TOPICS oF THE DAY.
THE ANNEXATION OF BURMAH.
THERE is something almost bewildering in the present position of the British Empire. Here at home we seem to be incapable of governing a little island which we have owned, if not ruled, for six centuries, because we cannot either tolerate or suppress some civil worries inflicted on us by three- fifths of its population. We are almost ready to surrender Ireland in despair before we have been defeated, before the struggle has become serious, before we have even made one great effort to rid ourselves of what after all is only a harassing annoyance akin to that of a grain of sand in the eye. At the very same time, abroad we act with a tranquil energy which bespeaks an indefinite reserve of strength, and calmly take upon ourselves new burdens before which the pacification of Ireland ought to be—though we quite admit it is not—a light and easy task. Here one Irishman threatens to tear from us an integral portion of the home Kingdom, and we defend ourselves with seas of words ; there, another Irish- man, without a single speech or a moment of public debate, by an ordinary notification in a gazette, adds to our dominion a country five times as large as Ireland, ten times as rich in natural resources, and inhabited by a people more numerous than the three millions who we all seem to think must be permitted to dispose of our future and our fate. Since Lord Dalhousie annexed Nagpore without a proclamation, by the simple act of gazetting a Chief Commissioner, nothing so strong has been done in Asia as the annexation of Burmah by the Viceroy through a mere notification that the country, its boundaries still undefined, will for the future be part of her Majesty's dominions. That quiet announcement terminates all doubts, and Burmah henceforth becomes an Indian Province, to be, we trust, in the immediate future the centre of a Lieu- tenant-Governorship, which should include all the provinces torn from the dynasty of Alompra, except perhaps Assam. This, the next step, should be taken instantly ; for while Mr. Bright's great idea of splitting India into five vast Colonies is too far ahead of the facts to be realised, the thought on which he founds that plan—the grandest of our time, though as yet impracticable—is becoming more true than ever. It is not in human power to fulfil the functions demanded of a Viceroy, who, as Lord Auckland said, "with the Emperor of China governs half the human race, and has to find time for breakfast." If he is not relieved by great subordinates, there will some day be a collapse. British Burmah has ample surplus revenue from which to organise an Administration for the new Burmese Presidency, and the vast system of Provinces, for it no less, requires a Lieutenant-Governor, a Civil Administration, and a legal assembly of its own. If it had a garrison of its own, too, it would be all the better ; and we would again press on Lord Randolph Churchill the question whether these provinces —which are all accessible by water, and must be all watched by armed steamers—might not be entrusted to the Royal Marines, who want work and opportunities, instead of weigh- ing down the overburdened military garrison of India. There are no technical difficulties in the way, for the Viceroy, within Indian waters, exercises the full prerogative of the Queen, and the recruiting of the Marines is easier than that of the Regular Army. The annexation was, we believe, inevitable, for the only alternative was a Protectorate, which would have involved as many liabilities, and produced no advantages to the Empire. China or France would have complained in London of our vassal Burmese. If the dynasty of Alompra continues in exile, the Burmese population, now terribly reduced by mis- government, will settle down quietly enough, as they have done in Pegu, and Tenasserim, and Aracan; while with a railway once open from Dacca to Mandelay, their content or discontent will not in ten years be of the slightest political importance. The swarming millions of Bengal will pour through any open road into a land which is in all essentials their own over again, and which is for the most part unoccupied ; and wherever there are Bengalees, discontent dies away, paralysed by the pressure of those swarms of human beings intent only on leading lives of industrial success. Calcutta is crammed with ruffians ; but riot is unknown in Calcutta. With Mr. Bernard at its head, and the " dacoits" earning wages as military police, Burmah will prosper at once ; and, like the previously annexed provinces, will within twenty years be, as Bengal has been, a financial buttress of the Indian Empire. There is no difficulty on that side, any more than there will be in controlling the country, the single sub- ject for anxiety being the relation of the new Presidency to the vast Empire lying by its side. That, however, is serious ; and we are happy to perceive, from the tone of the Tory papers, that its seriousness is fully admitted by the Administration. The silly French tone about Pekin is, fortunately, not the tone of London. The annexation of Burmah binds the British Government to an alliance with China ; and anything which can be done to make that alliance cordial and stable, consistently with our duty to the people we have adopted, should be done at once. We doubt seriously whether we can hand over any subjects of ours—whether semi - civilised or savage, whether Burmese or Shans- to the Government of Pekin, which, when annoyed or sus- picious, punishes with too awful a severity ; and we are quite sure that the centre of the new railway system—which, be it remembered, will cleave a road from China into Bengal—must be kept inexorably in our own hands, and guarded, too, with an unsleeping vigilance. But any other object which China may have at heart should, if possible, be granted, and more especially any convenience in the way of raising a frontier revenue. It is money, not subjects that China wants ; and if we take counsel with Sir Robert Hart, we shall know how to place money at the disposal of Pekin, while securing for ourselves every facility for a great and profitable trade with Western China. Lord Salisbury must look to it that in the tariff arrangements we are a little less exacting than it is sometimes our wont to be, and that our commerce through Burmah shall be felt in Pekin, as our commerce through the Treaty Ports now is, to be a direct security for the solvency of the Chinese Treasury. The object is worth any reasonable sacrifice ; for while an alliance with China would make us safe for a century in Asia, and give us a position in Indo-China with which all Europe could not contend, it is vain to deny that the hos- tility of Pekin may now be an evil of the most alarming magnitude. China can march her hundreds of thousands, if she pleases, direct into our territories ; and though fortu- nately we could, if need were, strike straight at Pekin, we do not want to have that work to do perhaps twice in every century. There was but one course to take, and it is useless to complain of destiny ; but the situation which Lord Dalhousie feared can never be a pleasant one. It may be turned by skill and honesty into a source of strength, for the interests of China run at all points parallel with our own; but it is with no light heart that we see the British God Terminus take such a stride towards the East. The Indus, the Ganges, the Burrampooter, and the Irrawaddy, four out of six of the mighty river systems of Eastern Asia, now run from source to sea within her Majesty's dominions ; and we have to guard them all,—we who are retreating in fear, or weariness, or indecision, from the guardianship of the Liffey and the Shannon. We cannot feel exultant, but are rather disposed to say, in a humility not wholly Christian, "God guard England, for the task passes the energy of man."
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