satisfied until we have destroyed the last link which keeps Ireland bound to England." American Fenians would not have contributed their dollars, nor organized their dynamite schools, to obtain relief for distressed and oppressed tenants. They subscribed their money for lead and muniments of war, and their purpose was to annoy and humiliate England, and to wreak vengeance on Great Britain for past mow than for present wrongs. The aim of the Parnellite movement now that the farmers' grievance is almost remedied, is declared, in the address from the Parnell Tribute Committee to the people of Ireland, to be the completion of "the fabric of National Unity and Independence."
And the aim of the Philadelphia Convention is the some.
Separation from England is what millions of Irishman in Ireland
and America are now bonded together to accomplish by means
of an association which unites in one common League the
various. Fenians brotherhoods in the United States and elsewhere,
including the votaries of dynamite and assassinations represented
by O'Donovan Rossa and his friends. The Convention, in its
formal resolutions, states "that the English government in
Ireland, originating in usurpation and perpetuated by force, having
failed to discharge any of the duties of government, and never
having acquired the consent of the governed, has no moral right
whatever to exist in Ireland; and that it is the duty of the Irish
race throughout the world to sustain the Irish people in the
employment of all legitimate means to substitute for it national
self-government," and "that we pledge our unqualified, constant
support, moral and material, to our countrymen in Ireland, in
their efforts to recover national self-government; and, in order
the more effectually to promote this object, by the consolidation
of all our resources, and the creation of one responsible authoritative body to speak for the Greater Ireland in America that all
the Societies represented in this Convention, and all that may
hereafter comply with the conditions of admission, be organized
into the Irish National League of America, for the purpose or
supporting the Irish National League of Ireland, of which
Charles Stewart Parnell is the President." Thus the League in
America is to support the League in Ireland "in the employment
of all legitimate means" to "substitute national self-government"
for that "English government in Ireland" which "has no right
whenever to exist." These expressions are cautiously chosen,
doubtless in compliance with a desire to enable the League in
Ireland to escape immediate suppression by the laws. But in the
eyes of those who think that "the English government has no
moral right whatever to exist in Ireland," the "employment of all legitimate means"
to remove it, will not be too scrupulously examined. In the eyes of James Carey and his brother
assassins it was no crime to kill Mr. Burke. His number was, in
their opinion, not murder, but a "removal." If indeed the
English government has "no moral right whatever to exist in
Ireland," its laws have no right to exist, and they possess no
moral obligation, and those who endeavour to remove the British
government by violent menu: will feel their conscience little
troubled by questions of the legitimacy of such means. In
Mr. Powell’s opinion the means employed by the Land League
were perfectly legitimate, although they included Boycotting,
intimidation, "No Rent" manifestos, etc. The British Government however thought differently, and put Mr. Parnell into
prison.
That Irish and American Fenians should sympathise with
Mr. Parnell and encourage him to achieve Notional Independence
for Ireland is nowise surprising. Fenians hate England so much
that they would jeopardise the welfare of Ireland in the endeavour
to satisfy that hate. Some of them are courageous and brave and
would gladly imperil their own lives in fighting against British
troops on Irish soil. But little courage or bravery is displayed
by those persons who, while in safety in their American homes,
send emissaries to Great Britain to try to burn down public
edifices, at the risk of destroying innocent lives. Irish and
American Fenians, however, are not the only persons who have
