The Evening Star THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1876.

Evening Star, Issue 4055, 24 February 1876, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1876.

The vast aiea governed by Great Britain includes people of many tribes and tongues, holding a vast variety of creeds, and believing in social traditions and forms of government which are all kept in subordination by the strong arm of power. Necessarily outbreaks will continue to occur, for sometimes open, sometimes secret discontent leads to insurrection, and renders what are now called “ little wars” necessary for their suppression. It thus happens that in one part of the world or another Great Britain is generally engaged in hostilities, and employment is found for a few ships, a few soldiers in the neighborhood of Singapore, or a little fleet. One of these little wars may be said to be now in progress. It does not immediately affect us—perhaps, even not remotely, excepting in our relationship to it as an integral portion of the British Empire. Although the islands of the Indian Archipelago may be said to form part of the group of which the Australasian Colonies are the southern portion, our commerce has not yet reached them, so the doings there do not excite much interest among us. We trust a few years will lead to more intimate relations. It is not yet one hundred years since the East India Company acquired the Island of Penang, in the Bay of Bengal. There was a little romance in the matter, as it is said to have been purchased by the Company from an Englishman, who received it from the Kang of Keddah as a marriage portion with his daughter. At any rate it became the Company’s property, and after some fighting with the Dutch about possessing Malacca, once a Portuguese settlement, matters were arranged, and the ieault was the sefctlemezlt aad pos-

session of Sing upore by the Britvsh in 1619. In th o year 1853 those de- . pendencies were placed under the diction of th« India; but in IS 66 they werG separated from that Em]-are, and cor a gtit U fc e( j an independent i settlement, the present Governor of w hi .ch is Sir H. T Jrummond Jervois. We need say not hing of the numerous far .lily of the Malays, ex- | cept drawing attention to their being the aborigines of these settlements, and of the opposite island of Sumatra, at the northern en< 1 of which is situated J Acheen. Wrtl i the inhabitants of 1 that island our telegrams have informed us th e Dutch have been

waging war, with no very great credit to the mselves. How far this Dutch wsr r has influenced the fanaticism of t) xe Malay race, and inspired them wi th the desire to achieve their independe ace, it is impossible to say, but the i murder of Mr Rirch, Resident at the Court of the Sultan of I Perak, one of i the petty rulers of the country, holding sovereignty under the patronage of Clreat Britain, seems to indicate some- such feeling. The particulars were imj perfectly known on the departure of th .0 last mail. The murder seems to have been premeditated and cowardly. Mr Birch was attacked in his bath and killed on the 3rd November, and it is said his Malay inter-

preter, with, several of his -suite, perished also. Later telegrams announced that the Malays were beseiging the British Residency at the town of Perak. Reports of doings in those distant places are not always to be relied upon, so that the extent of the I outbreak may have been exaggerated. All the Rajahs' were suspected of being accomplices in the matter, and large forces were said to be collecting to expel the British from the 1 settlement. The affair most certainly 1 had an ugly appearance at the date we speak of, for although the Residency was relieved by a force of soldiers, 1 Sepoys, and police, under a Captain I Innes, an attack on a stockade was unsuccessful, Captain Innes was killed,

and several officers and men wounded. So serious was the aspect of affairs that it is said one thousand men with artillery were ordered from India and two gunboats from China to assist in suppressing the outbreak. The ‘Pall Mall Gazette,’ quoting the ‘Times,’

says:— With these reinforcements our troops, it may be expected, will soon make up lost ground, end tn« repulse of a few days ago is not likely to be repeated. Should the outbreak prove only to be the pa> t : al and comparatively unimporl ant affair it was first considered, we shall probably not have to wait long for its suppression. should it definitely declare'itself in the more serious sense which is now feared, we shall at l 3uSt have spared no effort to take it in time. On the wh' le, we may still hope that the former view of the matter was and remains the correct one, and that we heve only a race insurrect'on and not a religious war to deal with. In the former ca«e it will be some slight comfort to reflect that in quelling the outbreak w* efcollot-tKo-eame time be “avenging the death of our representative end vindicating the supremacy of the flag.!’ And adds— * . War with a savage race is always a wretched and inglorious business, but it is just oue degree better to find • ourselves engaged in it ia self-defence than to have to undertake it in cold blood as a measure of punishment following upon fruitless attempts at obtaining peaceful redress.