A LONG DRAWN-OUT WAR.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 22 October 1901, Page 3

A LONG DRAWN-OUT WAR.

Harper’s Magazine for August lias an article on the war which the Hutch have been waging uninterreuptcdly now for 28 years. It has been so little talked of that the world forgets the conflict which the kinsmen of the stubborn Boers have had on their hands in Achin for a generation. The A Chinese, a warlike, independent race of Mohammedans, inhabit the inaccessible northern corner of the island of Suma'ra, and have fought one European nation after another —English, Portuguese, French, and Dutch—for nearly 500 years. Early in the nineteenth century it was agreed between England and Holland that the lat'er, on receiving back her Eastern colonics, should make no attempt to conquer Achin, but the ineffective rule of the Sultan and the buccaneering instincts of the people made it impossible to keep the peace. So the restriction was abrogated in 1871. Two years later the Dutch fitted out their first expedition for invasion, and the end seems very little marer now than then. General after general has been killed, or come home defeated and disgraced, the capture of the capital expected to end the war only transferred hostilities to the interior, and the guerilla strife goes on fiercely still iu the in'ericr, although the Dutch hold the sea coast. A weekly draft of 50 recruits for Achin leaves Holland to reinforce the mercenary army lighting there, and the Achin soldier, it is grimly said, never comes back.