The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-09 00:00:00

FENL4NISJ! THE ALLY OF TORYISM

(Front the Auglo- American Tinzes)
Fenianism is the most favourable movement for
the Tory party that has taken place for many years
in the United Kingdom. Although England never
reached the advanced point attained by the Great
Republic, she was hurrying along the road to De-
mocracy a great deal faster than many thought
safe, when the drags were put on by this conspi-
racy. Unfortunately for the cause of freedom,
Fenianism is associated with Republicanism in the
English mind. If Fenianism be an extreme of
Liberty, it considers the extreme to be License—
secret assassination, gunpowder plots, and terrorism
of all kinds. People turn back in fear to history, and
a notable instance is seen,in French experience, what
the mob did when they obtained control. The Eng-
lish people declare the charges brought against them
by the Fenians to be grossly unjust. They assert that
by concocting a series of lies, by declamation, and
by reiteration, they have persuaded those ignorant
of the true state of English rule in Ireland that it
has consisted of a brutal system of suppression,
against whizli the natives are warranted in rebel-
ling, and thus they have enlisted the sympathies of
foreigners. Loudly proclaiming these pretended
grievances, they ground and justify on them acts of
wholesale murder, and plots to disorganise English
society. Against all this the public conscience
protests. Peaceful and law-abiding, the English
urge that they have neither deserved the fanatical
hatred of the unreasoning Celt, nor that the sym-
pathies of so many Christian countries should be with
those firebrands against them. When, however, they
considet their own action abroad, they learn that
they are but reaping what they have sown. Wherever
even a class in a country has risen against its Go-
vernment, English sympathies were with the insur-
gents. Often the cause and the merits of the dispute
were unknown or perverted, and ignorance, instead
of being a barrier to the formation of opinion, gene-
rally led to the most presumptions and confident

decisions. The sentiment of England on foreign
quarrels was at least well intended. She earnestly
desired to advance the cause of freedom, and doubt-
less the national instinct was often right. But
Fenianism, in demonstrating how wrong and there-
fore unjust foreigners may be in estimating the
merits of a national quarrel, has shown the people
the necessity of great care in allowing their feelings
to influence reason. The consequence will be felt
for years in England's foreign as well as domestic
policy, and the advance of the principles of Liberalism
will in this receive a lamentable check. So sure may
he considered such a result that many assert the mov-
ing springs of the conspiracy are nearer England than
the United States. They insinuate that because Fe-
nianistn is working so strongly in the interests of des-
potism it must be aided by despots. It is uot, hos,v-
ever, foreign Governments that are chiefly benefited
by the Irish movemont, for the great gainers will be
the Tory party. Had S'FENIENS been commissioned
by Lord I)citu he cool t not have laboured more
directly in the Conservative interest. England's
pace on the way to Democracy had lately become
so rapid that " Shooting Niagara " and After was
freely discussed. It is lucky for Reformers that the
bill was passed before the Feniaus appeared in so
prominent a manner, and in so hateful a guise, or the
boon of an extended franchise might for years have
been postponed. The British people as a body are
unfeigned lovers and well-wishers of freedom, and
have given to their feelings a plain and outspoken
expression. This has had a great effect in keeping
liberty alive on the Continent of Europe, and those
who cherish Liberalism must deeply regret the ac-
tion of an organisation which, in its name, com-
mitting such excesses, has effectually checked
the progress it professes to forward. The
very liberty enjoyed by every individual in
the island, native or foreign, has furnished the
conspirators with their chief means of striking
against English society. The public, flying at once
to first causes, ask—Can it be for the benefit of
society to allow to individuals such a latitude ? If

the license given be thus used against our persons
and goods, would it not be wise to curtail that
license, and in the interest of law and order to
strengthen the hands of the Government by giving
it greater powers, and increasing its means of re-
pression by the police and other modes. This is
the temper of the public mind, and Government
would experience little difficulty in passing mea-
sures which a year or two ago would have been
impossible, and furnishes the proof that a strong
eaction has taken place in England in favour of
Tory principles, consequent on Fenian proceedings.
The address of the Senate of the Fenian Brother-
hood to the liberty-loving people of England, dated
New York, Dec. 12, avows the quarrel not to be
with the English people, but with the oligarchy
which rules them. Now the effect of their action is

to strengthen that very oligarchy, and strike the
heaviest blow against the liberty of the " liberty-
loving" people of England. If a moral question
can be illustrated by a material act, the outrage at
Clerkenwell is a fac-simile of the declaration of
the Fenian Senate. The Fenian Brotherhood,
having a quarrel with the English aristocracy,
fired a barrel of gunpowder in one of the
poorest streets of the metropolis, and shook
down in ruin the tenements and families of the
hard-working sons of toil. What bloated tyrant
suffered by this outrage ? While addressing the
English people as brothers with whom they recog-
nise an indissoluble bond of union, they have
managed to create a feeling of such animosity on
the part of the labouring population of England,
that Irishmen who, in truth, are associated with
English labourers in a community of interest,:are
in danger of being mobbed. The Senate alludes to
the " efforts of our people to obtain that freedom
for the enjoyment of which the ALMIGHTY evi-
dently designed the nations ;" yet the proceedings
have gone far to alienate from the cause of freedom
one of the greatest nations on earth, and to esta-
blish a prejudice against license which time only
can remove. It is strange to 53e the professed
haters of aristocracy labouring so zealously in the
otuse of the oligarchy they denounce, and we be-
lieve that the Tory Government of England are
working tooth and nail with the Fenians. We do
not mean to say that they are exploding barrels of
gunpowder in the streets, but they are making the
very most of the occasion. Fenianism would have
cut but a very sorry figure had it not been thus
aided. The interest of the aristocratic classes clearly
lies in creating as great a bugbear as possible
out of Fenianism—in making it as hateful as pos-
sible, and in representing it as the inevitable license
that follows an extended liberty. They point out
to the working classes, their women and children
ruthlessly sacrificed, for the chance even of effect-
ing a paltry object—and say these are the acts of
your professed friends ; it is thus that low and brutal
natures rule, and such a practical instance is worth
all the declamation and addresses in the world.
Fenianism has, indeed, been a happy chance for
the very classes against whom it was directed, and
with the energy and wisdom of an &igarchy who
seldom let such opportunities slip, they have seized
upon it, and are making the most of the occasion.