_FIVE YEARS OF BRITISH RULE._
British rule would have nothing to justify its presence in such a country
as Burma if it did not evidently make for the well-being of the people.
In this chapter we have to consider the initiation of those measures
that have been adopted with this view, and to ascertain how far they are
likely to secure it. Five years is not a period of time from which much
can be expected by way of results, but it is long enough for us to form
an estimate of the kind of beginning that has been made.
Under Burmese rule no attempt was made at a division of the work of
the executive into departments. Each minister of state was considered
eligible to take charge of any and every post in the state, whether
judicial, revenue, military or what not, just as in England, as Macaulay
tells us, until comparatively recent times, any gentleman, if he
possessed sufficient interest, might aspire to command a man-of-war, and
naval and military commands were more or less interchangeable. But we
have got far beyond that now, and our Indian Government is a model of
efficiency and business-like working, the officers of some departments
being professionally educated for them, and in others, specially trained
for the work.
The state of the public revenue is always some test of the industrial
and fiscal conditions of a country. Beginning with the first year of
the annexation, the income for the five years has steadily and rapidly
risen:—
Rupees.
In 1886-87 the revenue was 2,200,000
1887-88 ” ” 5,010,000
1888-89 ” ” 7,683,450
1889-90 ” ” 8,638,170
1890-91 ” ” 9,400,000
To the amount for the last year a considerable sum might fairly be added
on account of the earnings of the new line of railway to Mandalay. Under
the Burman king the revenue never exceeded 10,000,000 rupees, and during
King Theebaw’s reign it had fallen to 9,000,000, and fully one-third of
this amount accrued from monopolies and imposts on trade and industry,
that the British Government has very properly abolished; so that,
although we took over the country at a very great disadvantage, we have
already raised the revenue, by healthy and legitimate means (excepting
the excise), to an amount equal to what it ever was before. There can be
no doubt that a career of prosperity awaits Upper Burma, and that the
steady increase in the revenue indicates that it has already entered upon
that career. The testimony of the revenue officers is that it is, as a
rule, collected without difficulty, and that the taxation does not fall
at all heavily on the people. The chief item is a kind of capitation or
household tax, averaging 10 rupees per house per year. This is levied as
a lump sum on each village, and the payment is distributed amongst the
families of the village, according to their means and circumstances, by
a committee of village elders—a method they are accustomed to, and that
seems to work well.
The administration of justice is one of the fundamental duties of
Government and one of its chief functions. Our Government undertook this
duty amid special difficulties and drawbacks; for not only were crime and
disorder very general, but there was a great paucity of officials with
the necessary experience of the country and knowledge of the language,
to fill the subordinate grades of the Civil Service, and to act as
magistrates. It must have been no easy task to administer justice at once
over an area as large as France. Great progress has been made during the
five years, and the various courts of justice have long been in good
working order after the methods of India.
The adaptation of a regular system of criminal law, as laid down in
the Indian Penal Code, with British principles as regards evidence and
procedure, with all our well-known safeguards of the rights of the
subject and the dignity and sanctity of law, must be a great improvement
on the old haphazard Burmese system, and must afford far greater
protection to the innocent, and a greater probability of detecting
and punishing the guilty. In point of impartiality and freedom from
corruption, too, there must be a great change for the better. Since
the country has begun to thoroughly settle down, and the necessity for
a speedy and summary decision in criminal cases is no longer felt, a
Judicial Commissioner has been appointed for Upper Burma, a trained
civilian of high position and experience, whose duty it is to revise
the proceedings of the subordinate courts, and, if necessary, alter the
findings. This precaution Government takes to ensure that the cases shall
have full and mature consideration, and that in the name of justice,
justice shall be done.
An illustration of the improved methods of legal procedure, after Western
models, introduced under the British administration, is the compulsory
registration of deeds relating to immovable property. This measure
operates to prevent fraud and secure and simplify titles. The deed being
registered, and a copy of it being kept in Government records, forgery
and other methods of cheating are made far more difficult. Under the
Burman rule deeds were not used, the theory being that all property
belonged to the king. It can readily be imagined what confusion of title
resulted from that primitive method, and how necessary it was to make
enactments that should minimise the risk of fraud, dispute and litigation.
The survey of the whole country has made good progress. Year by year,
despite the disturbed state of the country, and the consequent danger
of travelling, survey parties have been diligently employed in that
important business. Triangulation has been carried over 84,000 square
miles, and the whole country has been mapped on a scale of four miles to
the inch.
Experimental farming is, in Upper Burma, a new undertaking which
necessarily falls to the lot of Government, in the absence of the
requisite knowledge and enterprise on the part of the people. With a view
to increasing the products of the country, and bettering the position of
the people, an experimental farm has been established in the Shan States.
Various products, new to Burma, are receiving a trial; for instance,
English fruit trees on some of the hill stations, and at various other
places potatoes, American maize, wheat, barley, and English garden
vegetables. The successful introduction of some of these new products
may mean a great deal for the prosperity of the country. Attention has
also been paid to the rearing of cattle, sheep and horses, and veterinary
assistants are employed, at the expense of Government, in combating
cattle disease, and their work has given satisfaction to the people.
