THE THREATENED FENIAN RAID ON CANADA.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2955, 5 August 1878, Page 3

THE THREATENED FENIAN RAID ON CANADA.

The New York Tribune of May 7, in an article headed " Irish Eussians," has the following remarks : —" The gross absurdity of an Irish invasion of Canada in the interests of the .Russian Empire does not prove that there is no foundation for the rumours of war and conspiracy which come to us from Buffalo. After what we hare seen of the Fenian conventions in America, and risings in Chester and Killarney, the Clerkenwell explosion, aud the assassination of Thomas Daroy McGee, the operations of the Fenian Sisterhood, the sale of bonds, the exportation of arms to Ireland, and the princely court held by head-centres and organisers at the Moffat Mansion, we hesitate to pronounce any plan of Fenian agitation incredible merely because it may be preposterous. In that organisation it seems to be the preposterous that always happens. But if Fenian agents are really gabbling and collecting money in Buffalo, it does not follow that any military expedition is afoot. The society is composed of three classes of people—a few sincere and iighthe&dof& patriots, a few dishonest adventur^s, and a multitude of dupes who contribute the funds, swell the processions, and inflate the leaders. Seven years ago a committee investigated the accounts of the brotherhood, and reported that over , 625,000 dollars had been collected, nearly a third part of which had been expended in America. And the contributions still go on. A show of conspiracy—iv some safe place like Buffalo—is very useful to stimulate the flagging liberality of servants and labouring men; and if the fortunes of Eussia are now materially improved by these operations we may be quite certain that increased contributions to the 'skirmishing fund' will sensibly affect the fortunes of some professional patriots. Sensible Irishmen must 'not let their national sympathies deceive them. This sort of agitation is not to be regarded with any leniency. It is a crime, and it ought to be denounced in the plainest terms. We beg our Fenian friends, moreover, to observe that if they are busy with any designs upon Canada they are also guilty of a crime against the country that has given them hospitable shelter, and Americans whose kindness and patience they have so often abused will demand that they be severely dealt with. Whatever cause of complaint Irishmen may have against England, they must settle their quarrel at home, or leave it unsettled. This country is not to be made the nursery of their expeditions. They were much too gently" treated by the United States after the raids of 1866, and we trust that such mischievous leniency will never be shown them again. The Fenians must be made to understand that we are not.going to fall out with our neighbors, or tolerate riot on the frontier, for their amusement. The Government will oblige them to keep strictly within the law. America has gladly made itself the home of Irish exiles, but it does not mean to be also the paradise of Irish fools."