The Portland daily press., 1865-10-26

make it penal to sing innocent rustic ballads,
thrust Che citizens in jail for possessing useful
or amusing books or scraps of song! Is this
the. boasted liberty of England? is this the
security Of the British subject? is this the
1 fruit Of Norma CkGrta, the Bill of Rights, and
seven hundred years of arduous struggle for
freedom? a s.as
We shall read with great interest; these pro-
tests of the London journals. They will de-
mand no doubt, that ifIreland wants to leave
the United Kingdom, she has the same right
which they CLAIMED through five years, for
South Carolina to leave the United States
The London Tim S, Herald and E6en;ng Re-
uie.s win repeat all their able articles justify
ing and defending the doctrine Of secession, to
prove that the Fenians must not can not.
| ought not to be interfered with that the Uni
! tel Kingdom viii become the disunited king
| dom whenever force is used to keep its parts
together; thatto talk ofa union OF the British
! islands in the face Of such tyrannical acts as
those ordered recently by the brutal and fiend-
| ish Palmerston, is TO insult the common sense
| Of the world that if the irish people want to
secede, no power ought to hold them; that
the recent arrests and suppressions show the
| British government to be conscious that it is in
the wrong, and are an admission of the desire
of the Irish to abandon the union. which was
originally, it will be remarked, forced upon
them against their will Finally, the Times
viii proclaim, with its most grandiloquent
1 sentences, that the Bubble has BURST" the
Great Empire is dead, aid the sun has at last
\ set upon dominion which he followed around
/ the world. ~ lttigf8 Y stp
Some Of our contenp nporaries, we perceive,
>boih at home and atabread, pooh-pooh this
4 Fenfan movement as predestined failure
| What can a handful of clodhopping peasants,
without money, Yithout arms. without lisci-
/ pline, without leaders, do against the might of
I a stupendous empire? But such reasoners
| forget the recent precedents introduced into
the practice of international law; they forget
/ that arms and money and men may be sup
piled with impunity by other and more pow
! erfOl nations. If the Irshmen should want a
few ifon-cad naval Warriors we have no
doubt that Lairds and Lindsays could be
! found in-France, say, OF Holland-to build
or equip these new Alabane and Shenan-
doahs by the feet; or if they should require
some twenty or thirty millions of pounds to
begin upon they might pledge turf, or whIs-
key, or potatoes, for the payment of it to the
Beresford Hopes and Lord Whainclifes, Of
Austria or Italy who would advance the funds
| The governments OF those nations would of
course be very vigilant in preserving their neu-
| tFality, they would make terrible hustle in
| locking the stable-doors after the steeds were
stolen, but tits impossible you know, to pre-
| vent all offences. A reasonable alacrity is all
that can be eFequired OF any class Of officials
Besides, members of the French Chambers, or
of the Italian Parliament, would spring up to
defend these acts, to abuse the British nation,
and to insist that the gallant and struggling
lrishmen ought to be Instantly recognised as a
new nation. a' 4i ,ni.f. 80 siss Aae