There is no branch of the public service for which there is more need
in a new country than that of the Department of Public Works. A country
recently come under British rule presents a wide field for the talents
and energies of the civil engineer. The principal public works of the
Burmans consisted of the construction of reservoirs for that great
necessity of life, water, both for drinking purposes and for irrigation,
and the formation of channels for conducting the water to the fields.
These works were found only in a few favoured places, and though not
finished in first-rate engineering style, exhibited no small amount of
ingenuity and skill. Beyond this their engineering manifested itself
rather in religious edifices than in works of general public utility.
There was therefore great need to supplement what the Burmans had left
lacking. The country was without a single good road. Even in Mandalay
itself there was not a road worthy of the name. Now some hundreds of
miles of good road have been constructed, the streams bridged, and
communications opened up on the principal lines of travel. An extensive
system of new irrigation works is under construction or in contemplation.
In every principal station barracks for the soldiers and the police, and
jails have been built, and in every town, market houses, court houses,
public offices and hospitals provided; so that already there is not a
town of any considerable size which does not show abundant outward signs
of the change which has come over the country.
Railways were of course unknown in Upper Burma before the advent of
British rule; and they are likely to prove a powerful stimulus to the
development of the country. There was a line of railway already finished
in Lower Burma from Rangoon to Toungoo, 166 miles, and the extension of
this line to Mandalay, 220 miles farther, was one of the first great
public works projected. It was sanctioned in November 1886; the survey
was pushed on and completed by the summer of 1887; the work was begun on
each section as soon as the estimates were sanctioned; and so rapidly was
the work carried on that an engine ran through from Toungoo to Mandalay
by May 1st, 1888. The line was finally completed and opened for traffic
in March 1889. The cost was a little over twenty millions of rupees.
At the beginning the work practically lay through an enemy’s country,
but survey parties and working parties were carefully guarded, and no
successful attacks were made upon the many thousands of labourers on the
work. The construction gave employment and wages to a large number of
Burmans, at a time when the labouring classes would have been otherwise
in great straits. The finding of honest remunerative work for so many
people was, in itself, a great check on dacoity. Since the railway was
opened the districts through which it runs have been the quietest in
Upper Burma, although previously so greatly disturbed.
From every point of view this first introduction of railways into Upper
Burma must be pronounced a great success. From the very first this line
paid its working expenses, and in conjunction with the rest of the state
railways in Burma, 4 per cent. on the capital invested. If it could do
that at the outset it will do much more when other railway extensions
are carried out, and roads are made as feeders to the traffic. To all
this must be added the great convenience it affords to the public and to
Government, and the impulse it gives to commerce, besides its strategic
importance from a military point of view.
Encouraged by this result, another line, called the Mu Valley extension,
is already well on towards completion. It starts from Sagaing, on the
opposite side of the Irrawaddy to Mandalay, proceeds in a northerly
direction, and will ultimately go as far as Mogaung in the far north
of the country, some 300 miles from Sagaing. The laying of this line
through the territory of the semi-independent little state of Wuntho was
the last straw that broke the back of the loyalty of the sawbwa. From
the first he had been awkward, and had given trouble, but the prospect
of having a railway through his dominions was too much for him, and he
broke out into open rebellion. There was nothing for it but to put down
the insurrection, annex his petty state, and administer it. Civilisation
and the general welfare cannot be expected to come to a standstill at the
bidding of an ignorant little chieftain like Wuntho.
Another extension of the Mandalay line, from Meiktila to Myingyan on the
Irrawaddy, is about to be taken in hand; and a second and more detailed
survey is shortly to be made for that very important extension from
Mandalay up to the hills, and across the Shan plateau in a north-easterly
direction, to open up the rich Shan country, and eventually, in all
probability, to connect Upper Burma with Yunan, the great westerly
province of China, with eleven millions of inhabitants.
Railways bring new life to a country like Burma, and arouse men from the
sleep of centuries. They pay well; they civilise the people by bringing
together, in an amicable way and for their mutual benefit, races and
tribes that formerly were enemies; they render it easier to get an honest
living than to live by robbery; they not only stimulate trade, they
create it; they help to solve the difficulties of demand and supply in
the labour question, by making it cheap and easy for the people to get to
and fro; and when times of scarcity and famine come round, they enable
the Government to cope with them, and prevent or mitigate their horrors.
The post, the telegraph and the telephone, which are now amongst the
necessities of civilised life, have all been established in Upper Burma,
and are now in thorough working order. In fact, so civilised has Upper
Burma become, that a movement is on foot for a private company to lay
down several miles of tramway in the streets of Mandalay, and start a
service of trams; and another scheme has been submitted for lighting the
principal streets with electricity.
