C. H. T. Crosthwaite

“ It is very easy to get up a cry against the police in Burma or in India, but they will not be improved by constant abuse, frequent prosecutions, censures, and condemnations by High Court judges, or still less competent critics, or by other methods of giving a service a bad name.
One of the hardest tasks connected with the administration of a country by foreign rulers is the creation of a good police force. When the people from whom the force has to be recruited have lived for years under a despotic and altogether corrupt government, the task becomes doubly hard. ”

“ Tolls and exactions at various points on the trade routes were numerous and oppressive; enough at times to obstruct commerce, and even to close a trade route altogether for a season. The ease, however, with which another road could be found, and the duty evaded, was some check, and the Shans, who are industrious cultivators and born traders, contrived to remain fairly prosperous and not much below their Burman neighbours in wealth and comfort. As in Burma, while there were some rich men, there was no real poverty. No one but the idle and vicious needed to be in want. ”

“ They make very good show-figures in a Sawbwa's processions, with their tattooing from ankle to throat and their chest and arms bossed all over with armlets and charms let in below the skin. They are also admirable letter-carriers to distant States. They know all roads, they are afraid of nobody, and they seem to be able to trudge from dawn to sunset for an indefinite number of days.... It is certain, however, that the States are infinitely quieter than they have been at any time since the death of King Mindon, and probably quieter than they have been at all. ”

“ If we are to rule the country cheaply and efficiently and to keep the people from being robbed and oppressed by the criminal classes, the village system must be maintained in vigour. It cannot thrive or live unless [24] the post of headman is sought after, or at least willingly accepted, by respectable persons." I believe the provisions of the village regulation are still a living force and are brought into action when occasion arises. But the life of the system is the headman, his dignity and his position. ”

“ If the local magistrate is so blind to his own interests as to oppress his people, there is another wiser man a few score leagues away who is ready to welcome them. For what is the good of land without [6] men to live on it? Is not the King's revenue assessed at so much to the house? But suppose the worst comes to the worst and the man in power is a fiend, and neither property nor life nor honour is safe from him, even then there is the great forest, in which life, though hard, is a real pleasure to a man; and, given a good leader, the oppressed may soon change places with his oppressor. ”

“ Burmans are incredibly careless. Even the Burman constables, who were to some extent trained and disciplined, constantly allowed their guns to be taken. A half-hearted measure had been in force in Lower Burma, which required that a village must have at least five guns, as it was thought that with that number they could defend themselves. Like most half-measures, it was of no use.
The absence of a village organization and of the means of enforcing village responsibility was no doubt a very great obstacle in the way of the police, even if the police had been good. ”

“ The real cause in my experience is the inadequacy of the staff of officers. If one man falls sick and has to leave his district, two or three transfers may become inevitable. The Government of India realize no doubt that the staff, of the smaller provinces especially, is inadequate. If they give a liberal allowance of Englishmen the expense is increased and promotion becomes too slow. If they cut down the staff, the head of the province has to tear his hair and worry through somehow. ”

“ The mounted infantry man, British or Indian, a stone or two heavier, and weighted with rifle, ammunition, and accoutrements, on an underbred twelve-hand pony, had no chance of riding down a "Bo." But the trooper inspired the enemy with terror.
"In a land where only ponies are bred the cavalry horses seem monsters to the people, and the long reach and short shrift of the lance paralyse them with fear," wrote Sir George White, and asked that as soon as the rains had ceased "three more regiments of cavalry, complete in establishments," should be added to the Upper Burma Field Force. ”

“ The majority of civil cases in a society like Burma, where there are few rich men and no great landowners, must be trivial, and in Burma disputes were settled by arbitration or by the village headmen, who could rarely set at nought the opinion of their fellow-villagers.
In a country which is under-populated and contains vast areas of land fit for cultivation unoccupied and free to all, migration is a great check on oppression. Life is simple in Burma. The climate for the most of the year makes a roof unnecessary; flitting is easy. Every man is his own carpenter. ”

