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Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY: A RETROSPECT AND SOME COMPARISONS
Burma is a Province of the Indian Empire. It is not, as some suppose, a Crown Colony administered directly under the Colonial Office. Nor is it, as others do vainly talk, a foreign State where Britain is represented by Consuls. It is the largest, yet the least populous, of Indian Provinces, more extensive even than undivided Bengal. The estimated area is over two hundred and thirty thousand square miles, larger than either France or Germany. According to the last census (1911), the population is about twelve millions. On the west, its seaboard washed by the Bay of Bengal, Burma marches with Bengal, Assam, and Manipur; on the east, with China, French Indo-China, and Siam. To the north, it stretches, through tracts unadministered and unexplored, to the confines of Tibet. The mass of the people are Burmans, a Mongol race akin to Chinese and Siamese. Other races in Burma are Talaings, scattered over the Irrawaddy Delta and the Tenasserim division; Shans, who occupy the great plateau on the east and are also found in the northern districts; Karens, whose home is Karenni, but who are widely spread over Lower Burma; Kachins, people of the hills on the north-east; and Chins, of many clans, inhabiting the hill-country on the north-west border.
From the middle of the eighteenth century Burma was ruled by the dynasty of Alaungpaya, corruptly called Alompra. Alaungpaya seems to have been a Dacoit chief who began his career at Shwebo,[1] and made himself master of the whole country. In his time the Burmese were a warlike people, withstanding the might of China, and carrying their victorious standards into Siam. Ten Princes[2] of his House ruled over the whole, or part, of his kingdom. In 1826, after the First Burmese War, the Provinces of Tenasserim and Arakan were annexed by the East India Company, the central block from the sea to Tibet remaining under the Burmese King. In 1852 the Province of Pegu was conquered. In 1862 Pegu, Tenasserim, and Arakan were combined to form the Province of British Burma, and placed in charge of a Chief Commissioner directly responsible to the Government of India. In 1885 occurred the Third Burmese War. Early in 1886, Upper Burma, all that remained under native rule, was incorporated in the British Empire. Burma continued to be administered by a Chief Commissioner till 1897, when the first Lieutenant-Governor was appointed.
These elementary facts are recorded for the benefit of any who may be thankful for geographical and historical information about distant dependencies of the Crown. We all know the story of Cape Breton. Most of us have met people who think that our connection with Burma began in 1885; that Burma regiments are manned by Burman sepoys; that, to cite an alien instance, Bengalis serve in the Indian Army. Even what was long regarded as the mythical confusion of Burma with Bermuda was seriously printed in a London weekly last year, and all the newspapers told how an officer who entered the Army in 1886 served in the Second Burmese War. Errors like these justify the platitudes of the preceding paragraphs.
When I first became acquainted with Burma, the system of administration was comparatively simple. The Province consisted of three divisions, each under a Commissioner. Subordinate to the Commissioner were Deputy Commissioners, each in charge of a district. Under the Deputy-Commissioner were subdivisional and township officers, in charge respectively of subdivisions and townships. These jurisdictions still remain. In those distant days townships were further divided into circles, the territorial unit of administration, constituted primarily for revenue purposes. Each circle was in charge of a Taik Thugyi,[3] a native official of position and dignity and often of considerable wealth. The Taik Thugyi collected capitation tax and land and fishery revenue, the main sources of the Provincial income, and received a substantial commission on the returns. Except as a tax-collector, he had no statutory powers. But he was the chief man in his circle, and, if of strong character, exercised great influence. Every village had its headman, called the Kye-dan-gyi,[4] with onerous duties and incommensurate powers and emoluments. In recent years circle and village organization has been reformed. Taik Thugyis have been abolished or are in course of abolition. The village is now the administrative unit. The Ywa Thugyi[5] is the local judge and magistrate, with extensive powers and a respectable position.
Except of purely Imperial offices, such as Post and Telegraphs, the Commissioner was the head of all Departments in the division. As Sessions Judge he was also the chief judicial officer. In like manner the Deputy Commissioner controlled every branch of the administration in his district. The bulk of petty revenue, criminal, and civil work was done by Assistant Commissioners, Extra Assistant Commissioners,[6] and My̆o-ôks,[7] in charge of subdivisions and townships. Most of the Extra Assistants and all the My̆o-ôks were natives of Burma. I think it is true that early in 1878 no Burmese officer exercised higher powers than those of a third-class magistrate, and not one was in charge of a subdivision.
The judicial administration was controlled by a Judicial Commissioner, who was the High Court for the whole country except Rangoon, and who was always deputed from another Province. When I joined, the late Mr. J. D. Sandford was Judicial Commissioner. In Rangoon the reins of justice were in the strong hands of the Recorder (the late Mr. C. J. Wilkinson). The Judicial Commissioner and the Recorder sat together in a quaint tribunal called the Special Court, which heard appeals from the decisions of each of its members. When the Judges of the Special Court failed to agree, a difficult position occurred. The High Court at Calcutta exercised anomalous jurisdiction in certain cases. Except the Judicial Commissioner, the Recorder, the Judge of Moulmein, and a Small Cause Court Judge or two, there were no officers occupied exclusively with judicial work. All exercised judicial and executive functions. Divisional, Sessions, District, Subdivisional, and Township Judges, who now flourish in luxuriant abundance, were not even in the bud.
The rank and file of the police were mostly Burmans, with some admixture of Indians not of a very good class. The superior officers, District and Assistant Superintendents, were men of experience, well acquainted with the people. A few military officers still remained in the civil police, Major T. Lowndes[8] being Inspector-General. Perhaps the best-known of the British officers were Messrs. Perreau, Fforde, Jameson, and Dixon, and Major C. A. Munro. The Burmese officers—inspectors and head constables—were all men who had risen from the ranks. Every one of them had to enlist as a constable and work his way upward. The system was not without merit, and was well suited to the idiosyncrasy of the Burmese race. One distinguished Talaing officer held the rank of Superintendent of Police, though without a district charge. This was Maung Shwe Kyi, who was a King on the Siamese border at Kawkareik. One of the bravest and most resolute of men, his good service was recognized by his inclusion in the first list of Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire. His son carries on the tradition of his family.
The Forest Department was in its early lusty youth vigorously directed by a single Conservator, Mr. B. Ribbentrop,[9] assisted by a small but very able staff. Burmese teak had long been a staple product of great value; its care and development were the main duties of forest officers. The forest law was, and still remains, complex, logical, meticulous. I venture the humble suggestion that its exceeding obscurity may be due to the nationality of the pioneers of forest administration in India. We were taught forestry by Germans of great ability and high scientific attainments, who framed the statutes of their department as if they were metaphysical treatises. They created a great and efficient branch of the administration. But they enveloped its principles in a mist which baffles the ordinary lay intelligence, and can be pierced only by the philosophic mind, made, or at least trained, in Germany.
Supreme over all was the Chief Commissioner (then Mr. Rivers Thompson[10]), assisted by a small but capable secretariat, which worked for long hours in a small office on the Strand Road in Rangoon. The Secretary, Major C. W. Street, was a military civilian of character and ability. The Junior Secretary was Mr. R. H. Pilcher, C.S., who had been Assistant Resident in Mandalay, and