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

FENIANISM THE ALLY OF TOP►YISM

(From the Auglo7American Times.)
Penianisin 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 whi3h the natives arc warranted in rebel-
ling, and thus they have enlisted the sympathies of
foreigners. Loudly proclaiming these pretended
gr:evances, 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-
p tthirs of so many Christian countries should be with
those firebrands against them. When, however, they
consider 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 prenraptious 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
Fenianisrn, '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
be 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-
nianism is working so strongly in the interests of des-
potism it must be aided by despots. It is not, how-
ever, foreign Governments that are chiefly benefited
by the Irish movetn.att, for the great gainers will be
the Tory party. llad STEPHENS been commissioned
by Lord DERBY he coul l 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 Fenians appeared in so
protninent a wanner, 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 bad 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-simde 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 see the professed
haters of aristocracy labouring so zealously in the
c tuse 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. Fenianisin 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 Fenianisrn—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.
Fenianisrn has, indeed, been a happy chance for
the very classes against whom it was directed; and
with the energy and wisdom of an oligarchy who
seldom let such opportunities slip, they have seized
upon it, and are making the most of the occasion.

MISCELLANEOUS I'VE WS.

From the Anglo-American Times.)

The cable news mostly relates to the specie now
being forwarded from Ne►v York. On the 25th
December the Cunarders took out $1,000,000, and
the North German Lloyd's steamer, on the 26th, car-
ried out another million. On the 28th the vessel
that left had on board $1,250,000 in specie, and on
the 2d of January the steamers that left for Europe
had $1,500,000. These remittances are mainly on
account of the large payments due from Govern-
ment in January.

We also learn by the cable that General Grant,
by order of President Johnson, has removed Gens.
Pope and Ord from the commands of their respec-
tive districts, and Generals Meade and M'Donell
have been appointed to succeed them. General
Swayne also has been removed from the head of the
Freedmen's Bureau in Alabatn t. All which argues
great confidence and str.mg action on Mr. Johnson
part.

General Hancock is winning golden opinions
from Mr. Johnson. He has reinstated numerous
additional civil officials in Louisiana, removed by
General Mower during the period he acted for Han-
cock. So strongly does the President approve of
the new administration of the Fifth Military Dis-
trict, and of the order issued by the General on the
29th Novemkr, that he sent a message to Congress
calling attention to it, and suggesting that some
public recognition was due, if not to him, to the
friends of law and justice throughout the country.
Mr. Johnson remarks :—" Of such an act of his
at such a time it is but fitting that the dignify
should be vindicated and the, virtue proclaimed,
so that its value as an example may not be lost
to the nation." In this message he gives
another indirect slap in the face to Congress,
nor to it only, as nyty be perceived in the following
passage :—" I am far from saying that General
Hancock is the only officer of the American army
who is influenced by the example of Washington.
Doubtless thousands of them are faithfully devoted
to the principles for which the men of the Revolu-
tion laid down their lives. Bat the distinguished
honour belongs to him of being the first officer in
high command south of the Potomac since the close
of the civil war who has given utterance to those
noble sentiments in the form of a military order."

Congress adjourned on the 20th December until
January 6, postponing the Finance and Cotton Tax
Repeal Bills. The blouse of Representatives passed
the Deficiency Bill, appropriating $12;000,000 for
army supplies and transport, the enforcement of the
Reconstruction Act., and other expenses. The
Rouse has passed an amendment to the Reconstruc-
tion Act, introduced by Mr. Stevens, providing
that only a majority of those- voting, instead of a
majority of registered voters, he necessary to rectify
Or reject the new State constitutions in the South.
Mr. Sherman, from the Finance Committee of the
Senate, has reported a bill similar to the one he in-
troduced in November, providit.g for the funding of
the National Debt in Furty Year Six per Cent.
Bonds, the principal and interest payable in coin
and redeemable at the option of the Government
after ten years, and to be free of taxation; and

also authorising the Secretary of the Treasury to
issue Forty Year Bonds to the amount of five hun-
dred million dollars, bearing 4i interest, payable in
coin at London and Frankfort, to be sold or ex-
changed at par for Five-Twenties, and redeemable,
at the option of the Government, after twenty
years. The bill was bud over until after the holi-
days.

Mr. Charles H. Van Wyck, a representative from
New York, has exposed the Gettysburg Asylum
Lottery swindle. Ail lotteries are more or less
fraudulent; but lotteries for charitable and p itriot ic
purposes are, to use the words of the New York
Tribune, "stealing the livery of the devil to serve
Heaven in, which is rather a worse offence than its
opposite." One of the, farms in this most patriotic
" do," worth $l,O )0, is advertised as worth $30,000;
and the rubbish of a New York tobacconist was
announo_d as diamonds, valued at $200,000.
These, with other traps, miscellaneous plunder,
and old junk, were made the basis of a lottery for
the pretended benefit of the soldiers."

The New York Citizen, in an interesting article on
General Lee's position, arrive 3 at the conclusion that
that gentleman may be regarded as master of the
PrOsidectial situation, so far as the vote of the
eleven Southern States in the electoral college can
affect that issue. The Citizen considers that more
than half tho negroes will follow General Lee, and
that the white vote of the ex-rebel States will be
solid for whatever candidate Lee may chose. "How
then," says the Citizen, "is Mama Bob ' likely to
go in our national struggle? for we again reiterate
our belief that, as General Lee goes, the whop
South will follow." This question it answers by a
summary of the events which followed the surren-
der, under the apple tree, near Appomatox Court-
Elouse, very distinctly insinuating that Lee will
cast all his influence for Grant, the chivalrous op-
ponent for the chivalrous conqueror, convinced that
the qualities which enabled Grant to reach such an
eminence, and more still, the generosity, the mode-
ration, and the good sense he evinced in victory,
peculiarly fit him, under present circumstances, for
the difficult post which it is the clear wish of the
nation he should fill.

Mayor Hoffman's message to the Board of Alder-
men on the rights of foreign-born citizens natu-
ralised in the United States, fairly enough states the
case. Putting the question aside of the Irish-
American soldiers arrested for treason-felony in Ire-
land, of the rights of which Mayor Hoffman cannot
be a judge, the argument he urges is admitted
in England to be sound, and proves the British law,
as well as that of the United States, which is
siadlar, requires revision. " Suppose," he says, i‘ in
the late war to maintai❑ our national existence, in
which our adopted citizens fought with such devo-
tion and valour, Great Britain had openly taken
sides ag Linst us, and had sent its soldiers to fight
under the iritish flag on the side of revolt for our
national destruction—the principle contended for
by England would have made every adopted citizen
barn in any part of England's dominions' fighting
ou the side of the Union a traitor liable to be igno-
miniously executed." He adds, the first duty of a
State is to its citizens, to maintain their rights and
protect their persons. But, he might have added—
and to control their acts. No country could endure
the emigration of foiled conspirators reorganising
their plot across her borders, and re-entering her
territory under the shield of a foreign nationality, to
carry into effect the purpose they had already failed
to achieve. The common sense of mankind would
be outraged by such a doctrine, and there is no
nation under the sun that would be less inclined to
endure it than the United States. It cannot be for
the interest of any nationality to retain as citizens
those who have left the country and desire to throw
off their allegiance, and we believe that this is fully
recognised and would be willingly acted on by
Great Britain.