INDIA.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 279, 4 May 1875, Page 4

INDIA.

A recent telegram stated that orders had been sent to India to hold the troops in readiness for the field. On this subject the Argus of a recent date remarks as follows :—"Although it is explicitly stated in the Calcutta Englishman of the 6th of March that troops have been ordered to hold themselves in readiness for active service, and that there is a possibility of war on a large scale, the report is discredited, upon what professes to be good information, by the Bombay Gazette of the Bth ult. At the same time the latter journal records its cod viction that a war between England and Bunsia is inevitable, and that its outbreak cannot be delayed many years. 'The two nations,' it observes,'regarded Que another

with ill-concealed distrust and hostility, and nothing but the weakness of Lord Granville's foreign policy prevented an appeal to arms two years ago to settle their conflicting pretensions to supremacy in the Bast.' Supposing England felt called upon to adopt any special measures of defence in India, it is believed that the first stsp to be taken would be the occupation of the passes leading to Jellalabad and Quetta, as so long as the approaches to our Indian possessions from Afghanistan and Beloochistan are unguarded, our military position is said to be weak, even for defensive purposes; although much superior to what it was thirty years ago, inasmuch as we have now a secure base of operations, stretching from Kurrachee to Peshawur. ' But, on the other hand,' remarks the Bombay Gazette, ' hussia iB very much nearer Herat than she was then, and can now send columns to seize that city from her new fort on the Attrek and from Samarcand; and, having once seized Herat, she could advance on India with all Central Asia at her back.' If, therefore, it should prove to be the fact that orders have been received from England by the Governor-General of India to prepare a large expedition for active service, it is not improbable that it may be intended to assume the control of the Khyber and Bolan Passes. The Times of India suggests that its destination may be China, and that its object may be to punish the attack made upon Colonel Horace Browne and his trading expedition by the Chinese, who murdered his interpreter and five Chinese servants; but it is scarcely likely that a great land force would be set in motion for a comparatively small matter of this kind."