The local government of India is indulging its warlike propensi-
ties in a small way. The war with the Affreedies has been re- newed on the Western frontier, and in the East an expedition has been despatched to Rangoon for the purpose of intimidating or coercing the Burmese Government. The operations in Affghanis- tan are the yet unextinguished sparks of the combustion in the recently-acquired territories in North-western India ; they are pos- sibly unavoidable, and only to be deprecated as keeping alive a spirit in these quarters that may prompt some day another inva- sion of Cabul. The Burmese expedition affords matter for more anxious consideration, now that a belief gains ground that the Imperial Government have resolved to send a second" embassy" to Siam, undeterred by the failure of the last. That mission had very nearly involved us in a war with the Siamese ; and if the same envoy is sent again, with the same demands, an interruption of our commercial intercourse with them, and recourse to force as a means of reestablishing it, is highly probable. The rulers of those countries do not understand our European system of negotiation and commercial and other treaties : ambassadors from the con- querors of India are looked upon as spies sent in advance of in- vading armies ; and to send in this capacity the man whose pro- eeedings in Borneo have been reported, no doubt with exaggera- tions, by the Chinese traders to the Siamese, would of itself be sufficient to excite such ;jealousy, even if it did not previously ex- ist. The territorial acquisitions of England in the East are already greater than she can well manage : if Rangoon is to be occupied as a connecting station between Arracan and Tenasserim, and Siam invaded, the ultimate consequence of such a beginning may be an extension of our Oriental empire that will cause it to break down under its own weight.
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