HIS SUBSEQUENT TRAINING
Therefore there is a wide difference between the men as they came out
in the old days and as they come out now. Then they were young, not
very well instructed but capable of seeing, understanding, and
learning; nowadays they are so drilled and instructed that they can
deal only with books, papers, and records; life has been closed to
them; they can enforce laws, but not temper them.
After they come out the difference of life and work is still greater.
In the old days, for instance, they picked up the language quickly and
well. The time to learn a language is when you are young--the younger
the better. We learn our own language as children. The older we grow
the harder it is, because it means not merely learning by heart a great
many words, not merely training the palate and tongue to produce
different sounds, but adopting a new attitude of mind. Nothing
definite has been discovered as to the localisation of faculties in the
brain, therefore nothing certain is known; but it has always seemed to
me and to others whom I have consulted that when you learn a new
language you are exercising and developing a new piece of brain. When
you know several languages and change from one to another you seem
definitely to change the piece of brain which actuates your tongue.
You switch off one centre and switch on to another. You will always
notice in yourself and others that there is a definite pause when the
change of language is made. Now it becomes every year more difficult
to awaken an unused part of the brain and bring it into active use, and
to begin at twenty-three is late. True, languages are taught them at
Oxford before they come out, but the result seems _nil_. You must
learn a language where it is spoken. Moreover, the way they have been
taught Latin and Greek is a hindrance, for living languages are not
learnt that way. A child, for instance, learns to talk perfectly
without ever learning grammar. I never heard that any great English
writer had a grounding in English grammar. There is no real grammar of
a living language, because it grows and changes. You can only have a
fixed grammar of a dead language.
The fact is that correct talking is the outcome of correct thinking,
not of any mechanical rules. You must think in a language before you
can speak it well.
But at twenty-three it is far too late for the ordinary man to learn to
think in Hindustani or Burmese or Tamil. Of course there are
occasional exceptions, but the way these languages are usually spoken
is dreadful. I could tell tales about myself as well as others, for
though I worked very hard for years I never knew Burmese well, nor yet
Canarese, nor yet Hindustani. Yet who will doubt that it is very
important, the most important acquisition, in fact, that you can make?
Without it you can never really get near the people. So that in this
way the old civilian had again a great advantage.
Here is one story. Once upon a time there was a District Officer and
there was his district, and for some reason they did not seem to agree.
At least the district did not like its Head. It felt uneasy, and it
became restive, and at last it complained. It took up many grievances,
and amongst them was this: "There is a good deal of building wanted in
various parts, and there is timber and there are sawyers, but no
licences can be obtained. When the Head comes round on tour we ask
him, but he always refuses. So all building work is stopped."
An Inspecting Officer went to inquire, and he began with this
complaint: "Why do you refuse them sawpit licences when on tour?" he
asked.
"I don't," the Head replied.
"They say you do."
"But they never even applied; so how could I refuse?" he answered.
"Very well," said the Inspecting Officer, "let's see the file of your
petitions received."
A clerk brought it out, and there--written in Burmese, of course--were
many sawpit applications, and below each, written by the Head, was his
endorsement:
"I cannot allow more guns to be issued."
Then the machine of government was far less perfected than it is now.
There were, of course, laws and rules and there was supervision, but to
nothing like the present extent. The district officer then had a
personality. He was required to have one, for local conditions
differed more than they do now and he had far more latitude. Moreover,
the machine being less effective he depended a great deal upon his
personal influence to keep the place quiet and get things done. He
could not ask for orders because there was no telegraph, and he could
not get help quickly because there were no railways. Therefore he was
obliged to acquire a personal knowledge of people and peoples, of
individuals and castes and races, which, he thinks, is not so necessary
now. The result was that all laws and orders passed through his
personality before reaching the people, thus acquiring a humanity and
reasonableness that is now impossible. He studied his district and he
used his powers, legal and otherwise, as he found best. If he found a
law harsh--and in the last resort all laws are so--he would ameliorate
its action. Nowadays he cannot do that. In the old days he
administered, as best he could, justice; now he administers law--a very
wide difference. Thus he was forced by circumstances to acquire a
knowledge and a sympathy which are unattainable to-day; for you only
learn things by doing them.
The old district officers were known personally by name and by
reputation all through their districts. The people looked to them for
help and understanding, and protection as much against the rigidity and
injustice of the laws as against other ills.
But nowadays, except the Government officials and headmen, I don't
believe anyone in a district knows who the head is. At all events, it
makes practically no difference, because the application of the laws is
supervised and enforced, and the district officer must "fall into
line." If any personality has survived his schooling it must now be
killed.
Few men, I think, learn anything except from two motives--a natural
driving desire or necessity. But a natural desire to study the people
round you is scarce, and the necessity of other days has passed away.
A district officer can now do his work quite to the satisfaction of
Government and know next to nothing of the people. In fact, sometimes
knowledge leads to remonstrance with Government, and it doesn't like
that.
