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THE IRISH ARRESTS . la turns out that Lord Eglinton ' s proclamation against illegal societies was levelled not only at the Riband Society , which has signalised its revival by such murderous achievements , but against a new society called the Phoenix Club , which is perfectly dist inct , and has very different objects . The existence of this society came on the general public of Ireland almost like a , revelation , when numbers of persons were suddenly seized , conveyed to prison , and subjected to a private examination . This seizure has been made in bodies by the police , acting under central orders from Dublin . The men have been captured in batches of nine , sixteen , seventeen , and so forth , at Belfast , Bantry , Cork , Skibbereen . It is a peculiarity of the case that most of the prisoners are young men about twenty years of age ; there is a marked distinction between them and the Ribandrnen , in the fact that the Ribandmen are principally of the labouring or agricultural class , the Phoenix men are of the middle and shopkeeping class . Their conspiracy is said to be a revived form of Young Irelandism , and it has already advanced some considerable way in the preparation for its designs . According to a Cork , paper the members of the Club have practised themselves in drill both by day and night , pikes have been manufactured in Ireland , arms have been
imis only anxious to distinguish , himself as an American citizen up to all the activities and privileges of the West . His banner ceases to be green , and becomes star-spangled . A certain class of the political refugees who went straight from Ireland , or broke their parole and fled from Australia , found a certain degree of sympathy in the United States ; but in many cases they forfeited it by two serious mistakes . It was an act of perverse patriotism to consort with the Irish who remained distinct , that is , with the lower order of Irish—not the way to rise in American estimation ; and Mr . John Mitchell made the ludicrous blunder ^^^^^^ ^ _
of endeavouring to flatter American prejudices by declaring not onl y his adoption but his worship of slavery . All loyal Americans regret the existence of that institution , forced upon the republic by their English predecessors , and they may repel malignant and inopportune suggestions of abolition ; but when a foreigner professes to like it , they feel the same contemptuous resentment which a man feels to a base friend who flatters some painful foible that runs in the family ; and Mitchellism has sunk to the lowest pitch of contempt . After this disr play alike of moral treachery , filthy taste , and intellectual stupidity , the ambitious Mitchells of the Irish tribethereforefound themselves like the Israelites
, , in Egypt , and their ambition could only solace itself by the hope of returning to a congenial region . Another irregularity of the West appeared to offer an opportunity for inventive and adventurous spirits . Having struck out the fashion of filibustering expeditions , Mitchellism sought its migration back to Ireland in the filibustering form ; hence the bluster about some Colonel Ryan ' s militia regiment to raise the flag of revolt in Ireland . Young Irelandism , the remains of native " wild Irish" prejudice , has still survived in sufficient force to attempt a last struggle for existence . The
Phoenix Club provokes discovery , and the latent conspiracy cannot refrain from flourishing its shillelagh . Nor must we forget that the colonels—those uniformed bullies who have served some great persons in France , and have afterwards caused them so much trouble—distinctly pointed in their treasonable addresses to the possibility of injuring England by joining in an Irish revolt . The unrebuked existence of a Phoenix Club in Ireland , if it had gone a little further , might have invited , if not an invasion from Trance , at all events such movements in
France as would have occasioned some embarrassment both to the English and French Governments . We have yet to learn , indeed , whether this view ^ of the subject , suggested by the isolated facts which have come to our knowledge , in Ireland , in France , and America , are justified by the facts which the Irish police have obtained . Approvers , who appear to have been actively at work in the hopes of reward , are doubtful witnesses ; but it is not likely that Lord Eglinton has made so serious a blunder as to take a Club for a Secret Tribunal or a band of Know-nothings treasonably plotting with foreigners .