“ Looking at the matter from an administrative and local point of view, the Chief Commissioner was against stopping short of the frontier claimed by the King of Burma. It was argued that our new subjects, whether in Burma proper or in the Shan States, would not understand such a policy, and that it would have a bad effect on their feelings towards us. We might dignify it by the names of prudence and forbearance; they would ascribe it to fear and weakness. To them we should seem to have lifted a burden too heavy for our strength. ”

“ No system of extortion yet devised by the most ruthless and greedy tyrant is at all comparable in its efficacy to the scientific methods of a modern revenue officer. The world will see to what a perfection of completeness the arts of oppression and squeezing can be carried when the power of modern European organization is in the hands of a socialist government.
It need not be supposed, therefore, that under King Mindôn life in Upper Burma was bad, and it must be remembered that since 1852 escape to British Burma, although forbidden, was not impossible. ”

“ I was forced to trust men with districts who had no training and did not know Burmese. The annexation of Upper Burma was more difficult in some ways than the annexation of the Punjab. In the latter case there was in the army and in the adjacent provinces a supply of officers acquainted if not with the language of the Punjab, yet with a kindred speech. The whole cadre of Lower Burma was only threescore men, and it was impossible to take many men fit for service in Upper Burma from its ranks without leaving the Lower Province very much undermanned. ”

“ Flying columns arrive too late to save the village. The villagers, having cause to recognize that we are too far off to protect them, lose confidence in our power and throw in their lot with the insurgents. They make terms with the leaders and baffle pursuit of those leaders by roundabout guidance or systematic silence. In a country itself one vast military obstacle, the seizure of the leaders of the rebellion, though of paramount importance, thus becomes a source of greatest difficulty. ”

“ On the steep bank on which the village stood strong fortifications and entrenchments, commanding this cart-road, had been built; trees had been felled and thrown across, and the road covered with bamboo spikes. Our men were led by an excellent guide, who took them through the jungle across the ravine and up to one of the enemy's outposts.
Twenty-one men could not surround the village, but they rushed it, killing one only and capturing six. The leaders, who were found to have been the Bayingan and Maung Tha Gyi, escaped. ”

“ It was not a good thing to accustom the civil officers, the police, or the people to depend on detachments of troops scattered over the country, and it certainly was not good for the discipline and efficiency of the men. The conduct of the soldiers, however, was excellent, and the people welcomed them. I found a general unwillingness to lose the sense of security which their presence gave; and possibly also the profits of dealings with them. The Indian soldiers and the Burmans were on excellent terms. Even where the men were quartered in the monasteries the Pongyis did not want them to leave. ”

“ Sagaing was one of the worst districts in this respect. It had been under the domination of brigands for years before Thebaw was dethroned. It was held by a score of dacoit leaders, who had a thousand men armed with guns at their call. Each had his own division, in and on which he and his men lived, leaving the villagers alone so long as they paid their dues, and punishing default or defection with a ruthless and savage cruelty that might have made a North American Indian in his worst time weep for human nature. ”

“ Notwithstanding the ruggedness of the country which is very much like a Brobdingnagian ploughed field, the road is not by any means bad. It is very fatiguing, but for a mule-track it is very much better than the roads at many places in the Western States, where the path climbs straight up the hillside with a Roman directness of purpose, or follows stream beds and rocky gorges with a pertinacity born of an ignorance of shoe-leather. ”

“ No doubt a very great deal is smuggled into Burma by opium-roads—tracks only passable by coolies, and not known to many. It is to be noted that there are no victims to opium in the opium-producing districts, any more than there are in Ssu-ch'uan, where the people are the wealthiest in China and half the crops are poppy. It is only in places where opium is prohibitive in price that there are victims to opium. If a man is accustomed to take opium, he must have it to soothe his nerves under excessive fatigue; if he lives in a malarious district, it is necessary to kill the bacteria. ”

