The Express.
London, England, 1854-01-13 00:00:00

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TO CORRESPONDENTS.
Snood &Nat a "The Sxprom," gasuiaiag Us* sue Main%
"Waft." pattlail ivory Tessiay and rmsy Eidson am

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remain Istindai for " The Zspris." UMW, Muds( law,
left be at the Oil" le, BeevieWirest, by Tiro ego* es th•
Ail of palliation.

MOH WATTS AT LONDON DRIDOI.
Tres DA v HI. Aftelloolh Saa•
itscaftw—liarsisk Va. I SA— Aftwons. U. Us.

i LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 13.

LONG ago, a writer in the Irestminster Review
wound up a graphic description of the monkeys et
Exeter 'Change,—each scrambling to eat out of its
neighbour's pan, and spilling both its own end its
neighbour's food in the struggle,—by comparing the
scene to the nations of Europe protecting thole em
*attire merchants, sad indignantly excising *it
the onednet of the monkeys was "
humeri" Any one disposed to imitate the
style of writer in question, might, after alverthq
to what oar countrymen are at present doing in Pegs
and Afghanistan, be tempted to compare it with the
atrocities that are being enacted on the Danube and
Black Bea, and vow that the conduct of the Raildnill
is « shockingly Anglo-Indian" We will net, be.
deed, do any of our countrymen the injustice ter op.
pose them capable et such cowardly and wegs
smelly as Runkle commanders have his.
played. Our Angloindien authorities have had
their characters formed under the influence of
English public opinion. When placed with a light.
seed ewes of responsibility in positions of great
temptation, they may err politically and morally;
but their natural and cultivated sentiments of gene-
rosity and kindness will prevent them from ruthlessly
slaughtering the weak and outraging the primmer.
It is only in disregard of the rights of independent
tribes and satiate that they have anything in COIRRIOR
with the tern's ruffians in uniform. There, how-
ever, we fear there is a likeness that cannot be alto-
gether denied—a Illmeese, as we have sought deli-
cately to insinuate, analogous to that which obtains
between men and monkeys. And as men have bees
known to be shocked out of bad habits by nosing
them repulsively caricatured in the monkey, it may,
perhaps, be no bad lemon to Anglo-Indian polideleas
to draw their attention to the similarity whisk. is
some respects, exists between them and the Mus-
covites.
In Burmah, upon pretexts almost as slender and
untenable as those upon which the CZAR occupied the
Danubian Principalities, a considerable slice of a
neighbour's kingdom has been annexed to the English
dominions in Rindostan. We waive for the present the
consideration of how much this usurpation has cost
ourselves; of the sacrifice of valuable lives, not on the
field of battle but in agonising laser-house; of the
drafts upon the Indian treasury required to eke out
the deficient revenue of the newly-acquired province.
Our present object is to direct attention to the effects
that English conquest has had upon the natives.
While they lived under a national government they
might be king-ridden and. priest-ridden, justice might
be inadequately administered by their tribunals, a
childishly superstitious people might be unscrupulously
exploite by a priesthood of rather lax morale; but
under all these evils there remained a sachet
substratum of social organisation to maintain a
general pekoe between man and man, and allow the
moderately industrious to eat their bread honestly
in the sweat of their brow. Since the English be-
came masters, however, this state of affairs is entirely
changed. King and Priest lord it as absolutely as
ever over the minds of the Burmese, but the peace-
ful agriculturists, fishermen, and traders have almost
to a man been transformed into Dacus—which,
being interpreted, means robbers. The villages are
all forsaken ; the runaways lurk in the forest, prey-
ing upon the invaders, when they can catch them—
upon one another when such game is not to be met
with. Our troops are incessantly aligned in the
duties of policemen in a country where there are
now only two classes—the policemen and the thieves
--and to reconcile them to the odious task are taught
to call it war. The honest and orderly portion of
society is represented in our newly acquired terri-
tory by some dozen or two of not very wealthy tiler-
candle Adventism& who have settled at Rangoon,
and whose whole eniployme,t appears to consist in—
ns the native Deceits are mg exactly the most pro-
fitable kind of cutosnere—addressing memorials to
the local government in Calcutta, complaining of re-
strictions on a timber trade which, where there are
none left to trade with, must be:presumed to be
non-existent, and petitioning for reminded' of
taxes, which, ao they are earning nothing,
they naturally cannot afford to pay. To
this state of affairs, too, there is no like-
lihood of any speedy termination; for the rela-
tions which exist between the natives and the in-
rushes do not admit of any approximation that might
bring them to work together mere harmoniously.
And this is the way in which civilisation is promoted
by conquest. The system works as ill in the hands
of demist good-natured Eaglishmen recruited from
the rube of our hourreisia, as in the heads of the
rude and &attic= soldiery trained in the court and
maps of thefts&
Turning from the south-east of India to the north-
west, the scene which presents itself is not a jot more
edifying. Sande has been annexed; the Puajaub
hie been annexed; a part of Affghanietaa
has been annexed ; and yet our animas are not
satisfied. In this, se in other things, "increase of
appetite doth pow by what it feeds oar The Aber
deco have been "blookaded " in order to compel
them to hold, as oar tenante-at-will, lands which
they have cultivated hem time immemorial. The
Bhorees (a sub-clan of the Afreedees) have had their
country invaded and their forts dismantled in ceder
to compel them to permit the English to take per-
manent military occupation of the Kohat Pass. The
Chief of Bahawnlpore, who, it seems, has been in-
discreet enough of late to make purchases of arms
and gunpowder, is tauntingly warned to take care
that he do not "bring his dominions within
the red line which, ia AI map, is
quickly encircling all India? le short, the
work of annexation is progressing std liftSlNledit
on the western than on the eastern kinder d aii
Indian dominions. It is not, indeed, Waal in
the former with so entire a dissolution of the bask
which bold society together as on the killse, bet
enough transpires to show how ill a gevertainet
established by conquest works. We are tell, it is
true, by a certain class of Indian paillasse that the
inhabitants of Scinde and the Pcmjaub have gained
immensely by being transferred from the domination
of their native rulers to that of " Compact*
Sahib," and for proof of this we are told
to look to the increasing revenue. Consider-
ing the somewhat peculiar principle of Anglo-
Indian finance, this is at best an equivocal test of the
comfort of a people. Besides, under a native govern-
ment. what was exacted from the people was in
met part spent among them; under the English
Ooternmeat any wmplas remise in sae provisos
-v to asks good &flab in others, or to pay the
Inds of shareholders in England.
essereeeking spirit which has led our Gems.
India to puovist is this spun st ansuatisa

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