ported from abroad , and their use has been systematically taught . Some of these drillings appear to be really childish in their method ; a party of sixty is observed exercising in a field , a man passes in a gig , and the sixty disciplined ostriches think that they conceal their manoeuvres by lying down On the ground until the gig-driver has passed . The Irish , in fact , appear to retain with the pro . pensity for conspiracy an absolute incapacity for carrying it out . They hide themselves in conspicuous places , they are so intent upon keeping the secret that they proclaim their secrecy , and are so proud of the victory which they intend to
accomplis h that they boast of it beforehand . The movement seems to have created surpr ise in Ireland , but our own surprise is , that the scheme should not have been known from the very first . If there have . been boastings in the Green Is land , we ourselves have heard analogous boastings in the United States , where the very plan and purpose of such a movement was more than adumbrated long ago . It may be that this Phoinix Club is something different , sonic new invention , but it is so like the counterpart of the projects hinted at by John Mitchell , that his vapouring ought to have pointed attention to these conspiracies , and has perhaps done
so . Redoubtable sympathisers have spoken as if the manoeuvre , starting from the United States , would find a kind of tele da pont with an allied guard in Ireland ; and it seems more than a coincidence if accordingly we find a new Phoenix Club in Ireland inheriting the projects of Young Ireland , and expecting a regiment of militia from the United States . It is most probable , therefore , that the Government hns been acting upon sufficient information , and although we do not think it at all likely that revolutionists of the stamp belonging to the Phoenix Club would have succeeded in
wresting Ireland from the rule of Queen Victoria , stnl they might have created boundless confusion in the Green Island ; they might havegiven rise to some inconvenience to our relations in the West , and they might have offered the show of an opportunity for enemies still nearer home . There was an adiniroblo reason why the Irish refugees in tlio United States should fall back upon tho old country ; thoy have not made way iu the Union ; nativo Americanism has not taken kindly to the Irish party for various reasons . The Irish arc content to occupy menial posts , and have not thus raised their race in the American estimation ; they are frequently content to undersell their labour , a
practice which has brought them into discredit in England , and has done so still more in America . They form gangs for the ruder kinds of work , such as navigators' business on railways , mid it is rathor remarkable that while they thus remain together they prcsorvo , to a considerable extent , their alicgiauoo to tho emigrant priest . While tho Irish raoo thus maintains its distinctive character in tho Union it keeps itself in a subordinate grade . As soon as tho Irishman sucoeeds he moves out of that condition , ho becomes merged and lost In the genoral tribe of Yankees . For the most part ho loses all distinctive characteristics ; he ceases to undorscll his labour , ceases to talk about oultl Ireland , censes to bo a slave of the priest , and
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loans be wanted by these and . other Governmeata should they not quarrel they may all begin to re duce taxation , may all remit some of the property they most unreasonably extort from those thej profess to protect , and may cause a still greatei abundance of unemployed capital . Still professing to place implicit reliance on M , Magne ' s figures , while we know that since 1847 the expenditure of France has increased from 64 , 000 , 000 to 70 , 000 , 000 f ., we feel great astonishment , and so , we think , will our readers , at the very different condition of the French finances now and at that period . « T 1 _ # !___ " _¦ : J _^ 1 _ . _ . _ f" 4 ii ir i-i 11 n I
when Louis Philippe could with difficulty provide for the expenses of the Government . In 1847 the expenditure was 10 , 000 , 000 / . more than the revenue . In truth , he was driven from France because the nation was irritated by great and continued distress . How ba ^ it come about that France has incurred the heavy expense of a great but short war , the waste of a prodigal Government for eight years , and now has her finances in such a flourishing condition ? Much of her increased war expenditure has been met by loans ; so has much of bur increased expenditure , so was the bulk of our exand must
penditure during the great French war , we not , as a nation , condemn loans ; and it can scarcely be doubted that the loans to the Emperor , raised chiefly in his own country , were as cheerfully subscribed to as were our loans . The total debt of France is now little more than a third of the debt of our country . When England incurred her large expenditure she was , by the inventions of Watt and others , then coming into full play , and ; by the monopoly which the war gave her of the colonial and tropical trade , in a condition of great prosperity . Populationactually increased somewhat faster during the war than after the peace . The corn-law was ,
in fact , more ruinous to the people even than war It may , therefore , now be presumed that France is , and has been for some few years , comparatively in a prosperous condition . We are about to show that such is the case , and that the Emperor , with statesmen like M . Magnc , is much more lucky in having to administer the Government when the people are prosperous , than wise for having brought about their prosperity . We notice first that the railways opened m France at the end of 1857 amounted to 4509 miles ; in
1854 the amount opened was 2912 , so that m three years the increase is 1596 miles , and the greater part of the whole has been formed since the revolution of 1848 . This great enterprise , therefore , which began in England , and for which France is indebted to England , was completely inaugurated there before the Emperor ' s accession to power , and his Government has enjoyed all the benefit of the increased wealth—which has been very great—they have promoted in France .
