James Stephens, the well-known Fenian head-centre, has written a remarkable
letter to the Paris Correspondent of the Standard. In it he declares that if the defenders of the dynamite policy can only be crushed speedily, the Parnellites and the Irish Republican Brotherhood will be able, and will be compelled, to unite in one compact party for the deliverance of Ireland by force of arms. Mr. Parnell, by no fault of his own, has totally failed in his constitutional agitation. Stephens adds his belief that Mr. Parnell will ultimately agree to this course, as did Washington, Lord E. Fitzgerald, and Mr. Smith O'Brien. He believes that an insurrection, provided its object is separation, might, if carefully organised, be successful, and looks to a subsequent alliance with Eng- land so close as to be virtually federal. The total absence of insurrectionary plots in Ireland during the last few years, and the expressed repugnance of the leaders to the idea of a rising, will be quoted by the historians of the future as the strangest fact to be noted in the struggle. It seems to show either that the Irish leaders are less in earnest than they are supposed to be, or that they believe their followers to be so. Their excuse, the disproportion of force, is inadmissible. The disproportion is far less than that between the Low Countries and Spain, the American Colonies and England, the High- landers and England in 1745, or La Vend& and France.
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