Tust at present, English military resources are rather more
strained in a region still further East—Burmah. The tele- graphic despatch, which often states truths very imperfectly, scarcely less often puts them with all the force of brevity and in- exorable nakedness; and it does so when, after all the cost of blood and treasure and time in Pegu, it announces that the com- missioners have failed to settle a boundary ; wherefore " more troops were wanted, and there was no prospect of peace short of Ava."
Shall we get it, asks the Times, when we have travelled that much further? The progress of the war leads to no such expecta- tion. Certain British subjects having been injured by arbitrary proCeedings at Rangoon, the Indian Government vainly demanded redress, and then sought reprisals ; but instead of being content with' a retributive blow, notwithstanding Lord Dalhousie's own premonitory objection to threats of ulterior measures, our forces have been successively called upon to seize Rangoon, Martaban, Prome, and Pegu. Here it was to have ended, with a forced cession and annexation of that territory. But the new King pleads that he is not answerable for the bad deeds or penalties of the predecessor whom he has helped to dethrone and punish; and therefore, unwilling to give in, the British Indian Government— such is the telegraph's surmise—resolves to go to Ave, to punish the de facto King for the wrongs of the late, and to annex the whole empire in lieu of a part.
Of course this proposal will attract due attention in Parliament : the ob'ections to annexing Pegu apply with still greater force to the whole empire ; and these acquisitions are found to be such serious encumbrances on the profit and loss account, that English economy resents the idea of further investments. There was a nobleman in an agricultural county who was for ever " annexing " some amount of real property to his ducal territories, until at last his revenue could not cover his lands : that is the model over dreaded by the Indian statesman not under the irresistible mania for an- nexation ; against which, as we see by the example of Lord. Dal- housie, the most prescient consciousness is not always armed.
