COMPLICATIONS WITH BURMAH.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 332, 6 July 1875, Page 4

COMPLICATIONS WITH BURMAH.

An occasional correspondent of the Times writes: ~While our attention has been fixed on the Chinese frontier, a complication has arisen on the Burmese ftontier, near Toungoo. la consequence of this a Battery of the sih Brigade Royal Artillery, under Major J. B Richardson, and two companies of the 39th Native Infantry, under Colonel Watts, have been ordered off to Toungoo to reinforce the garrison there, which consists of a wing of the 67th Queen’s, a mountain battery, and a native regiment; while the 3rd Buffs are to hold themselves in readiness to sail from Calcutta, and the 2nd wing 4th Madras Native Infantry from Madras. All these movements, together with the attitude of Upper Burmah, have so disquieted the natives here that one of the local papers, under official inspiration, has issued the following extra:— “ Under Lord Dalhousie’s Treaty with Burmah, the Commissioners appointed to mark out the boundary, carried on the line without difficulty, till they reached at a point a little south of Toungoo, the line of hills which separate the Salween from the river called the Poang-loung on which Toungoo is situate. On the further side of these hills, they learnt the country was inhabited by independent tribes of Karens. These objected to an arrangement by which their country should be cut in half, to satisfy a treaty between Great Britain and Burmah, to neither of which powers they owed allegiance. The justice of this was admitted, and communications were opened up with the Burmese Government, which ended in the joint recognition of the independence of the Karens. Our line was taken south of their territory. The boundary of Burmah was carried north, and a little block of country on the right bank of the Salween was left to the undisturbed enjoyment of its own sovereign tribes.

“The Government of India would have done nothing to interfere with the perpetuity of this arrangement if the Burmese Government had not been gradually encroaching on Earen territory, and at last claimed the country as their own. It is this aggressive movement which has forced the British Government to maintain its rights, as the Burmese will not consent to the only conditions which would make a joint Boundary Commissinn possible. The Government of Inara will constitute a Boundary Commission of its own, as the Burmese Government will not promise to refrain from further encroachments while the permanent limits of their territory and ours are being marked out. Our Government takes precautions of its own by sending troops into the neighbourhood to guard the status quo. The Karens must accept the inevitable, so far as to see their own country divided by a foreign boundary Those who live south of the line will be pro tected by the British Government from Burmese aggression. The condition of those who live north will be unaffected by what takes place.” The King of Buxmah is reported to have sent 4000 men, under an experienced General, to the Arracan frontier towarc s Munnipoor, and to have 1200 men ready at i'oungoo. Hut these are ill-disciplined levies, and there is little chance of a shot ever being fired in anger unless the admirers of the King prompt him to any new act of hostility. The course taken by the Government appears to meet with general approval, and a necessary show of firmness will soon bring affairs to their usual tranquillity ; but if a doubt once arises in the Burman mind that we are not in earnest, we shall drift into a war. The bikhs have returned with a very low opinion of the valour of the Burmans or Chinese, and declare that with a regiment 600 strong they would march to Pekin.