The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-30

Stephens, another renowned ''exile," broke
up the ''Moffatt Mansion" establishment, aud
turned the Centre and the bond clerks end
chiefs of civil and military affairs out on
cold and unfeeling world. If this happens
again, we doubt very much whether the
textiles" will meet with as hospitable recep-
tion on this side of the water as they have
hitherto received.
In connection with these commissions here,
Lord Derby's recent observation in the House
of Lords on the Irish trouble is worth notice
He says what great many Englishmen of
the same standing are beginning to say, that
after all Irish grievances are redressed, there
will still remain the very formidable obstacle
to tranquil union with England, in the shape
of Irish dislike of English rule-simple un-
adulterated dislike, without rhyme, or reason,
or foundation. The Established Church is
gone, and the Land laws have been amended,
and the Catholic clergy do pretty much
as they please, and yet there is terrible
discontent-and what is worse, the Protes-
tants are said to be no longer as devoted
to England as they once were-the
''idea of legislative independence which
sprung up" as Lord Derby says, in 1882,
never having died out, while it derives addi-
tional force now from the concessions which
Government has felt called upon to make on
certain questions of reform. What gave the
repeal agitation under O'Connell its death
blow was the general belief that its success
was hopeless. But since agitation has re-
suited in bringing about such tremendous
changes as the disestablishment Of the
Church, and the concession of more tenant
rights than its advocates even ten years ago
dreamed of ever asking for, people have not
unnaturally begun to inquire whether the
old scheme of legislative independence is,
after all, impracticable, and some of the
baser sort are not unnaturally asking them
selves also whether the species of agitation
that is, the shooting, cutting, and blowing
up, which seem to them to have brought
about the abolition of the Church and the
new Land law-may not be made to effect
the repeal of the Legislative Union also.
We think it may be safely said that there
is only one. argument against the repeal of
the Union which has any weight with any
body besides Englishmen, but this is very
strong one, viz, the awful badness of the
Government which Irishmen set up when
they get chance to set one up. The Mof-
fatt Mansion Government was, to be sure, a
farce; but then it, like the whole Fenian Or
ganizatiop, does not afford the slightest evil
dence that the men who got it up and car
ried it on were capable of serious work
which really well-acted farce might have
done. And then, we are sorry to say, that in
our times the cause of Irish independence has
foe of which Grattan, Flood, Emmett and
Wolfe Tone never dreamed of, namely, the
municipal government of New York. Had it
existed, such as we now see it, in the last
centur. Grattan would never have thundered
against the Union, and Tone would never
have been hanged. Castlereagh would only
have had to distribute the New York C0rpo-
ration Manual pretty freely among the de.
cent people of the island to prevent the
heroes of 1888 from making any figure in his
tory.