Mr. Hunter made a clever speech on Tuesday against the
expenditure of Indian revenue on the conquest of Burmah, but it made little impression. Parliament cares little about technicalities, and Mr. Gladstone thought the motion, though creditable, inopportune. The work cannot, of course, be un- done; bat we do not understand the action of the Indian Government. Why does it leave the Hlootdaw, or native Privy Council, to administer Ave P If the Times' correspondent is tell- ing the truth, that body is ordering assassinations ; and some of our own "executions," by his account, are little better. It is painfully obvious, too, from the replies in Parliament, that the stories of the Provost-Marshal's oppressions are substantially true. All this is not only detestable, but entirely unprecedented. The regular coarse when an Asiatic province is annexed, is to vest a civil officer with complete power, amnesty all persons up to the date of annexation, and establish order as in an old pro- vince, without executions. Those who resist are punished summarily, but after inquiry, and, unless they have committed murder, not with death. Everything is, we presume, waiting Lord Dufferin's arrival in Mandelay ; but the departure from usage has been most unfortunate. Lord Dalhousie, who was certainly high-handed enough, never went beyond arrest, and invariab/itegan by making one man responsible for everything that occurred.
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