THE FENIAN-TORY ALLIANCE.
lk{R. BRIGHT once, if we are not mistaken, in one of his 1 most fiery philippics against the House of Lords, scorn- fully denounced " that creature of monstrous, nay, of incestuous birth, the spiritual peer." Like an inundation, which how- ever fertilizing in its latter influences, generates in its slimy alluvium hideous creeping things, ugly and venomous, a time of political excitement, necessary as it may be, and wholesome in its result, calls into life moral monsters, both dangerous and difficult to crush. One of these portents, to which Mr. Bright's scathing words !night be applied with much more propriety than to the inoffensive occupants of the " Right Reverend Bench," has made its appearance lately in Ireland, and has made the confusion of Irish electioneering, if that were possible, worse confounded than before. Historically the part is familiar to us ; unchanged in its principle, it is Protean in its variations of form ; but the shape which it has assumed in Ireland is novel and remarkable. It has always been the policy of the party of reaction to flirt with the party of anarchy ; both, equally hating the moderate advo- cates of progress, have combined to defeat constitutional reforms. So Richard Oastler's Chartists were employed to hinder the advances of the free-trading followers of Cobden ; so, only a few days ago, the Bonapartists and Reds joined in a too successful cabal to return the Ministerial candidate for the Department of the Var in opposition to M. Dufaure, who stood as an able and honoured representative of the Constitutional Op- position. But neither the confederacy of Protectionists and Char- tists, nor the co-operation of Bonapartists and Republicans, will appear so inexplicable to future students of the political history of our time as the extraordinary alliance,—if that compact may be called an alliance in which one party is to do all the dirty work and the other party to reap all the advantage,—which has banded together the Fenians and the Tories in Ireland against the just and rational policy of Mr. Gladstone. In speak- ing of this compact, we do not mean to assert that direct negotia- tions have passed between the Carlton Club and the tricksters and farceurs of the mock Fenian Bureaus at New York. But there is in Ireland, and this is the gravest danger ahead for Liberal statesmanship, a large revolutionary party, with vague and restless cravings for national independence, and without faith in constitutional reforms or Parliamentary agitation. On these men, or upon their acute and not wholly disinterested leaders, the Irish Tories have lately attempted to work, and with some success. The main point was to rekindle the old hatred of the Whigs, dating from the O'Connellite schism, and to identify Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright with the traditions of Whiggery. If this could be done to any large extent, on the one hand Mr. Disraeli would receive a material accession of strength from Ireland ; and, on the other hand, the policy of constitutional reform being finally defeated, the Fenian doctrines would immediately be looked upon as embodying the only principle on which the regeneration of the country could be effected. These are the calculations which have induced the Tory wire- pullers and the open advocates of Fenianism to coalesce. Fenian mobs have been organized to howl down Liberal candidates, and the Fenian press, or the newspapers that are as nearly Fenian as the law will allow them to be, have let no opportunity pass of maligning the motives and the char- acter of Mr. Gladstone and his supporters.
The operations of the Alliance commenced early in the summer. They have gained by degrees in boldness, and have extended their range in proportion. At first, the Fenian aid was promised, but in no very confident tone, to those Liberals who had assumed to themselves the title and the privileges of " Independent Opposition," and had proved their claim with excellent Irish logic by consistently supporting Mr. Disraeli's Government. Sir Joseph Neale McKenna at Youghal, Sir George Bowyer at Dundalk, Mr. Stock at Carlow, Mr. Rearden at Athlone, all relied more or less on the
" Nationalist " vote and anti-Whig or anti-English mobs. Then the two newspapers, the Nation and the Irish- man, which represent respectively the head and the tail of the Fenian faction, joined in the cry against the Liberal party. The conductors of these journals,—Mr. A. M. Sulli- van and Mr. Richard Pigott,—who had just been released from the imprisonment which had punished their violent and seditious language, fell in at once with the new policy, and began with the zeal of proselytes to preach the new Die- raelian Evangel. Mr. Sullivan was especially earnest in this patriotic work. Wherever he saw an opening in the Liberal cuirass he was ready to give point. In the Queen's County, for example, the tenant-farmers, discontented with the repre- sentation, divided as it was between General Dunne and Mr. Fitzpatrick, had chosen Mr. Mason Jones for their second Liberal candidate. Mr. Sullivan at once saw his opportunity ; he re- membered that Mr. Mason Jones had spoken in public in favour of Garibaldi some half-dozen years ago, and assiduously fanning the flame of priestly intolerance, he succeeded in making the farmers abandon the champion they had chosen, and leave the field clear for the Tory candidate, who, it is said, will now walk over the course. But this transaction, scandalous as it is, is decent in comparison with the tactics that have been pursued in another Liberal constituency. The borough of Dungarvan, in the county of Waterford, was long under the influence alternately of the Duke of Devonshire and of Sir Nugent Humble, a Tory baronet, residing on his estates near the town. The place is not very prosperous ; it has a small fishing population ; but it is not notorious for corruption. The