Again, there has crept into secretariats a cult of "energy" and
"efficiency," and a definition of these words, which acts disastrously
upon the district officer, both when he is under training and
subsequently.
Now, the proper meaning of an "efficient officer" is, I take it, one
who sees the right thing to do and does it quickly and effectively; and
probably Government really has this in its mind when it uses the word.
This is what it wants; but very often what it gets is almost the
opposite, and it is as pleased with this as if it got what it expected.
In fact, it does not seem to know the difference. An example will
explain what I mean.
There is, we will say, in a district a good deal of cattle theft going
on, and the thieves cannot be detected. Cattle graze in Burma in the
fields, and in the jungle on their outskirts; they roam about a good
deal, and it is easy enough to steal them; detection is difficult.
But there is in Burma, as in parts of India, a provision of the Village
Regulation which is called the Track Law, and it is substantially as
follows:
If cattle are missing their tracks can be followed. When they pass out
of the area under the jurisdiction of the village wherein the owner
lives and enter another village lands, that village becomes
responsible. The tracker calls the headman of that village and shows
him the tracks, which he must follow up and demonstrate that they have
not stopped in his jurisdiction but gone on. In this way the tracks
can be followed till they are lost, when the village in whose land they
are lost is considered as being the village of the thief, and is
therefore responsible for the lost cattle. It can be fined, and the
owner of the lost bullock indemnified.
This Act is taken from a very old custom common once in most of India,
and also, I believe, in places of Europe. For several hundred years
ago, when villages were widely separated by jungle, it had some sense.
There was then a presumption either that the stolen bullock had been
taken to that village, or that some of the villagers had seen it pass.
The thief would probably have stopped there for food or rest, as it was
a long way on. But nowadays, in most of the country, village fields
are conterminous, with little or no jungle between; there are many
roads, and except where the tracks actually go into the village gate
the presumption does not arise. Cattle are common, and the villagers
are not expert trackers. Moreover, there is a very strong premium on
dishonesty, or at least carelessness in keeping to the right tracks.
Suppose the right track lost in a wet place, or a dry bare place, why
not pick up some other? Most cattle tracks are very similar. The
owner wants his compensation.
Yet the "energetic" officer will be expected to work this Act _à pied
de la lettre_.
I saw a good deal of the actual working of this Act at one time, when I
was a subordinate officer. Every time a beast was lost it had to be
tracked, and the village where the tracks were lost had to pay. It
made no difference if there was any reasonable presumption against the
village, there the law was. The tracks might be lost two miles from
the actual village, simply crossing its boundary; the law was there.
I remember one village had a bad time because it was near a frequented
road, and when the tracks got on this road they were always lost, as
the surface was hard. So the village had to pay. Yet what evidence
was there against the village? None. I had the curiosity for some
time, whenever a case wherein a village was fined was subsequently
detected, to find out what village had been fined, and see if that
village had been in any way cognisant of the theft. It never had. The
fine was purely gratuitous, was worse than useless, for it was wrong.
Yet it is a Government rule--not, I think, actually laid down, but
understood--that whenever an offence occurs, unless the culprit is
arrested a village must be held responsible.
I always disliked the Track Law and its subsidiary sections, not
because I have any objection to holding a village, in certain cases,
responsible for its members--I think it is a sound principle--but
because it always hit innocent people, as far as I could see. I used
it as little as I could, yet there were difficulties. I will mention a
case in point.
There was a broker who lived not in my district but near its boundary,
and one day he rode to a village in my district to collect some debts.
He didn't collect them, and left the village in a rage, saying he would
complain to the police-station six or seven miles away that he had been
cheated. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when he left, and
he rode off across the plain in the direction of the police-station.
He was sighted at dusk near the river, going along a road which half a
mile farther on passed through a village, and no more was seen of him.
He never arrived at the police-station, and next morning his pony was
found roaming the plain about the village near which he had last been
seen.
There was no sign of him or his body.
He was a well-known man, reputed to be wealthy, and a great fuss was
made. His wife declared he must have been murdered. The magistrate of
the broker's district was indignant that "his" broker should have been
murdered in my district and I do nothing. My police could get no clue
at all, nor could I. A subordinate magistrate held a proceeding under
the Track Law against the village where the broker disappeared, and
recommended it be fined. I, however, held my hand.
Then a body was found floating in the river some miles lower down, and
identified as the broker's body, and his wife gave it a funeral. Still
I held my hand.
My neighbour was indignant; my Superintendent of Police was distressed
at me; my Commissioner evidently thought me slack--"no energy." The
fact is I was puzzled, and would do nothing till I saw clearly. So six
months went on.
What would have happened eventually had nothing more come out I can't
say, but something more did come out--the broker came out. He was
recognised in Mandalay and immediately arrested--for pretending to be
alive when he was really dead, I suppose--and sent to me. I asked him
what had occurred, and he confessed that he was deeply in debt to
money-lenders and had made up this scheme to defeat them. He had left
his pony, gone down to the river, crossed in a canoe, and gone into
hiding. While he was "dead" his wife had compounded with his creditors.