A government in an Oriental country, to be successful, must, before
everything else, be strong, and nothing contributes more to this than
an efficient police. At the outset, the establishment of order was
largely a military work, and the brunt of it rested on our British and
Sepoy troops. But gradually as the country settled down, the troops
were reduced, and the police took over the work of keeping order. Here
was considerable scope for organisation. In most of the countries where
English rule has been established, we have managed to organise a police
out of the materials the country supplied. But the Burmans do not prove
very tractable for this, so that whilst there has been special need for
a strong police to keep matters in order, it so happens that we have a
people specially wanting in the qualities necessary for this work. The
police officers complain that the Burmans in the force “cannot be trusted
to oppose a larger force of dacoits, or to do sentry work.” The Burman
finds great difficulty in submitting to discipline or carrying out any
regular routine whatever in a reliable manner. He loves to have his own
way, to feel free to come and go just when he likes, and generally to go
on in a careless and casual manner.
After the annexation of Pegu in 1853, an attempt was made to raise a
military battalion of Burmese. By an unintentional irony it was called
“The Pegu Light Infantry.” It was found that they were altogether too
_light_ and lacking in the spirit of discipline ever to make good
soldiers, and the Pegu Light Infantry was accordingly disbanded.
For this reason Government has had to look elsewhere for its police,
and they have been recruited chiefly from amongst the warlike races of
Northern India, with a sprinkling of Burmans, who are necessary for the
detection of crime, and for such work as their knowledge of their own
people and language the better fits them. During the troublous times of
1886-89 there has been a force of twenty thousand civil and military
police, about two-thirds of whom were natives of India. But as the
number of crimes of violence decreases, it becomes possible greatly to
reduce this number.
Of all the numerous innovations on Oriental methods of government
which we have introduced, that of local self-government, as applied
to municipalities, is perhaps the most noteworthy, not for what it
does at present, but for what it leads up to. This little seedling
of _representative government_ we are sedulously planting everywhere
throughout our Indian Empire, and nurturing it with patient and
sympathetic care; and he would indeed be worthy of the name of prophet
who could say whereunto it will grow. Never under any Indian or Burmese
rule was there a vestige of representative government, but we think it
well to train them up to it.
The schoolboy in India has the History of England put into his hands, and
there he learns what Englishmen think of liberty and self-government;
and he finds that the ruling power has broadened down in the course of
ages from the one to the few, from the few to the many, and from the
many to the whole population, who now really govern themselves. Our
British policy is to organise municipalities in every considerable town.
We, the governing power, call together a native municipal committee,
as representative as we can make it by nomination, and then we say in
effect, “Now we have called you in to consult with us, the leading
English representatives of government, and by your votes to show your
opinions on such questions as the cleaning, the lighting, the paving,
and the sanitation of the town, its water supply, the regulation of
its markets, and a number of other local matters, and we ask you to
vote supplies of money for these things, and to levy taxes and rates
accordingly.”
All these things are matters of course to the Englishman in his own
country, and if any of them were conducted without consulting him through
his elected representatives, he would soon want to know the reason
why. But not so with the Oriental; they are to him innovations of an
unheard-of character. Neither he nor any of his forefathers were ever
asked to do such a thing as vote before. It is no wonder, therefore,
if our worthy native citizen takes his seat as he is bidden in the
municipal council-chamber of his town, bewildered at first with this
unwonted experience, voting to the best of his ability as he thinks the
worthy president, the English Deputy Commissioner of the district, would
desire him to vote. But in course of time he comes to see what it all
means, for the Oriental is by no means deficient in perception. He sees
that the measures proposed and carried affect him and his kindred and his
neighbours, and he begins to see that a voice and a vote mean power, and
that these are questions which touch his pocket and circumstances.
By-and-by the people find that the municipal ordinance provides for
the expression of their opinions in a more direct and effective way.
The rule is, that “as soon as any town desires to elect its members it
is permitted to do so.” In many towns in India they are now elected.
We have in Upper Burma seventeen municipalities, but in no case yet is
there any election of members; they are all appointed by nomination. The
change from the full-blown doctrine of the divine right of kings, in its
completest form, to representative government, is too sudden for them
to realise where they are as yet. But it will come. All the teaching we
give them, both by precept and example, is in effect this: _that the true
ideal of government is government by the people, and that all other forms
of government are only temporary expedients leading up to it_.
We cannot wonder if in time they follow the path where it logically
leads them to a wider outlook than merely municipal affairs. “If in
municipal why not in national affairs?” they will naturally ask. The
National Congress in India is the natural sequence of all this. It is
the feeling after some arrangement or institution that shall give effect
to the will of the people, on many more matters than they are at present
consulted upon. It may be silly sometimes, and selfish, and reactionary,
and stupidly conservative, and childish, but whatever its faults, its
follies, and its weaknesses, it is at all events our own bantling, the
child of our own careful nurture and instruction. It is no use our
attempting to frown it out of countenance; what we have to do is to take
it by the hand, and guide it until it reaches years of discretion.
[Illustration: BURMESE WOMAN ON HER WAY TO THE WELL TO DRAW WATER.]