INDIAN AFFAIRS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4172, 2 July 1875, Page 3

INDIAN AFFAIRS.

Madras, April 25th, (FBOir A CORRESPONDENT.)

" Who cares about Anglo-Indian affairs ?" says my antipodean reader. To whom I reply that it is never too late to mend, and that if ho has allowed India, no place in the circle of his acquaint ance with persons, places, and tilings, that is no reason whatever why he Bhould not now consent to know her, and improve the acquaintance of a very interesting neighbour, jj'or India is really a neighbour of the Australian Colonies—at least she regards herself as such, whether or not you will allow .the claim. Nothing is more, common at Anglo-Indian dinner tables than to hear the antipodes talked of with deep interest. Nearly everybody i 3 acquainted with some one or other who has settled in Australia or New Zealand, and if the connection is not quite so close as this m every case, he at anj late knows somebody else whose nephew or cousin, or son—very often the last—has a sheep run out there, and is doing very well, or very badly, as the case may he. This is one of our sources of interest in the Australian Colonies. Then, again, not a few Anglo-Indians of the present day are casting an eye on the Antipodes as a possible place of retirement. The luxury of living in England is getting too expensive, and it behoves us to look about us for some more eligible spot where to spend our leisure and our savings—especially the former, for the pagoda tree of ludia has long since ceased to blossom, and the Indian Nabobs of the olden time are now-a days without representatives. Already an entei prising colonel has done his best to found an AngloIndian Colony in Tasmania. It is some years since I heard of its welfare, but I presume it is still in existence, and I hope it is flourishing. But, besides this, I have met numb rs of Anglo Indians who have taken short periods of leave to Australia and New Zealand ,in preference to visiting the old country. Some of these, to my knowledge, have come back richer than they went, the possessors of most estimable wives. I mention all this to show that there is some sort of acquaintance between you and us. Steamers and the telegraph have made us neighbours. Why, then, shoull we uot improve our bowing acquaintance into a shake-hand friendship? I think we ought to do s>o, and it is bucaase I thus think that I am writing you a letter about Anglo Indian affairs. I hope you will read it. There is generally something going on worth reoording, and if your' English mail on its way out picks up a fbw scraps of Auglo-Indian news and carries them on, I do not see how you can possibly be displeased. India north, south, east, and west—is in a fever of excitement just now. Everybody is on the very tip-toe of expectation. "Any telegrams about the Gaekwar ?" is the upcouutry question of the day. "What will they do with him?" everybody asks. " Find the wretch guilty, depose, and transport him !" say the vast majority of Englishmen. " Restore him at once, and vote him a persecuted prince," say the natives to a man. And thus you see public opinion in India— not to mention England—is very much divided. Of course the subject is no new one to you. You have heard all about the Biroda affair ? How that His Highness Mnlharrow, Gaekwar of Baroda, independent native prince, of whose character, whether as a man, a ruler, or a kinsman, the least said the better, is accused of hay ng attempted the life of the British Resident at his Court—Colonel Phayre—by bribing the Residency servants to administer poison, specially prepared and sent by the Gaekwar himself. How that the Colonel, having noticed au unpleasant taste in the glass of sherbet he was in the habit of taking after hi" morning walk, was in the act of throwing it away when he noticed a sediment in the bottom of the tumbler—how the sediment was analysed, and pronounced to be arsenic and something else, probably powdered diamonds, which the natives of India mistakenly imagine to be a deadly poison. How the police traced the poison up to the Gaekwar himself, and their enquiries led to the appointment of a Commission of Enquiry, composed of three Europeans and three Natives, all of hi«h standing, to investigate the matter. You have not yet heard the verdict, though it is just possible that the same mail which takes this letter may bring you the decision of Government in the matter. The report of thft Commissioners has gone to Simla, in the Himalayas, where the Gover-nor-General is spending the hot weather. It is rep >rted, and on very credible authority roo, that the Government of India and the Marquis of Salisbury are at issue on the question, and that it is because they are fighting it out by telegrams that the decision has been so long delayed. It will be a grtnt relief when we g«t it. The last report from Simla says that it has been decided that His Highness is to be deposed. But nothing is known for certain. Of course, one c>uM write columns of remarks on this extraordinary trial—far more extraordinary and interesting in every w.»y than the Tjchbornecase. It is impossible to have read the voluminous reports of the enquiry without forming an opinion one way or other. The English Press lias behaved very badly in the matter —notably the London Time?, which pronounced a decision before it had received full accounts of the trial. Serjeant Bailantine, wh>, as you probably remembtr, was engaged on the first Tichborne trial, waa retained on a fe3 of £10,000 for the defence of. the Ga"kwar. Everybody is agreed that he did not even make the best of a bad case. HU address to the Commissioners was an utter failure—a conglomeration of bad reasoning, bad taßte, and gross personalities However, he has pocketed his f- c and gone home agvin—richer in pocket, if not in rep'ltation. But I will pass on to other topics, as I dare say I shall have occasion to allude to this extraordinary trial in my next letter.

It is not improbable that we are on the eve of another of those <-xpen*ive little wars which coat us so much money, and bring us so little credit. We havi just hirt the gloomy satisfaction of punishing a refractory hill tribe—the Nagas—who wantonly attacked a Rrititsh party on duty in tinir domain. But at pre eat all eyes are turned twards Burmah. A dispute has arisen on the boundary question, which it will probably require a great deal of money and some slicking of blood to settle. The King of Burmah is no friend of the English. He is moreover, intoleia'ly bombastic, and as ignorant of his own weakness as he is of our strength. I write from the Madras Presidency, and all Madras is just now deeply interested in the question ot the constructiun of a harbour for its Presidency town. It is also a question in which you may be remotely interested, for it is asseited in fome quarters that a few more years will Eec travellers from the Australian Colonies proceeding homewards via the Madras and LSomKay Railway, instead of rounding Ceylon as at present, and that this change will be brought about by the faciliti°s of embarkation and debarkation which a really good harbour will confer on Madras. J. T.