I sent him back to my neighbour with the emphatic warning that if his
broker ever came up my way again he would certainly be done for in good
earnest. The whole district had been turned upside down for him, and
he was not popular.
Now the points that I wish all this to illustrate are these: Men at the
head-quarters of Government, out of touch with real life, read the
Track Law, think it most useful and just, and insist on its being
enforced. Officers on the spot, accustomed to accept all law as the
epitome of justice, follow the Act without thinking. The
responsibility is really on them, as Government tells them to judge
each case on its merits, but they fear that if they reported that no
case under the Track Law ever had any merits they would be written down
as "wanting in energy." As they have not been trained to think for
themselves, they do not do so. They fulfil all the requirements of the
Act, and are satisfied. Moreover, subsequently, to justify their own
action they must praise the Act. Therefore a vicious circle is
created. Government says: "District officers praise the Act, therefore
have it stringently enforced, for they know its actual value." And
district officers say: "Government declares this to be an admirable
Act, therefore I must enforce it." No one ever investigates the facts.
If a district officer have doubts, he discreetly smothers them as
babies, lest they grow.
And this is but one instance. I mention in a later chapter a still
more striking case of this sort of action; and even many examples would
not expose its whole evil. It is the spirit that renders such things
possible that is disastrous. So are officers trained to believe that
when anything untoward happens they must do something--they must punish
somebody. The idea that if they act without full knowledge the
something they do will be wrong and the persons they punish will be
innocent is not allowed to intrude. They will, of course, always act
by law, but then, "_summum jus, summa injuria_." In the old days this
could not have happened. In the first place, Government trusted its
officers, and its trust was not misplaced; now it trusts its laws; yet
there is nothing so unintelligent, nothing so fatal as rigid
laws--except those who believe in them. In the second place, officers
with the personality and knowledge of the men of former days would have
insisted on seeing for themselves and judging for themselves. They
would have cared nothing that they might be supposed not to have
"energy." They would know they had something better than that--they
had understanding.
The possibility of making our laws and our government generally
endurable to the people depends on the personality of the district
officer.
Nowadays he is sent out with his personality crushed, and it gets still
more crushed out there. He becomes in time not a living soul but a
motor-engine to drive a machine. Whatever knowledge he acquires is of
the people's faults and not their virtues. When you hear an official
praised as "knowing the Indian" or "the Burman," you know that it means
that he knows his faults. He knows the criminal trying to escape, the
villager trying to evade revenue. It doesn't mean that he knows more
than this. Some do, especially among the police and the forest
officers, but then they have no influence.
As showing the difference between the old officer and the new I make
the following extract from _A City of Sunshine_, by Alexander
Allardyce. Few books on the East have been written with a clearer
understanding.
"Mr. Eversley, the collector, was an official of a type that has almost
passed away. He had been brought up in the strictest traditions of the
Haileybury school and had adhered all his life to the conservative
principles of the 'old civilianism.' When the 'Competition Wallah'
came in, Eversley foresaw certain ruin to the English interests in
India. 'Competition Wallahs!' he used to exclaim--'as well put the
country under a commission of schoolmasters at once. But we'll lose
the country with all this Latin and Greek; take my word for it we'll
soon lose the country.' Mr. Eversley had never been able to make a
hexameter in the whole course of his life, and there is grave reason to
doubt that he was ignorant of even the barest elements of the Greek
accidence. But he had acquired a marvellous colloquial familiarity
with the Eastern vernaculars, and he knew the habits and feelings of
the Bengalee better than any other officer in the Lower Provinces.
There was no chance of Eversley falling into such a blunder as that
which was laid to the charge of Muffington Prigge, the magistrate of
the neighbouring district of Lallkor, who once, in taking the
deposition of a witness in a criminal case, had expressed his
displeasure that evidence of such importance should be given on the
authority of a third person, and ordered the police to bring 'Fidwi'
before him. The witness gave his evidence in the third person out of
respect. Instead of saying 'I saw' he said 'Fidwi (your slave) saw.'
Muffington Prigge's judgments had been more than once spoken of with
encomiums by Mr. Justice Tremer in the Appeal side of the High Court,
but Mr. Eversley's law never came before the High Court except to be
reprobated. Lawyers complained that he did not know even the rudiments
of the Codes; but there was no magistrate in the Lower Provinces whose
decisions were received with more general satisfaction or from whose
judgments there were fewer appeals. His rough-and-ready way of
settling cases was better relished than the elaborate findings of the
Lallkor archon which were generally unintelligible to the suitors till
they had fee'd their lawyer to tell them which side had won.
"The people knew that Eversley would do what he saw to be right,
independent of Act or Code, _and they had more confidence in his sense
of justice than in the written law_."
What is the highest praise a Burman will give to an officer--that he is
clever, painstaking, honest, energetic, kind? No; but that he has
"auza." And what is "auza"? It is that influence and power that comes
from personality. Who has "auza" nowadays? No one, not even
Government. It has become, as Eversley expected, a Commission of
Schoolmasters.