Affairs in Burmah.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2180, 29 June 1886, Page 3

Affairs in Burmah.

On" the 3rd May there was another incendiary tire at Mandtlay, the greatest by far that has yet been experienced. Flames broke out simultaneously in a crowded part of the city, and spread with tho greatest rapidity. First the Chinese bazaar was entirely burned out, and then the flames seized the Siamese bazaar, which shared a similar fate. No available appliances could have coped •with this extensive fire ; and when the flames were at length subdued it was found that no fewer than 4,000 houses had been destroyed. The repetition of these great incendiary fires is becoming apalling. Mandalay begins to wear the aspect of a ruin. What makes the prospect all the more alarming is that the authorities are almost powerless to guard the town against these rebel tactics. In the open field they can be met ; but in this great fire both military and police ■were helpless either to prevent the ontireak or arrest the perpetrators. The destruction of so many houses with the whole of their contents in most cases has Vftused the greatest dUtresa, and this has

gcneiated an amount of open discontent which ia causing general uneasiness. Advices just to hand report that the towns of Yankin, Taung, and Madaya have also been destroyed by fire. A force of 2000 Sikh police have left for Maudalay, to assist in repressing ciacoity and incendiarism. A telegram to The Times dated Mandalay, the Oth May, states :—": — " The people are excited, as notices are posted in the Bazaar announcing the early destruction, of the city by fire. The country contin ues in a very disturbed state, and numerous arrests have been made. The present system of snrrouuding a village and arresting all the men found in it, while it crowds the prisons does uot tend to pacify fche country." A correspondent of the sarnu paper writes (no date):— lt is impossible now to describe in any detail the dangers to which we are exposed while things are in their present unsettled state ; we see incendiarism, dacoity, and rebellion spreading all over Burmah. Is this the time to bring China on our hands also ? We arc, unhappily, in the way to fulfil the predictions of those who looked with unfriendly eye« on the annexation of Burmah ; we are imperilling the commercial advantage which we had every reason to hope would accrue from our contact with the still unopened south-west China. And for these dangers we are alone responsible, we have put ourselves in the wrong by repudiating a settlement offered by ourselves, and the Chinese, for once, are on •olid ground when they accuse us of shiftiness and tergiversation. In Eastern Asia, as elsewhere, Lord Rosebery would do well to travel along the lines of his predecessor, and not be lured by official pedants into other and unsafe courses.