TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE ANNEXATION OF BITRMAH.
IT is time to warn Englishmen that there is positive danger of the annexation of Burmah, and to ask them whether that project has or has not their approval. Affairs on the Irrawaddy have arrived at just that position which among Englishmen precedes strong and occasionally ill-considered action. It is quite clear that "something must be done," and clear also that men familiar with the subject begin to despair whether anything can be done except annex. Even if Lord Dufferin has not recommended annexation, as the Broad A rrow affirms, it is certain that opinion in India, as well as within British Burmah, has become unanimous on the subject. The Xing of Burmah—a man educated in our own colleges, and as bad as Asiatics so educated sometimes are, drunk with pride, with bloodthirstiness, and, according to report, with wine—has, under the influence of intrigues sanctioned by M. Jules Ferry, though now repudiated, lost his head altogether, and is at last becoming dangerous to British security. He has been importing arms, contrary to treaty ; has been trying to make an alliance with the French, which would give them ascendancy on the upper waters of the Irra- waddy has treated British subjects with outrageous disregard of justice, extorting loans by enormous fines ; and shows strong symptoms of a desire to employ military force against our own traders within treaty bounds. He is quite capable of ordering an invasion in reliance on some hot-headed French Consul or ignorant invasion, maker of rockets. His conduct has moved experienced and moderate men, like the present Chief Commissioner' Mr. Bernard, and the late Chief Commissioner, Sir Arthur Phayre—the latter, perhaps, the most competent expert in Burmese affairs now alive, and by no means a Jingo—to declare that the nuisance can no longer be tolerated, and that Theebau must be overthrown. And yet to overthrow him without annexing Burmah will be most difficult. There is no Prince of Alompra's stock who could be trusted on the throne. The despotism wor- shipped in Burmah is of the kind which produces mental drunkenness ; each king is worse than the last, and with this dynasty hatred of the British is a sort of religion. An English Regent protecting a minor would excite as much odium as a Governor, without being able to do half the good ; and we have already tried the experiment of a Resident three times in vain. Something in the character of the Burmese Court resists that device, and the British are always compelled either to withdraw their Agent or to protect him with an invading army. As we cannot leave Burmah to perish of anarchy after dethroning its dynasty, there appears to many grave minds no alternative to the British Governor' whom haveBurmans, it is probable, would readily obey. They have less antipathy to the English than most Asiatics ; they compre- hend readily the security we offer, and profit by it ; and they have, of all our subject races except the Bengalees, given the least serious trouble. They settle down, in fact, when conquered, to money-making, understand British laws, and have none of that loathing for Christianity which in many of the Asiatic races never sleeps. They pay taxes readily, and British Burmah, though too thinly populated, is, next to Bengal, financially the most prosperous of the great divisions of India.
Statesmen, moreover, who know Burmah cannot be in- different to the magnificence of the prize. It is, perhaps, the one kingdom in Indo-China seriously worth having. It is more than two-thirds the size of France, is accessible by three splendid rivers, of which one, the Irrawaddy, is the most convenient water highway in Asia, and is splendidly fertile almost through- out. The forests are full of teak, the mountains overflow with minerals, and the plains under the rudest culture produce everything cultivated in the tropics. The reservoirs of earth- oil rival those of Pennsylvania or Batoum, and there are large fields of coal ready for the working. Gold is believed to exist in large quantities ; and Burmah is the native land of the ruby, the sapphire, and the emerald, which have been exported for generations with little effect on the supply. The country commands the only easy routes into Western China ; and it is not only probable, but certain, that under British rule Bhamo would become the greatest inland emporium in Asia, rivalling Bombay itself as a receiving warehouse for the trade of two great peoples. Moreover, much of the land is vacant. Whatever the ancient population may
have been, it has died, away even more completely than that of Assam, until it is now believed that the Burmans, with their tributary Shan tribes, now number barely three millions and a half, not only "capable of civilisation," but willing to be civilised, or, as regards two-thirds of their number, civilised already. There is room for thirty millions of agriculturists ; and with a single line of railway Burnish could be utilised to relieve that terrible multiplication of peasantry in Bengal which has arisen from the very goodness of our rule, and which sometimes reduces the most philanthropic officials either to despair or to a harsh belief that the "natural remedy," an occasional outburst of famine, cannot be- prevented.
We do not wonder, when the character of the country is considered, that a community, confident in its own power to establish a vivifying rule, eager for work, and genuinely horrified by the tales from the Court of Ava, where Dahomey- appears occasionally to be outdone, should press strongly for annexation ; but, nevertheless, though we do not believe that conquest is invariably immoral, or doubt that the sword is occasionally a ploughshare, we regard this annexa- tion with strong disfavour. There never was a man less timid about England's power to govern than Lord Dalhousie ; and with Burmah directly in his grasp, he refused to annex_ upon grounds which are, if anything, stronger now than they were then. He would not, he said, march the British Empire for five hundred miles with that of China. Either the- Chinese would disapprove, in which ease we should in every time of difficulty find her heavy potential weight thrown into the scale against us, and possibly be compelled to fortify the Burmese frontier ; or she would approve, and then Burmah would be slowly filled with millions of the one Asiatic population whom, as our experience in Singa- pore shows, Englishmen are unable either to modify or to- govern. If Lord Dalhousie had lived to hear of the Tonquin affair, we may be sure his disapproval would have been stronger still, for in his time the Chinese statesmen had not found resources in honestly administered Customs-duties ; nor had Chinese Generals succeeded in mobilising an army which over- taxed the invading resources of France ; nor, we may add, had China revealed the full extent of her impatience of any foreign • annexation upon her landward frontiers. We have always been close to "China," in the largest sense of the word, and Nepaul recognises some claim of suze- rainty in Pekin ; but Nepaul is the most independent of Hindoo States, the British Resident being often rather a prisoner than a controlling power ; and on all other sides the Empires are walled off from each other by the tremendous barrier of the Himalayas. Burmah, however, can be entered directly—was entered, in fact, the other day, by a Chinese chief of brigands—and once entered, the road into the heart of the Indian Empire would lie open. Not even China could cross the Irrawaddy against gunboats, any more than fighting-ants could cross an aqueduct with hostile children looking on; but we should infallibly connect Bengal with Northern Burmah by roads which would be so many open pathways for an invading force. We do not want quarrels with China, or millions of Chinese emigrants ; nor do we want, with the North-Western Frontier to defend, and South Africa to coerce into order, to station even five British regiments on a new border four hundred miles front the sea. We are overtaxed now for our supply of men ; and though Burmah is a tempting possession, and we may have to use strong language to some future M. de Freycinet to keep him from intriguing in Mandalay, the imprudence of making such an addition to our responsibilities would be excessive. Is it not enough that British finance, and British diplomacy, and British political parties, lie at the mercy of every hairbrained Chief of an Afghan or Beloochee clan, that we must place our- selves in a position where every movement in Siam would be matter of moment, and we should begin to speak of the Meinam as we now do of the Attrek ? If France does not retire from Indo-China, we shall begin to suspect her, with reason and without, as we now suspect Russia ; and if she does retire, Indian opinion will force us down the Meinam, till some fine morning there will be "no alternative" to the annexation of Siam. We are no advocates for a pusillanimous policy, and do not acknowledge the duty of retreating from the Nile Valley ; but we cannot believe in the wisdom of these enormous extensions of direct dominion. There is not the slightest proof that the Democracy will prize them ; and if it does not, we may yet find ourselves in the position of the French Opportunists, loaded with possessions which it is equally impossible to surrender or retain.
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