The Central English Amnesty Committee—the Committee of Irishmen in England
appointed to maintain an agitation for the release of the Fenian prisoners—has dissolved itself. Mr. Merri- man, the chairman, had proposed that a deputation should wait upon the Premier with the petitions, one of which, he says, is signed by 100,000 persons. Mr. Gladstone, however, replied that the question had been most fully considered by Government, and that he did not think it one for discussion with a deputation. The chairman declared himself deeply disappointed ; but proposed that the committee should be dissolved, and the accounts wound uE. A proposition was made that a permanent Amnesty Com- mittee should be appointed—to last, we presume, after the pri- soners have been released—but this met no favour, and, Mr. Sul- livan accordingly moved and carried that the "Irish people never having had faith in or expected justice from the British.Parliament," the Committee be dissolved, which was done, to the immense im- provement of the prospects of the Fenians. Governments in free countries can put,,up with a good deal, but a threatening agitation in the capital on behalf of men who, whatever their excuses, have, at all events, broken a fundamental law, is not one of the things which it is possible to endure with patience.
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