FENIANISM IN NEW ZEALAND!

Marlborough Express, Volume III, Issue 107, 14 March 1868, Page 5

FENIANISM IN NEW ZEALAND!

Thebe is a journal published at Hokitika under the name of the Gelt, which finds its interest in supporting what it calls Fenianism, but which—after reading some portion of the contents—we can only consider to be assassination, and wholesale murder, and that of the worst and most savage type. It reflects little to the credit of a country, that such wild writing and advocacy is read and admired so far as to make it possible that its author can get his living from it, and no right-minded person can do otherwise than regard such language with the utmost reprobation and horror. We shall give a few specimens from a number before us.

This is the way the writer describes the volunteers and special constables who cams forward as the conservators of law and order on the execution of the three men at Manchester : “The scaffold and jail were guarded by two thousand live hundred ‘roughs’ of the true ‘trades union’ type, who seemed rather pleased with their very unusual duty. How many Broadheads and Crooks and ‘ratteners’ and air-gun practitioners there were among these strange defenders of law and order, 1 have no means of computing ; yet I verily believe that if true justice had its way, a tolerably large percentage of them would have been on the scaffold, and not around it. Two thousand unwashed scoundrels were surely a curious safeguard to British law. I wonder how many of them felt unpleasant sensations at the sight of the hangman —” And so on. After giving a detailed account of the so-called “ funeral procession” at Charleston, he exclaims — “Thrice amen, 0 Lord ! and in the name of Ireland and all Irishmen, we thank the noble Frenchman, who in his priestly character, has sublimated the epic grandeur [ ! ] of the scene at Charleston. The solemn ceremonial was in the strictest keeping with the manner in which the Martyrs met their death, for they died bravely and departed religiously, and the funeral procession imNew Zealand is as significant as was their passive heroism impressive, and religion has appropriately sealed the earthly career of the one, and the imposing ceremonial of the other. There can be no patriotism without religion ..There are incidents in real life which surpass romance, and this is one of them. There is a chivalry in the act of these Irishmen at Charleston, which did there not exist such proof of its reality, we should put down as a splendid fiction. Men came scores of miles over mountains and ravines to attend in sentiment, at the funeral [in imagination] of the executed patriots. They feel no fatigue, they waver not in purpose, they are animated by the spirit of Allen the patriot boy, whose mother declared she would rather see him dangling from the gallows with reputation unsullied than standing by the side of Corydon the informer. It is the Homan Livia addressing young Gracchus.” After this rhapsodical tirade, our readers will need to be remindedthat'the “martyrs” and “patriots” were not the innocent women and children blown to pieces unawares after night-fall at Clerkenwell, —but three common murderers who shot a policeman engaged in the performance of his duty, while rescuing two prisoners condemned by the law of the land. The writer, be he whom he may, has raised himself to the pitch of the New Zealand savage, who seeks utu by revenging real or supposed wrongs on those who had nothing to do with his quarrel. This is how he vindicates the “ slaughter of the innocents,” in the attempt to blow up Clerkenwell Gaol : “Turn we now from the Irish in New Zealand to the Irish at home. While the Irish here from their isolated position, can only sympathise, the Irish in Ireland and England are acting. They will have an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. They blow up Clerkenwell prison, and bury one hundred and forty in the ruins. One hundred and forty lives are sacrificed to appease the manes of the murdered! True, these one hundred and forty persons had no more hand in the murder of the martyrs than had the Irish peasants, whom Elizabeth disembowelled, or the infants who wriggled on the; bayonet points of Cromwell’s soldiers, in disturfiihg the power of England; but then the destruction of these one hundred and forty innocent persons inflicts a stab on the heart of England, akin to, but not so deep’as the wound inflicted bn the national life of Ireland, by the disembowelling of her peasants and the bayoneting of her babes. It is stated that seven are already arrested' for the destruction of these one hundred and forty persons, and we may feel assured that other executions will •follow those of the Manchester martyrs.” What have we in this far-distant colony, or indeed, any of onr English friends, done to Ireland, or the “madman who writes such rubbish 1 But more important still, how are. these intended wholesale murders, burnings, and midnight assassination to benefit poor Ireland, and redress her (real or imaginary) wrongs ! He closes by saying— “ It is now clear that England at last begins to feel what are the horrors of civil war, and, in the agony of her alarm, may have some faint appreciation of the miseries she has made Ireland to endure during a succession of ages, while, with a cold and callous eye, undimmed by pity, and unblenched by remorse, she looked at her tortures and laughed at her tears. Her * sensitiveness, ” which lies in the region of her pocket, is sorely taxed, for calling out thirty,thousand •special constables, and moving armies from end to end of the kingdom, must disturb" her internal trade,? affect change, and create heavy taxation. In the.gueriila .war, which, by the sapience of its. leaders, is transferred from; Ireland to England,

the offending nation is at length being afflicted. There is retribution from on High, and the eternal justice of God is being vindicated atlast.” As for the cross-raising and funeral processions at Charleston, Hokitika, Christchurch and elsewhere—were such alone their object—we see little harm, and would allow these excited enthusiasts to erect as many crosses as they wished ; but occasion is taken to incite the people by wild and inflamatory language, which will shortly culminate in serious disaster, if permitted. We cannot do less ■ in closing this brief comment, than express a hope that none of our readers will lend an ear to this fanatical delusion, contrary to all right, reason, and law—either human or divine —but that like good subjects and true patriots, they will leave the consideration of the wrongs of Elizabeth’s time, as well as those 16,000 miles distant, and rather seek to redress those real wrongs they suffer in their adopted country, and which concerns their interests more nearly. We purposely refrain from making any special remarks upon the letter in another column, which tells its own story, as well as a statement which has reached us, that we have Fenian sympathisers in our midst at present occupying positions of trust and responsibility. We trust to the good sense of our fellow settlers to consider their own interests, which will be best done by scouting and avoiding all such enemies to religion, law, and justice.