“ General Faunce's column had done all that men could do in a very difficult and unknown country against a very difficult enemy, pronounced by a man who had seen some fighting to be "the most difficult enemy to see or hit I ever fought." ”

“ But the river was not connected with the districts east or west of it by anything better than an ordinary village cart-track, with numerous streams and rivers, most of them unbridged. The Eastern districts between the Sittang and the Irrawaddy were especially inaccessible. Under such circumstances it was impossible for any man to discharge the duties imposed on the Chief Commissioner, even if all his subordinates had been endowed with ripe wisdom and experience. Only a man of the heroic energy and devotion of Sir Charles Bernard could have conceived it possible. ”

“ Without them the force must have lost heavily. "The flanking done by the Gurkhas was splendid indeed, and it is entirely owing to their jungle work that I had not more casualties." [51] The column marched over six hundred and fifty miles, fighting continually, and the men's clothes and boots were torn to pieces. It was a fine display of patient endurance, courage, and persistence, in face of great difficulties, by officers and men. The Commander, Captain O'Donnell, was one of the soldiers to whom the Administration of Burma in those days owed so much. ”

“ The British Government, if it had decided to annex Upper Burma, might by a more leisurely occupation, not only with a larger military force, but with a complete staff of civil administrators, have saved the people from some years of anarchy and great suffering. ”

“ It is certain that no man in Burma ever deserved to be hung more than Ya Nyun. If the voice of the blood of the murdered cries from the ground, the cries for vengeance must still be echoing through the villages and woods round Popa.
Burmese Dacoits before trial—worst characters and native police guard.
[111]
Ya Nyun was the Myingaung (literally Captain of the Horse) of the Welaung sub-district of Myingyan, bound at call to furnish one hundred mounted men to the king's army. He had thirty headmen of villages under him. ”

“ In dealing with semi-savage and ignorant races, the power of rumour and misrepresentation can hardly be overestimated. When the Shans saw that the Southern Column left no detachment behind it at Möngnai, and instead of returning from Hsenwi to Fort Stedman marched down to Mandalay, rumour began to be busy and the ignorant imagination of the people to seek reasons for this movement. Ready at hand to supply food for fancy was Saw Ôn, the Yawnghwè Sawbwa. ”

“ The bamboo jungle prevented the men from getting on fast. A heavy fire was kept up by the Kachins, but owing to the steepness of the ascent the bullets flew high and there were no casualties. Beyond the bamboo jungle was the village stockade, which was within 30 yards of Bo Ti's position. But when the Kachins saw the Gurkhas forcing their way through this stockade, they did not wait for the bayonet, but after firing a few shots bolted down the hill, our men chasing them. ”

“ Here the notables, who had met for the election of the new chief, and all the townspeople assembled, and the Superintendent (as the Representative of the British Government) , supported by the General commanding and all the officers of the force, opened the Durbar. A broad, sturdy figure of a man, with a face that bore the marks of work and climate, a determined man, patient and considerate, but nevertheless a man accustomed to be obeyed. ”

“ If your march is opposed by armed force, the nature of the measures to be taken will be a military question, to be decided by the officer commanding; except on purely military grounds of urgent necessity, the Chief Commissioner does not wish villages to be burnt; in no case must villages be sacked. Your object should be to show the people that our quarrel is not with them, but with Sawlapaw. Loikaw should not be destroyed, unless the officer commanding thinks it necessary on military grounds. You should remain at Sawlôn till the future administration is settled. ”

“ But when everything had been said it came to this, that the police were bad and police administration in a hopeless muddle.
The Burmans have, from the first day that British officers have tried to discipline them, shown a great want of responsibility and incurable slackness and little sense of duty. They cannot be trusted to keep watch and ward, to guard or escort prisoners or treasure, or even to remain on duty if they are posted as sentries. ”