THE FENIAN PRISONERS. -T LIIME are only two conditions that can
demand the pardon of persons who have been justly convicted of treason. One is the repentance of the offenders, coupled with a corre- sponding change in the temper of those who sympathised with them. The other is the existence of a conviction in the public mind that the circumstances under which the treason was committed furnish, when viewed in the light of later events, an excuse, if not a justification, for the traitors. If neither of these conditions is forthcoming, an annesty is almost certain to be misunderstood ; and as regards the prisoners now undergoing punishment for complicity in the Fenian out- breaks, both are most certainly wanting. No evidence has been offered that the prisoners regret what they have done. Penianism is, for the present, a defeated cause, and they are probably sorry that they did not form a clearer estimate of its chances before committing themselves so unreservedly to its support. But this kind of sorrow has nothing in common with the sorrow that springs from a genuine change of purpose. Time has not convinced them that loyalty to the British Government is indispensable to the progress and happi- ness of Ireland. It has at most taught them that the British Government is stronger than they thought, and that the hour when Ireland can safely assert her inde- pendence is still distant. And so far is that portion of the people of Ireland which originally sympathised with them from being any better disposed towards the Government, that if the prisoners were released, in consideration of their expressing regret for the past and a resolution to amend their ways in the future, it is probable that they would find them- selves the most unpopular men in Ireland. Their return would only be welcome to their fellow-countrymen, if it could be made the occasion of a semi-treasonable progress, in which sym- pathy for the cause with which the prisoners are iden- tified should be expressed under the guise of sympathy for the prisoners themselves. Nor, though legislation for Ireland has taken up a great deal of Parliamentary time since Fenianism was finally disposed of, can it be said with any approach to truth that the changes which have been made have in any sense shown that before these changes treason was more ex- cusable than it is now. On the contrary, the action of the Legislature has proved that the one excuse which can be fairly urged on behalf of resistance to the Government was entirely wanting. There was no purpose on the side of Parliament to deny Irishmen justice. A revolution was not wanted to dis- establish the Irish Church, or to give Irish tenants security against disturbance. Both ends were attained by the appeal of an English Minister to the unprompted desire of Parliament to remove acknowledged grievances. • If there is nothing in the nature of their crime, or in the circumstances attending on its commission, to make the Fenian prisoners a proper object of clemency, the speeches of the Irish Members who espoused their cause on Monday were not calculated to supply the missing reason. The argument that 138 Members of the House of Commons had signed a petition for their release broke down under the discovery that those who had signed it were not agreed upon the scope of the request they were presenting. To judge from the dis- cussion provoked by Mr. O'Connor Power's motion for the adjourn- ment of the House, Irish Members would hold the prerogative of mercy to have been very insufficiently exercised, if the two men now condemned to penal servitude for life for the murder of the police-serjeant at Manchester were excluded from its operation. Yet it seems clear that some, perhaps many, of these 138 signatures were affixed under the impression that no efforts would be made to procure the release of any except strictly political prisoners. Mr. Parnell appears to think that the opinion of any single Member of the House ought to be conclusive proof of the injustice of the sentence passed on the prisoners, though he so far condescended to English hardness of heart, as to express regret that the absence of Mr. Stephen Moore prevented him from establishing this fact by the equally subje,ctive testimony of a second witness. This gentleman's notions of equity are curi- ously influenced by considerations of numerical equality. He is so shocked by the inconsistency of sentencing one man to penal servitude for fifteen years, while another is only sen- tenced to penal servitude for seven years, that he is unable to conceive that the Judge who tried the two cases may possibly have seen a difference between them. We recommend Mr. Parnell to bring in a Bill providing that whenever a number of political prisoners are tried together, the expiration of the lightest sentence shall be also the expiration of all the nomin- ally heavier sentences. Mr. Butt made some profession of arguing the question on legal grounds, but his plea in mitiga- tion of the crime of the Manchester murderers only amounted to this—that though technically guilty of murder, they had not actually committed murder. Mr. Butt forgets that it is to this distinction that they owe the mitigation of their sentence. If they had "gone to the scene of the outrage with the intention of shedding blood," they would most certainly have been hanged. It was only because they were "convicted on the principle that people are responsible for any bloodshed in connection with an enterprise in which they take part," that it was found possible to spare their lives. On the whole, we are disposed to think Mr. Biggar's speech the most effective that was delivered on behalf of the prisoners. His noble scorn of argument or pertinence, his telling references to the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Bismarck, and his outspoken denunciation of the Prime Minister's extraction and supposed creed, seemed to lift the debate above the common-place level of Parliamentary speech, and to recall the untutored eloquence of Punch's excited Irish cook under notice to leave her place. We are not convinced that the Fenian prisoners ought to be released because the Commander-in-Chief is a German Prince, or because Mr. Disraeli is an alien in blood and religion ; but these reasons seem at least as good as any others that were urged on the same side, and they have certainly the advantage of being more amusing.
One of two good results may perhaps follow from this dis- cussion. If there is any genuine life in the Home-rule or the Nationalist agitation in Ireland, those who hold either view must be thoroughly ashamed of the persons they have chosen to represent them in Parliament. If no such sentiment is excited in Ireland, we may assure ourselves with absolute confidence that there is nothing in either movement which can excite a moment's uneasiness. Whichever of these alternatives turns out to be the true one, the Parliamentary situation will be improved. If Home-rule is a serious foe, it is well that Englishmen should be confronted with the head rather than with the tail of the agitation. There is nothing to be gained by defeating your enemy's worst troops, so long as there are no means of ascertaining what relation they bear to his best. If there is a real Goliath behind, there is as little profit as glory in bringing down Mr. Biggar. When the constituencies of Ireland bethink themselves that to make sport for the House of Commons is scarcely the highest function of an Irish representative, they will, perhaps, send men to Westminster who will help us to understand what hold the idea of Home-rule has upon Irishmen. If, on the other hand, the Irish constituencies remain careless of such exhibitions as those of Monday night, the Home-rule agitation cannot hope to escape the discredit which has fallen upon its mouth-pieces in the House of Commons. The level of Irish oratory on Monday seems to have been very much that which excites admiration at an inferior vestry meeting. If this is the worst That Ireland can do, we need not make ourselves uneasy about the future. The presence of these gentlemen in the House of Commons will entail a certain sacrifice of public time and public dignity, but there will be comfort to be derived from the reflection that the Home-rulers are not more formidable than an obscure association of angry ratepayers.
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