
purchasing arms, and taking every step in its
power towards the invasion of Canada. To meet
the threatened attack everything in Canada is placed
on a war footing. It cannot, then, be said that
England has been over hasty in requesting the
American Government to take such precautions as
may prevent its territory from becoming a base of
operations for the invasion of Canada. We hope,
and believe, that the promptitude and decision of
the American Government, when the time for
action arrives, will compensate for the passive atti-
tude it has hitherto assumed in a matter so nearly
affecting the amity and good understanding between
the two nations.

The Morning Star does not regard the threatened
Fenian invasion of Canada as a serious danger. In
the first place, our contemporary has a strong re-
liance upon the discretion, the firmness, and the
good faith of the United States Government. That
Government can undoubtedly put a lion's paw
at any moment down upon the Fenian move-
ment, and we believe it is perfectly resolved to
exert its power when necessary. It is utterly
impossible that any Fenian expedition of
formidable proportions could make its way
into Canada against the determined opposi-
tion of the American Government. When fili-
bustering expeditions of a similar kind were success-
ful, or partly or momentarily successful, before, it
was only because American Governments were then
in existence which were not opposed to them, but in
fact secretly sympathised with them, and allowed
their sympathies to govern their principles. We
have recently had a proof that such days are
gone by. No popular sentiment can be much
stronger in Anierica than hostility to the
Franco-Austrian occupation of Mexico. Every
representative and official member of the American
body politic has in one way or other pronounced
against that occupation. Yet we saw how decisively
and firmly the American Government put down
the other day an attempt at an irregular and un-
lawful expedition across the Mexican frontier. We
cannot believe that it will act with less vigour and
less good faith in regard to a Fenian movement
of which it is ostentatiously and noisily fore-
warned. Again, this very forewarning is in itself a
reason to cause us to distrust the sincerity of the
Fenian movement. We cannot muster up credu-
lity enough to believe in the genuineness of a pro-
gramme of invasion which is announced long before-
hand in its minutest details by platform orators and
in confidential "editorials." We have read so very
lately of this sort of thing about the invasion of Ireland
that we are not flexible enough to bend our power of be-
lief at once into a new and unexpected direction. The
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland
seems to have quite burst up the plans for the in-
vasion and redemption of green Erin. A similar
measure broke up the Directory and the plans of
Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and precipitated the
abortive rising of '9B ; the same sort of practice
caused the explosion of Emmett's project five or
six years after; the same policy again confounded
Smith O'Brien, and led to the fiasco Of 1848.
Our Government in Ireland is in fact a Government
by suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. We al-
low, like a reckless free-liver, all sorts of noxious
humours to grow up by our want of enlightenment
and care, and then we purge the worst of them off
at stated intervals by a bolus of Habeas Corpus
suspension. This assuredly is not statesmanship,
and it can only at best postpone the evil day. But
it has been efficacious for its immediate purpose
thus far, and if it has left Ireland always rebel-
lious it has kept it from ever rising to the dignity of
anything like formidable rebellion. Now, we can see
no reason why a demonstration of executive power
like that which proved effective in Ireland should
fail to mar the projects of Fenianism in America.
Numerically formidable as the organisation in the
States may be, we do not think it will require
a great effort on the part of the American Go-
vernment to knock the wind out of it. Deeply,
therefore, as we regret that such a movement
should find so much popular support anywhere, and
that there should be so general a sympathy with its
objects among the peasantry of the south of Ireland,
we await with composure the break-up of its hopes
on the other side of the Atlantic. It is destined, we
think to fall, not before the heroic resistance of the
patriotic Canadian volunteers, but before the inter-
vening action of the police authorities of the Ameri-
can States. That it may—uay, that it must—do mis-
chief is unfortunately only too evident. We here shall
feel some of its effects in additional expense for the
security of our North American provinces, and per-
haps in the new lift given to vast and futile schemes
of defence which were lately falling into disrepute.
But it is quite certain that so long as we decline or
neglect to remove the main causes of the strength
of Fenianism it is hopeless for us to expect to escape
some of its evil effects.

The Telegraph does not regard a Fenian
raid into Canada as an event beyond the range
of possibility. The frontier lines between the
United States and Canada are continuous over
thousands of miles, through desolate, if not
uninhabited, country. East and west of the
great chain of Lakes, British North America and
the Union are divided by a mere line drawn
arbitrarily across thinly populated plains. Our
own experience has taught us the impossibility
of hindering a small gang of Southern despera-
does located in Canada from making raids into