Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/131

Rh British armies have garrisoned the great dividing line. British India has thus come indirectly into contact with Russia's sphere of activity, and eventually into that costly system of armed neutrality, which constitutes what we are pleased to call the concert of nations in Europe. By the annexation of the submontane tract of Sikkim, Lord Dalhousie brought within the British frontier a territory which, from its capabilities as a tea-growing tract, has given an impulse to a new and an important branch of English enterprise. By the annexation of Lower Burma he placed the rice trade and teak trade of the East in British hands, and converted a vast ruined country into one of the most progressive and most prosperous Provinces of Asia. But here also territorial extension involved an increase of political responsibility. As already mentioned, our connection with Sikkim has led us into not always happy relations with Thibet. Important problems of Indian government, the future of the opium-revenue, the proposed development of trade-routes to the eastward, the control over the south-eastern frontier Hill States, are powerfully influenced by the fact that the extinction of the Burmese Empire has now brought us into contact with China.