Next we notice that the tonnage of shipping entered inwards and outwards was , on the average , 1847-50 , 4 , 038 , 470 tons , and on the average of 1854-56 , 5 , 908 , 210 tons , an increase of nearly 28 Eer cent , in seven years . This increase of shipping as beon accompanied by a corresponding increase in the value of the imports and exports from 108 , 207 , 521 / ., the two together , in 1850 , to 173 , 040 , 000 / . in 1855 . Of this trade , let us mention that the value of our exports to France increased from 2 , 400 , 000 / ., in 1850 , to 6 , 200 , 000 / . in 1857 . We have not the value of the imports
from France before 1854 . It was then 10 , 400 , 000 / ., and , in 1857 , 11 , 900 , 000 / . France , therefore , like the other states of Europe , has been comparatively very prosperous within the last few years . To this the Emperor is indebted for the continuance of his power much more than to his own sagaoity . Had the French been in as woeful a plight in 1858 aa under Louis Philippe in 1848 , even Orshu might have been welcomed as the originator of a change . A part of this prosperity is to be ascribed to
FRENCH FINANCE . —THE MONEY MARKET . Whatevku mystifications M . Mague may have put forth in his budget for 1860 , one very influential fact ia it is the total want of even any pretext for now adding to the debt of France . He informs the world that the revenue of France increased in 1 S 5 . 7—the accounts for which year were finally made up in August last—640 , 000 / . more than was calculated on , though it was framed with an excess of 1 , 000 , 000 / . above the calculated expenditure ; that the revenue of 1858 , which was calculated at 800 , 000 ^ . above the expenditure , already exceeds the anticipated return by 3 , 090 , 000 / . ; and he anticipates , in spilo of a " certain stagnation of
business , " that the " balance will be au excellent one . Since February last , Treasury bonds to the amount of 5 , 000 . 000 / . havo bceu redeemed , and tho further redemption of 'the floating debt , decrepd by the laws of the 9 th and 19 th of Juno , will bo accomplished without iwy loan . Wo make no pretence to sift tho Minister ' s % uros ; we take them on his assertion , and wo refer to them and to the facts connootcd with them chiefly to throw some additional light on the general oasp in the money market to which wo referred last week . The revenue of England will bo more than the Chancellor of the Exchequer expected , tho revenue of France is announced to bo moro than M . Magno expected . Austria has got over one groat financial difficulty , and her revenue is iuorcasing . Not only will no
those gold discoveries which have given an impetua to industry and enterprise throughout Europe . A part also is the consequence of our own improved commercial legislation . The abolition of restrictions in one country is a general benefit to trade , vvitli no country of Europe has our trade extended more than with France , and a great part of this increase can be traced to the ohango in our laws . ± n « w three years prior to 18477 the annual imP ° r ° , { meal and gram from . Franco was less than 90 , 000 qrs . ; and in the three years subsequent to 1848 , the average was above 1 , 300 , 000 qrs . If the nnporU foil off in in 1855-56-57 , this was the conscauonco of tho inoreascd consumption m France itself , and the comparative superiority of our harvests ia those years . The great imports to this country iu
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No . 456 , December 18 , 1858 / 1 THE LEA PER . 1385 ' —¦* " ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ~ .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 18, 1858, page 1385, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2273/page/17/
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