The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1868.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 82, 7 April 1868, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1868.

It is not difficult to perceive that there is but a half truth in the statement so frequently heard, that Fenianism is of American growth, and has no source in Irish grievances. Technically, indeed, there have not been any Fenians in Ireland except those who came from over the Atlantic ; but there has assuredly existed a society of Irish Republicans in Ireland, specifically identified with them, and even anterior to them in date of formation. How the two societies appeared to each other, magnified by the distance through which they were viewed, should not be forgotten, for il has doubtless greatly helped to give them both vitality. If the Irish Republic bad alone to be dealt with, there can be little question that it would uow be matter of history ; but American Fenianism Was not so directly to be met; and it knew its strength and its value as a basis of supply. ' Fenianism,' said the New York Irish People, more than a year ago, ' contemplates the organisation of the Irish element in America in one great national association for the purpose of combining all the vast resources at its command, moral, national, and political, and directing them intelligently, systematically, and determinedly towards the liberation of Ireland. It contemplates, secondly, the formation of allied associations in Ireland, G»'eat Britain, the British Provinces and Colonies, and wherever else any branch of the Irish nation may be found in sufficient force.' How completely and mysteriously this organisation has been carried out, recent events sufficiently illustrate. The element upon which it has operated in Ireland has been ably defined by a sober witness, Dr Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry, the same prelate who has lately, in a pastoral letter, to his flock, so eloquently put forth his reasons for refusing to allow public funeral honors to be paid in his diocese to the memory of the Fenians executed at Manchester. After stating that the upper aud upper middle class are loyal, ' because for them emancipation has been a reality, it has given them the rights and privileges which follow rank and wealth,' he adds — -It is not so with the millions for whom emancipation has had no practical or appreciable result. For them, as a consequence, the past still lives in the presentthey think they are an oppressed race. Men live in the hope of what they call a deliverance of their native laud. Hence a dreamy, unreal, discontented existence. Like the Athenians asking in their streets " What news? Id Philip dead?" we have a people expecting good fortune from some unforeseen chance, or from the possible ruin ofthe power which they consider to be the cause of their miseries.' Bishop Moriarty evidently thinks that this state of affairs is attributable to the .Irish Church Establishment, but it is hardly due to this alone. A reference to the popular press in America, as well as in Ireland, will show how much the many abortive efforts made in Parliament to deal with the laud question and with the educational difficulty, bave caused confidence in the good intentions of the. Legislature to give place to despair, aud even to suspicion of an irreconcileable hostility. Expectations have been raised only to be disappointed ; and thus, amongst the many strange phenomena of the movement, it came to pass that a Presbyterian clergyman, prominent in agitatioD for tenant-right, became one of the Executive Council of the Irish Republic. Verily, hope deferred makes a nation desperate. Simple truth must extort from every candid mind the admission that Ireland

has been infamously misgoverned for centuries, that she has still many wrongs and grievances to be removed, aud that, most unfortunately, no instance can be pointed out in which her wrongs have been generously redressed, for every right, every particle of freedom the Irish people now enjoy has been wrung from English statesmen in their days of necessity. Sir Robert Peel's endowment of Maynooth is the only act of really generous English statesmanship towards Ireland that can be pointed out. But Ireland has, nevertheless, won great victories ever prejudices, sectarian and national, by peaceable, legal and constitutional means. Why then sully the noble cause upon which all that is generous, great and good in the world smiles approvingly, by atrocious practices ' which can only bring ruin upon themselves, calamity upon those against whom they have no grudge, discredit upon the Irish name, and much misery upon industrious and unoffending Irishmen and Irishwomen ?