Roman Catholic interest there has for many years been governed by a Catholic priest of the old school, the Rev. Dr. Halley, a veteran Whig, who took a prominent part in the great election of 1826, when Mr. Villiers Stuart (now Lord Stuart de Deeies) wrested the county from the domination of the Beresfords. The Cavendish influence and Dr. Halley's support held the seat for a Whig against both Tories and Young Irelanders. In 1847 and in 1851 Mr. Maguire (now M.P. for Cork) contested the borough, and received the Tory support in the hope that the combination would defeat the Whig ; but it was not until 1852, when the memory of the Durham Letter was fresh in the angry minds of Irish Catholics, that the Whig candidate was beaten. Then. when Mr. Maguire succeeded, his former Tory supporters turned upon him, and in 1857 he had to fight a sharp battle with Sir Nugent Humble himself. In 1865, Mr. Maguire, who had by that time come round to Liberal opinions, resigned Dungarvan to take his seat for the City of Cork. Mr. Serjeant Barry, a distinguished lawyer, then holding an official position under the Liberal Government, contested the borough successfully with Major Palliser, of chilled-shot notoriety, who had the Conservatives of town and county at his back. On coming again before his constituents, Serjeant Barry would have had nothing to fear from the direct opposition of a Tory ; but it did not suit the Carlton Club and its Fenian allies so to oppose him. A candidate was chosen of a nondescript sort, and an address was issued from which it was impossible to discover the political position of the writer. But as soon as this dark horse appeared on the course, and it was known how he had been backed, the mystery was cleared up. The chosen of the Fenian Tories was Mr. Henry Matthews, an Englishman by birth and education, and a practising barrister on the Oxford Circuit. Mr. Matthews is an English Catholic and, like most English Catholics, Conservative in his ideas. But in his antecedents and in his speeches, in his ideas and in the passions to which he appeals, in the character of those who support him and of those whom he intends to support, there is presented a singular succession of contrasts. Mr. Matthews has the honour to be introduced to the electors, so to speak, with Sir Nugent Humble on his right hand, and Mr. Sullivan, of the Nation, on his left. He invokes the aid of the noble aspirations of Fenianism, and pledges himself to vote against Mr.
Gladstone. Of the Church question Mr. Matthews has skilfully kept clear. He admits that the maintenance of the Establishment is a scandal, but he seems to be much more indignant with the motives which he attributes to Mr. Gladstone's policy. Perhaps, however, the most disgraceful part of the whole story is that Mr. Matthews endeavoured to make capital for himself with a Fenian mob by assailing his opponent for having discharged officially a mere professional duty. As a lawyer, Mr. Matthews must have well understood the relation in which Serjeant Barry acted as prosecuting counsel in some of the Fenian trials. Serjeant Barry with wise courage at once faced the storm that was raised against him. He entered Dungarvan, and in spite of some insignificant rioting, addressed the electors in the open air, and at once confuted the slanders which had been cir- culated against him, and brought round the popular feeling to his side. The most satisfactory feature in the contest, however, is the candour and boldness with which The O'Donoghue, identified as he is with extreme views, came forward to throw the weight of his name into the scale not only for Mr. Barry, but for Mr. Gladstone's policy. The hearty adhesion of a man like The O'Donoghue to the cause of constitutional freedom is an advantage that cannot be overestimated. Serjeant Barry
was accompanied in his visit to Dungarvan by The O'Donoghue, who had previously published a manly letter to the consti- tuency, in which he pointed out the singularly suspicious cha- racter of a man who came recommended and supported as Mr. Matthews did. The slight outbreak of Fenian enthusiasm for the English Catholic Tory has fizzed out already, and it may be doubted whether, having witnessed Serjeant Barry's recep- tion, Mr. Matthews will care to go to the poll. If he should retire, as is probable enough, it may be taken as a sign that the Fenian-Tory alliance has collapsed. If not, it remains to be seen whether the liberal and independent electors are out- numbered by those whom Sir Nugent Humble can coerce and Mr. Sullivan, of the Nation, can gull.
The Fenian journals have watched this contest with alter- nating exultation and rage, and have vied with the Tory newspapers of Dublin in the concoction of startling bulletins from the scene of action. The part that The O'Donoghue has taken is especially obnoxious to the anarchical party. The Nationalists of Tralee are called upon to reject him with scorn ; and the Irishman publishes a page with broad black border, and the heading "The Death of the O'Donoghue." In spite of all this, however, the influence of the foremost Irish Liberals appear to have suffered no diminution. The O'Donoghue, Mr. Maguire, and the other leading men who have endorsed Mr. Gladstone's policy are as popular as ever. The masses of the Fenians and of the Fenian sympathizers show no inclina- tion to take the cue of the wirepullers. They do not yet believe in English good faith or English justice, but they are content to be watchfully neutral, and to wait for what events may bring. They will not, to all appearance, actively help either party ; but they seem honestly resolved to give the rival policies of English parties a fair trial, and to allow England the opportunity,—we ask no more,—of proving at last that she is ready at any sacrifice to do the Irish people the justice she has so long denied.
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