Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/21

Rh conquest of Upper Burma. Lord Dufferin's Proclamation at Mandalay in 1886, by which Upper Burma passed under the government of Queen Victoria, was the natural sequel of Lord Dalhousie's annexation of Lower Burma in 1852. The extinction of the Burmese Empire has not only brought us into direct diplomatic relations with China, but it has also involved an indefinite recognition of certain semi-suzerain claims of the Chinese Emperor.

But far-reaching as have been the results of Lord Dalhousie's frontier conquests, his policy of internal consolidation seems destined to produce even more important consequences. That consolidation appeared at the time to be a unification of the Indian territories; it is slowly disclosing itself also as a unification of the Indian races. Lord Dalhousie was convinced, and with good reason, that the old system of ruling India under the make-believe of sham royalties and of artificial intermediate powers wrought misery to the people. He held himself bound to take every fair opportunity that offered for substituting an honest English administration. One native State after another passed under this policy to direct British Rule.

The map of India which Dalhousie pondered over during his voyage out, in 1847, was a much simpler problem in political geography than the map which he handed over to his successor. The